Reviews with content warning for Sexism - After Sappho

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

8 reviews

mmcloe's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

A little disappointing on the whole, especially seeing the extensive citation of Saidiya Hartman in the acknowledgments. One of the things that makes speculative fabulation so brilliant is the capacity to illuminate the stories of those mutilated and plastered over by the archives, using storytelling to push back and heal against this mutilation.

This book's work really only focused on those who have been vindicated by the archives - the brilliant writers and early feminists who have been the subject of countless scholarly evaluations. And in doing so, the author glossed over much of the less savory aspects of these people's lives and ideologies. Overall, a relatively straight approach to historical queerness.

Content Warnings

thebankofbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Content Warnings

booking_along's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

this is so different and strange but somehow worked very well for me and dragged me in and along for the ride this book was.

it was such an unexpected read in all ways a book can be.

it was an emotional read, i felt for the women, was yet again reminded that i just can’t understand our history and still continues fight of women being seen as human beings and at least as worth of being treated as such by men as men seem and deemed themselves as.

the different characters were fantastic even if i can’t really explain way?

the writing was strange but worked and it’s just… this book is an experience that you just have to be willing to go along with and let yourself be swept up in.

i honestly can not understand why this wasn’t shortlisted for the 2022 book but especially “treacle walker” was.

but k am very thankful for the long lost to have brought it to my attention since i didn’t even know about it or hear about it before that!

Content Warnings

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

After Sappho, arguably the most experimental of the Booker longlisted novels, won’t be for every reader. I, however, was fascinated by this collective, speculative, interlinked biography of some incredibly creative, unconventional, fiercely intelligent, and queer women, which spans the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Given the title and the connections with Sappho the fragmentary nature of this work, where snippets of different lives interweave with each other, seems appropriate. While some of the women featured in this book were already familiar to me - Virginia Woolf, Isadora Duncan - many were women I’d never heard of, which tells you something about the fate of women in the historical record and the fact that I’m less familiar with women from continental Europe than those from the US and UK. I’m sure there will be much debate about the women who weren’t included - this book is very white. Obviously I loved learning about their lives, and happily spent time Googling, not because I had to in order to understand the book, but because it inspired me to learn more. The way in which these women expressed themselves whether through dance, writing or painting, they way they discussed and debated ideas in salons, and especially they way they pushed back against the social mores and laws of the day which attempted to limit what they could do and how they could live was inspiring. As was the support they gave to each other and the love - platonic, romantic and sexual- that they shared. I also loved the use of first person plural, a really effective way of including the reader in the story, emphasising that the women featured were not the only ones but were actually part of a larger whole, and encouraging the reader to continue their legacy. This book is meticulously researched so in many ways it reads like non-fiction. Yet its fragmentary nature and the prose itself give it a poetic feel. These two statements sound contradictory yet the reading experience was never jarring. Rather it was a joyous (deliberately so), feminist, inspiring, genre-bending delight.

Content Warnings