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A review by hannahmarierobbins
Fish Soup by Margarita García Robayo
2.0
CN: fatphobia, abuse, sexual assault, racism
Looking at other reviews I’m wondering if I just don’t get this book. I like the prose style and there are some darkly funny bits. She writes desire and apathy very well but...
1) there’s some striking fatphobia. The characters who are fat are all bad, distasteful, and disliked. In one story about an overweight child, the character is presented without compassion and there’s a horrible anecdote about children stabbing him with pencils to see if he will deflate.
2) there’s a lot of sexual violence against women and some of it appears to be gratuitous - includes disposable characters who are assaulted and then thrown away. In the first novella, a child is assaulted by an old man and it’s never really explored beyond saying she craves it again, which feels off.
3) it read (perhaps a translation issue) as anti-Black to me with examples like “foreigners like black women, my mother used to say” and then an aggressive hyper sexual story. Or later “he heard mixed race women smelled more than white women” and then how a white woman had been scentless but the black women smelt of sweat. It struck me more than once and is worth being aware of.
Looking at other reviews I’m wondering if I just don’t get this book. I like the prose style and there are some darkly funny bits. She writes desire and apathy very well but...
1) there’s some striking fatphobia. The characters who are fat are all bad, distasteful, and disliked. In one story about an overweight child, the character is presented without compassion and there’s a horrible anecdote about children stabbing him with pencils to see if he will deflate.
2) there’s a lot of sexual violence against women and some of it appears to be gratuitous - includes disposable characters who are assaulted and then thrown away. In the first novella, a child is assaulted by an old man and it’s never really explored beyond saying she craves it again, which feels off.
3) it read (perhaps a translation issue) as anti-Black to me with examples like “foreigners like black women, my mother used to say” and then an aggressive hyper sexual story. Or later “he heard mixed race women smelled more than white women” and then how a white woman had been scentless but the black women smelt of sweat. It struck me more than once and is worth being aware of.