Friday, November 02, 2007
rape!
i'm watching youtube and listening to Enigma's WHY repeatedly while typing this right now - about books i just bought at payless sales (yet again) today. as i've mentioned before these are books that you'd never buy except in this kind of situation. meaning at sales or flea markets. As you are ambling around at flea markets and you see something that stopped you in your track and you exclaimed, oh that looks interesting?! and pay a few dollars for it and move on. and to me payless warehouse sales is a kind of flea market or boot sale of sort. a lot of crappy stuff but sometimes you find the equivalent of that old cracked bowl that may turn out to be a genuine song dynasty celadon (as i mentioned before).
and today i brought home three hard cover non fictions; Chekov: A spirit set free by V.S Pritchett. The cover flap described this book as ..."It is that rare book that allows the reader the unique opportunity to view it's subject - the extraordinary life and work of Anton Chekov- through the eyes of another literary master. Called by Anthony Burgess "our best literary critic"....a delicious sounding Remakable Unspeakable New York ( A literary History) and Ancestral passions: the Leaky Family and the quest for humankind's beginnings. I think this is quite timely what with the recent Dr James Watson's incredible statement that blacks are of lower intelligence than other races...(the negritos in the jungle of pahang must be very happy to hear this...some poor sods are stupider than them...hmmm). may be this book will shed some light as to why africa, that birthplace of humankind does not evolve and have human race dumber than the rest of us? may be not...but i'm digressing...another time perhaps.
and five paperbacks and all non fictions too except A paris review #91 with interviews of james baldwin and eli wiesel, and with a nice cover of drawings of cats in black . Another travel book by Dervla Murphy Muddle through in Madagascar A private journey by Jonathan Raban Coasting , a book about homosexuality Fighting words: personal essays by black Gay men, another little coincidence as last night i watched a famous 1980 film cruising a crime thriller involving the seamy gay S&M world starring al pacino and lastly alice sebold's memoir Lucky
it's pointless afor me to describe the book as the link above already contains a very good collection of reviews and include an interview of the author in the guardian newpaper but i'll say this. This memoir about her horrible experience of being raped when she was eighteen years old and still a virgin made me stop browsing and i went to sit on the steps at the end of the hall where the sales was held and started reading the first chapter. There was a young girl of fourteen or so all in blue sitting a couple of steps below with her back to me reading phantom of the opera and she kind of distracted me a bit because as she was bent over reading hers raptly her low pants revealed the top of her light blue panties and there i was reading the graphic rape of alice sebold. and the way she wrote it, it seemed like a porn story if i don't know better. at one point this is what she wrote...
"Give me a blow job" he said. He was standing now. I was on the ground, trying to search among the filth for my cloths.
He kicked me and I curled into a ball.
"I want a blow job." He held his dick in his hand.
"I don't know how," I said.
"What do you mean you don't know how?"
"I've never done this before" I said, "I'm a virgin."
"Put it in your mouth."
I kneeled before him. "Can I put my bra back on?" I wanted my clothes. I saw his thighs before me, the way they belled out from the knee, the thick muscles and small black hairs, and his flaccid dick.
He grabbed my head. "Put it in your mouth and suck," he said.
"Like a straw?" I said.
"Yeah, like a straw".
hmmm... like a straw....is this a tarantino's movie?
but it's an intriguing enough story and i plan to read to the end. this is not a ghostwritten book but written by a best selling writer writing about her own experience. it'd be very interesting to see how she cope up with this terrible experience. it never fails to surprise me how heroic and courageous some people are. The way she can overcome this and did not spiral down to self hatred and destruction but overcome it so well and decided to tell the story is very admirable. I wish more rape victims are like her.
but reading this means at the expense of so many other half read books. it's a big problem but i'm too far gone. i'm addicted to collecting books .
and today i brought home three hard cover non fictions; Chekov: A spirit set free by V.S Pritchett. The cover flap described this book as ..."It is that rare book that allows the reader the unique opportunity to view it's subject - the extraordinary life and work of Anton Chekov- through the eyes of another literary master. Called by Anthony Burgess "our best literary critic"....a delicious sounding Remakable Unspeakable New York ( A literary History) and Ancestral passions: the Leaky Family and the quest for humankind's beginnings. I think this is quite timely what with the recent Dr James Watson's incredible statement that blacks are of lower intelligence than other races...(the negritos in the jungle of pahang must be very happy to hear this...some poor sods are stupider than them...hmmm). may be this book will shed some light as to why africa, that birthplace of humankind does not evolve and have human race dumber than the rest of us? may be not...but i'm digressing...another time perhaps.
and five paperbacks and all non fictions too except A paris review #91 with interviews of james baldwin and eli wiesel, and with a nice cover of drawings of cats in black . Another travel book by Dervla Murphy Muddle through in Madagascar A private journey by Jonathan Raban Coasting , a book about homosexuality Fighting words: personal essays by black Gay men, another little coincidence as last night i watched a famous 1980 film cruising a crime thriller involving the seamy gay S&M world starring al pacino and lastly alice sebold's memoir Lucky
it's pointless afor me to describe the book as the link above already contains a very good collection of reviews and include an interview of the author in the guardian newpaper but i'll say this. This memoir about her horrible experience of being raped when she was eighteen years old and still a virgin made me stop browsing and i went to sit on the steps at the end of the hall where the sales was held and started reading the first chapter. There was a young girl of fourteen or so all in blue sitting a couple of steps below with her back to me reading phantom of the opera and she kind of distracted me a bit because as she was bent over reading hers raptly her low pants revealed the top of her light blue panties and there i was reading the graphic rape of alice sebold. and the way she wrote it, it seemed like a porn story if i don't know better. at one point this is what she wrote...
"Give me a blow job" he said. He was standing now. I was on the ground, trying to search among the filth for my cloths.
He kicked me and I curled into a ball.
"I want a blow job." He held his dick in his hand.
"I don't know how," I said.
"What do you mean you don't know how?"
"I've never done this before" I said, "I'm a virgin."
"Put it in your mouth."
I kneeled before him. "Can I put my bra back on?" I wanted my clothes. I saw his thighs before me, the way they belled out from the knee, the thick muscles and small black hairs, and his flaccid dick.
He grabbed my head. "Put it in your mouth and suck," he said.
"Like a straw?" I said.
"Yeah, like a straw".
hmmm... like a straw....is this a tarantino's movie?
but it's an intriguing enough story and i plan to read to the end. this is not a ghostwritten book but written by a best selling writer writing about her own experience. it'd be very interesting to see how she cope up with this terrible experience. it never fails to surprise me how heroic and courageous some people are. The way she can overcome this and did not spiral down to self hatred and destruction but overcome it so well and decided to tell the story is very admirable. I wish more rape victims are like her.
but reading this means at the expense of so many other half read books. it's a big problem but i'm too far gone. i'm addicted to collecting books .
