Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Les Amants Du Spoutnik by Haruki Murakami

20 reviews

mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The core story of this book was extremely interesting. But wow did I have some issues with this book. I guess we can start with the good bits. I loved the magical realism aspects of this book. The part where Miu was talking about the traumatic event that happened to her was so good, and the idea that there can be 2 versions of a person is so intriguing. And of course my psychology brain was thinking a bunch about how it is a physical manifestation of depersonalization. And overall I did like Surime's character. But my largest problem with this book was how disgustingly misogynistic the main character/narrator is. he consistently seems to only see women in relation to their sexual value. He wants to sleep with Surime, he wants to sleep with Miu, he does sleep with the parents of his students. I don't think there is a single female character that isn't sexualized. And this is made even weirder and fetishy because Surime and Miu are in a relationship and Surime is very much a lesbian. The whole thing felt very fetishizing and inappropriate. And the whole plot line at the end about his shoplifting student felt very out of place and came out of nowhere. 
Listened to on Libby. 

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mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

please don't ever let murakami write about a lesbian again

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emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I think it’s all in all a good read.
I would have loved it if the description of women wouldn’t have been so weird and unnecessarily sexual.
At first you may think that it’s all about women, their relationship and feelings. But soon you will realise that it’s actually  about the man and his (sexual) feelings for Sumire.

I had the same problem with Norwegian wood. I will read other works of Murakami but if it’s the same objectified view on women I’ll wonder what’s wrong with him.

That’s why it’s hard for me to recommend this book but I think if you’re aware of this flaw it still can be a good read. I loved the metaphors and symbols and the language all in all. I think it connects the story with philosophical / deep aspects in a brilliant way. All in all it gave me a lot to think about.

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Corrective rape fantasies by the male protagonist regarding his lesbian friend.

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mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

As far as I know, this is the only Murakami novel with queer representation, so that’s why I decided to give it a read.
The lesbian sexual content was definitely written for the male gaze, and it was mostly nonconsensual, which is problematic.

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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emotional funny mysterious reflective relaxing sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The magical realism is very well done and the writing is exquisite. The female characters are objectified but are complex.

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emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I probably would love this book if not for the voyeuristic way Murakami tends to write about women. Part of me does love it, I've read it multiple times and it has left me a wreck, it is very melancholic and emotional, but I always come out of it unsatisfied. I have a complicated relationship with it as it did help me get through a lonely time but I would have a hard time recommending it to other women, especially other queer women as the representation of Sumire and Miu can be so uncomfortable and upsetting.

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It's worth noting that this is not a love story between two women, despite being often marketed as such. It was an enticing and beautiful story, but had a lot of flaws.

There was an excessive number of similes that, as evocative and poetic as they were, kept breaking the narrative flow. Take, as an example: "She put an olive in her mouth, with her fingers took out the pit, and threw it in the ashtray, with grace, like a poet that adds a comma to a poem" (rough translation from Italian): now, as poetic as this sounds, a simile helps to picture a scene, an action, a condition more accurately, or more profoundly, if you will; Murakami's figures of speech do none of this. Moreover, this stylistic choice is equally present in the speech and first person p.o.v. of all the protagonists, highlighting its artificiality.

It was impossible not to notice the repeated, obviously useless descriptions of Myu's legs, "taut and solid" body, and short skirt. But, after all, it's a pretty typical approach to... women, in late '90s productions. Much harder to ignore was Murakami's weird obsession with nipples and their consistency, which made me almost believe he doesn't have any of his own.
The sexual scene between the two female protagonists read awfully like a porn scene, and smelled of voyeurism on Murakami's part.
It's uncomfortable for one of the characters, and even more so for the reader, who finds themself reading a first person account of a heterosexual woman trying to convince herself she actually likes homosexual sex, for the sake of a girl she'd almost seen as her child just a few moments before.
Only later things are explained – rather unconvincingly, with a ridiculously acephobic (though the term could almost be anachronistic here) dramatic reveal, that reduces the vitality of a woman to her fertility and sex drive.

Nevertheless, this book also gave me a lot to reflect on. Many deep and complex concepts were present through the whole book, that was heavy on the philosophical side. Told as if they were being directly discussed with the reader, one would find themself giving thought to those ideas naturally.

This was my first work by Murakami, and despite all his flaws, I can't ignore just how good of a writer he is, when it comes to setting up gloomy, tense, dark, mysterious atmospheres – they'd always accompany me much after I'd put the book down.
The ending was, well, not an ending at all, and entirely up for interpretation. Murakami keeps leaping from dream to reality, from reality to hallucination, without a warning, until the boundaries between the two completely blur out and, at the end, they disappear.

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