Reviews tagging 'Antisemitism'

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

28 reviews

vouija's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

3.0


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chelseadoherty's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0


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rustproofbottom's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective fast-paced

4.75

wow. so much to unpack in this book. I will absolutely be returning to this one again and again. it's that important and rich in thought and reflection. 

at the top is a helluva swing at examining what we should do about the relationship between art we love (in all form and genre) & artist & our consumption of it in context of artists (overwhelmingly mostly men) that end up doing horrible things are could righteously be called gigantic pieces of sh+t... they are, monsters. 

This is a topic that I've talked with friends about and never landing anywhere near anything that resembled a satisfying answer.

I feel like this could be 10,000 page book easily. Because this book is so much more than a take down of these people or a simple guide to rationalization. It's an open invitation to consider how your consumption of art can be a mirror into who you are. Not as a "we" or "us" that resents a broader group, culture, or society. But as individuals. 

you are taken through a series of analyses and reflections that invite you to reflect on the intersection of the art that is being consumed, the artist's biography AND your own biography, not the idealic, sanitized version, the real, raw, warts and all version. The whole story - stains and all. 

you're also invited to think broadly about the role of societal norms & expectations, pressures of late-stage capitalistic systems, and morals and virtues that are constantly evolving. How do they contribute to your own definition of self? How does art help inform that definition? How are your own beliefs & behaviors influenced by, caused by, supported by, identified with all of those? 

Part philosophy. Part critical analysis. Part history lesson.

I love it because I was left with a ton of things to think about within myself. There's also not a prescriptive answer. There's not an empirical rubric to give a pass/fail too.

It is not a purity test. It's not transactional. It's not simple. It's relational, subjective, and evolving. 

It's messy and complicated and terrible and beautiful.

Just like the human experience.

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flissbooks's review against another edition

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hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

4.0


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larajgriff1's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

3.0

Unfortunately my expectations and hopes for this book were vastly different than what I experienced.  I wanted a more broad view of how "monstrous" artists affect their fandom and what the group as a whole or individually moves forward.  This book is much more personal to the writer and more of a memoir of her life and how she relates to different artists than the effect of their actions on the world.  

However, I cannot fault the author for the book not being what I hoped.  It is written very well and does make some good points about how these moments and artists affect us.  Though in the middle of the book she seems to be "existential crisis-ing" in circles and it doesn't feel like there is momentum again until the last few chapters.

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hanhantap's review against another edition

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challenging reflective sad medium-paced

2.5


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kchamp's review against another edition

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5.0

Brilliant. Once I got into it I couldn’t help but devour this book. It is uncomfortable and honest and thought-provoking and so, so intelligent.

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jainabee's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

I am so glad this book exists because I NEEDED it. It needed to exist in the world. The question of how to balance fandom of my favorite works of creativity with the toxic and destructive behaviors of the creators is an issue that torments me. Dederer directly addresses some of my own pet monsters; Woody Allen, David Bowie, JK Rowling, Miles Davis. This book makes me think a LOT. This book is very uncomfortable in a vitally important way. This book challenges me in ways I needed. The chapter comparing and contrasting Valerie Solanas and Sylvia Plath (!!!!!) flipped my wig with the brilliance of unexpected insights about how women respond to the violence of misogyny. The chapter about Lolita is a sparkling gem of brilliant insight and analysis that might be the best review of it I've ever read (spoiler alert: Nabokov is not a monster, though he is a genius). This book is FULL of triggering content, as it describes the crimes of the creators. No way around that. The point of the book seems to be to face the monsters directly and feel the extremely uncomfortable dilemma between loving something, even the monster, "even after everything." I got a lot to think about here.

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danimacuk's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0


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ktdakotareads's review against another edition

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informative slow-paced

3.5


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