Notes

A slice of life story - fascinating, a little comedic, a little tragic - about how Keiko Furukura struggles with (implied) undiagnosed autism now that she's in her mid-30s, and how she puts on several masks to try to fit into the role of "woman" and not worry her family. I'm obsessed with her. I love her.

My favorite parts were I and III. Dworkin analyzes some of the very foundations of socialization, then how that socialization evolves, then how those templated roles we're given played out in history/herstory, and then some... theories to end patriarchy. I read this with a friend and annotated it as we went, which was incredibly helpful to process and make further notes on what we read.

It's great for seeing the core of the misogynistic male-supremacist ideology that has shaped & still shapes our world. Part III is particularly harrowing for describing exactly what lengths of lunatic depraved torture men inflicted on women for mere pleasure and whim. Definitely read this with a buddy, for both emotional rapport and because analyzing with 2 brains is better than 1.

There's a section of the book where Dworkin goes completely white libertarian in, but keep in mind that the book was written in 1974, the same year women in the US got the right to open their own bank accounts without a man's permission. Women had much less power than we did today and it's understandable that some were unsure what more power in their hands would be like. But I do like the book despite some emotionally taxing sections and Dworkin's shortcomings. There's still so much value to be gotten, even in her shortcomings, if you analyze them and her own "doubledouble-think," as she coins.

I'm about 30% through this collection of Kafka's works right now. He can be a delightfully horrible dude lol.

I think one of the biggest challenges of his work is that every character is a symbol and every plot beat is a metaphor, and because everything stands for something, it can be hard seeing what directions his narratives are pulling us towards - or maybe that's just the case for his earlier works, since I found 'The Metamorphosis' pretty straight-forward. He's surprisingly transparent.

Favorite stories (so far):
• The Metamorphosis
• The Judgement

I liked it! A Greek myth adaptation that doesn't shy away from how ruthless and visceral they can get. And how it gives grace and characterization (even if only a little bit) to so many characters who were originally just mentioned to be trod on. The afterword where Miller explicitly states 'yes I wrote this book to be a feminist work' is great, instead of the more common wishy-washy ~it's just a story about people~ line.

Miller did a lot while remaining relatively faithful to the Greek myth canon - and to remain within the canon, comes with more introspection and inner struggles than you might think. It was a real treat to look inside the mind of Circe, I think I might move up 'The Song of Achilles' on my reading queue.