(no subject)

[lesbiassparrow]

Have you ever read or watched something with a section that made you go 'What? WHAT???? I can't believe they are saying/doing/advocating that!' And then you trundle off to look at what people said in their reviews but can't find a single person mentioning it at all. And you wonder why they wouldn't mention because surely it can't just be you alone who had this reaction.

Something someone said recently about P.D. James made me remember that this was my experience reading Original Sin. I like P.D, James and An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is one of my favourite detective novels, but this book, well, it was just bizarre. There's a part of the story that revolves around a disgraced Anglican priest who was disgraced for interfering with young boys. It's not rape, but there seems to have certainly been touching and inappropriate behaviour. However, the story and the characters within it see it as a shocking and dreadful thing that he should have lost his parish because some lower class boys were encouraged to beef up their stories by well-meaning and obtrusive people when everyone knows those sort of boys would say anything and nothing too terrible happened. No, honestly, that was pretty much the gist of it, especially the bit about the lower class boys. I read that bit several times because I thought I must have been misreading it. But when I went to look not a single reviewer even mentioned that bit; the closest I came was a comment in The Guardian about James' tory (small t) politics and view of England.

Comments

[meyerlemon.livejournal.com]

Yes, see: Bee Movie, which had amazingly anti-feminist politics and rewrote bee society to be all about the boy bees, JEWISH BOY BEES (?!?!?!?) and nobody but me IN THE WORLD seemed to be bothered by it.

Isn't it funny how we all have our own gripes? You are ALWAYS upset by perceived terrible class issues, I am ALWAYS upset by perceived anti-feminist issues. ahahahahaha!

[lycomingst.livejournal.com]

I gave up reading James after I read one of her books (and I can't remember the name) where all the lefts were father-hating murderers and the all the rights were decent chaps just trying to do the right thing. It was so blatant.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

I got about two or three chapters in and found myself hurling the book against a wall for *precisely* t he reason you mentioned. I gave it back to the person who lent it to me before I could do it even more damage, and I haven't picked up a PD James since. Not a conscious boycott, it was just that the bits of Original Sin that I did read left a very bad taste in my mouth.

I bet she would've felt differently if it were girls. She's only got daughters, so nothing like that would happen to one of her kids. You'd think she might have a grandson or something, though.

[meret.livejournal.com]

I experience things like that all the time concerning the way women are treated in stories, movies etc. :(

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Any given episode of Atlantis...