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basil_touche 's review for:
Monsters: What Do We Do With Great Art By Bad People?
by Claire Dederer
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I have to agree with what a lot of other people have been saying in regards to this book; great in the first half, more of jumbled confused mess in the second.
There are several stand out chapters in the first half (most of which feature in part an artist who has done a monstrous thing) that I found gave me a new perspective and ideas to futher reflect on. Dederer spends a lot of this first half on society's reactions to an artist's crimes, from the fans to the critics (mainly herself) and gets across that to the audience it is far more emotional than logical when it comes to dealing with work you love being tainted by the artist's crimes. It was quite an enjoyable read throughout this part (the section which she discusses people using the excuse "they didn't know any better" in regards to monsterous artists of the past, using Richard Wagner as an example, was really eye opening to me).
I think the biggest problem with the second half of the book is made prominent with the chapter "Am I a Monster?", where Dederer makes this too autobiographical by asking herself if she is as bad as the artists featured in the previous chapters. It isn't the first instant of her adding her own biography into the book (she does state that one's own feelings on these issues effects their opinions on the artists) but here it just makes it so that she appears to think that her alcoholism makes her just as bad as the rapists, pedophiles and murders. This is where the book falls too far into an uninteresting memoir that did not engage with me and the conflation only continues from there.
There is also something quite irksome about her chapter "Abandoning Mothers", where she states that "If the male crime is rape, the female crime is the failure to nuture. The abandonment of children is the worst thing a woman can do". The problem is, there is a long list of women artists who have done far more horrific things, to children and others, than to abandon. It really felt like she didn't really try to find monstrous women (with the execption of J K Rowling, Virignia Woolf & Valerie Solanas) and her statement of a "failure to nuture" just seems sexist. I was unsure if she meant it in terms of what society deems the worst thing a woman can do, but throughout the chapter she writes about her own experiences with motherhood and how she sees abandonment as terrible (which it is but again, the worst thing?).
This isn't a completely valueless book, but by it's conclusion I find that it's a bit of a cop-out, where Dederer, by weaving her memoir through the book, tries to assuage her guilt by basically stating that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism and that we can't help what we love so we should just enjoy the art. While their is some truth to that, using the "no ethical consumption under capitalism" argument just removes all responsibility from the audience. Yes, we did not commit these horrid acts but should that mean we should still support the artists if they are continuing to hurt others or avoid consequences for their actions? Shouldn't we mitigate harm instead? Buy art second hand e.t.c.?
We can still enjoy said art and critique it. However, instead of ending it with nuance, Dederer ends it with very little. One size fits all.
There are several stand out chapters in the first half (most of which feature in part an artist who has done a monstrous thing) that I found gave me a new perspective and ideas to futher reflect on. Dederer spends a lot of this first half on society's reactions to an artist's crimes, from the fans to the critics (mainly herself) and gets across that to the audience it is far more emotional than logical when it comes to dealing with work you love being tainted by the artist's crimes. It was quite an enjoyable read throughout this part (the section which she discusses people using the excuse "they didn't know any better" in regards to monsterous artists of the past, using Richard Wagner as an example, was really eye opening to me).
I think the biggest problem with the second half of the book is made prominent with the chapter "Am I a Monster?", where Dederer makes this too autobiographical by asking herself if she is as bad as the artists featured in the previous chapters. It isn't the first instant of her adding her own biography into the book (she does state that one's own feelings on these issues effects their opinions on the artists) but here it just makes it so that she appears to think that her alcoholism makes her just as bad as the rapists, pedophiles and murders. This is where the book falls too far into an uninteresting memoir that did not engage with me and the conflation only continues from there.
There is also something quite irksome about her chapter "Abandoning Mothers", where she states that "If the male crime is rape, the female crime is the failure to nuture. The abandonment of children is the worst thing a woman can do". The problem is, there is a long list of women artists who have done far more horrific things, to children and others, than to abandon. It really felt like she didn't really try to find monstrous women (with the execption of J K Rowling, Virignia Woolf & Valerie Solanas) and her statement of a "failure to nuture" just seems sexist. I was unsure if she meant it in terms of what society deems the worst thing a woman can do, but throughout the chapter she writes about her own experiences with motherhood and how she sees abandonment as terrible (which it is but again, the worst thing?).
This isn't a completely valueless book, but by it's conclusion I find that it's a bit of a cop-out, where Dederer, by weaving her memoir through the book, tries to assuage her guilt by basically stating that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism and that we can't help what we love so we should just enjoy the art. While their is some truth to that, using the "no ethical consumption under capitalism" argument just removes all responsibility from the audience. Yes, we did not commit these horrid acts but should that mean we should still support the artists if they are continuing to hurt others or avoid consequences for their actions? Shouldn't we mitigate harm instead? Buy art second hand e.t.c.?
We can still enjoy said art and critique it. However, instead of ending it with nuance, Dederer ends it with very little. One size fits all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, Rape
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Sexual assault
Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Abandonment