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oafgeek 's review for:
The Last Wish
by Andrzej Sapkowski
The casual and pervasive sexism in this book would be difficult to overstate. I don't doubt that one could go to great lengths in analyzing it from only that angle. Since others have likely done that already I'll skip that part for now. Suffice it to say that while the book has women in roles of power, it still manages to treat them all as sex objects for the male protagonist; the few it doesn't have handy surrogates that get sexualized in their place, both of whom never speak, oddly enough.
So it's a complete failure from any feminist point of view. If you accept it on its own terms it is a pretty enjoyable tale that plays with folklore in interesting ways at times.
It's quite unfortunate that in this book's versions of Beauty and the Beast and Snow White, both title women get killed by the main character. That's at least a pretty interesting twist on the classics, though! And the realistic lens through which these old stories are viewed (other than the part where everyone seems to want to get with the Witcher) is refreshing. It's pretty unlikely that real true love could result from holding someone hostage, and in a world with monsters it's not surprising to see a monstrous man find love in a true monster - and the extension of the old story's themes makes good sense and rang true to me. Of course that doesn't end well - this isn't a book about the travels and adventures of Geralt the pacifist. But the book doesn't paint him as a bloodthirsty killer either. A skilled killer who probably relies too easily on deadly force, sure, but he's often conflicted, like when he kills an orphaned woman and all of her friends the morning after he sleeps with her. He was really torn up about that, apparently!
Sometimes this book is very guilty of contriving circumstances that force the character into actions that should have been avoidable, and a lot of those actions and contrivances involve sex and killing. That's not all bad, but it's not all great either.
So it's a complete failure from any feminist point of view. If you accept it on its own terms it is a pretty enjoyable tale that plays with folklore in interesting ways at times.
It's quite unfortunate that in this book's versions of Beauty and the Beast and Snow White, both title women get killed by the main character. That's at least a pretty interesting twist on the classics, though! And the realistic lens through which these old stories are viewed (other than the part where everyone seems to want to get with the Witcher) is refreshing. It's pretty unlikely that real true love could result from holding someone hostage, and in a world with monsters it's not surprising to see a monstrous man find love in a true monster - and the extension of the old story's themes makes good sense and rang true to me. Of course that doesn't end well - this isn't a book about the travels and adventures of Geralt the pacifist. But the book doesn't paint him as a bloodthirsty killer either. A skilled killer who probably relies too easily on deadly force, sure, but he's often conflicted, like when he kills an orphaned woman and all of her friends the morning after he sleeps with her. He was really torn up about that, apparently!
Sometimes this book is very guilty of contriving circumstances that force the character into actions that should have been avoidable, and a lot of those actions and contrivances involve sex and killing. That's not all bad, but it's not all great either.