Scan barcode
A review by phire
Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution by Laurie Penny
5.0
I've been following Laurie Penny's writing for a few years. She has a knack of taking ideas that swirl around vaguely in the back of your head and crystallizing them in such a way that makes you wonder how you did not have access to those words before she set them to paper. It has taken me an uncharacteristically long time to read this book, because every time I picked it up I would re-read passages, pouring over tiny gems of sentences that perfectly delivered not just political insight but also an aching affection for our collective human yearning.
This book is a little frustrating in its eurocentrism, and despite token nods to intersectional analysis is still largely centred in the white heteronormative narrative. That doesn't make its observations wrong - just incomplete. There weren't necessarily any ideas that felt groundbreaking to me, but Penny's words are a pleasure to read, and she ties together specific themes about technology and revolution in a feminist context that are close to my heart with an apparent facility that I'm sure is anything but. Very thought-provoking, and certainly makes me more eager than ever to storm the ramparts with my pitchfork.
This book is a little frustrating in its eurocentrism, and despite token nods to intersectional analysis is still largely centred in the white heteronormative narrative. That doesn't make its observations wrong - just incomplete. There weren't necessarily any ideas that felt groundbreaking to me, but Penny's words are a pleasure to read, and she ties together specific themes about technology and revolution in a feminist context that are close to my heart with an apparent facility that I'm sure is anything but. Very thought-provoking, and certainly makes me more eager than ever to storm the ramparts with my pitchfork.