women are mostly water
you mean: the earth is mostly water
you mean: the earth is mostly women
its been on my mind for days. i'm 64 pages in, and i don't particularly find anything exceptional about the novel up until this point but i'm thinking, "maybe it's like life of pi?" i mean, let's be real, that book didn't pick up till 100 pages in. i don't know about you, but i don't even remember anything about the book before the boat crashed. anyway, so i'm thinking, i'll give it another 30 or so pages until i return it back to aswi like it was never checked out without filling out the paperwork, but then two consecutive instances let me know author sigrid nunez and i have no future together.
first, there's a rape scene, which, on its own is not innately a red flag; however, this one is so passe it's abrassive. i felt like my media over-fried sensories were not even given a chance to prove their empathy because as soon as it happened it was forgotten. it's still a rape scene. you still have to be careful the way you tell the story and i think it was written by a woman who has never been raped nor has had experience with people who have been raped.
next, and perhaps even more baffling, nunez introduces "sasha," a radical who wears a sickle and hammer charm bracelet. what's more, sasha isn't even her real name! her real name is jenny/heather/amanda/whatever but she picked up sasha somewhere along the way. i just don't like other people with my name. or other red heads. i get this alpha red, alpha sasha name complex. it's NBD.
another thing that really chaffes my behind, lately, is this conversation (read: argument) i am having with a friend of mine. okay, so, i don't know if you've heard of eight belles but she is a kentucky derby race horse who was about to finish in second place when she tragically fell going 9,000 mph, or something, and fractured her two front ankles. Then i guess some horse medics came with horse killer injections and put her down, right on the track. NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/sports/othersports/04derby.html?hp#
So friend X argues that
okay, but, i don't think any human, if giving the option between a body cast and eventually a wheelchair or death, would chose the latter. all animals have an undeniable essential will to live and just because something is painful doesn't mean the correct option is to give up. also, who gets to decide what is to live and what is to die? it's just really queird logic. but, i don't know, maybe the horse should go to horsey heaven and let its giant over-muscled over-worn body get some rest. i mean, my bones are brittle and i'm not 200x over the recommended muscle mass for my frame. i bruise easy, too. but that's unrelated. in a way, this may have been a good thing for the kentucky derby itself. think of all those delusional upper-class white tom and susan families bringing little thomas jnr and sallie mae to their first horse race. at least it showed them the actual cruelty of horse races instead of the glitz 'n glammer of dry martinis and jessica simpson.
listening to: one more hour by sleater-kinney
8 comments:
you're still thinking about that quote?!?!
when i have time, i'll actually READ over the entry, and leave a more thoughtful comment.
just wanted to let you know that you have a reader whose favorite band is indeed t&s.
crazy, right? it's just so awkwardly worded and true.
i think the quins are my fav as well
"who gets to decide what is to live and what is to die?"
But you're okay with killing cows and chickens for - let's face it - pleasure...? You've got a few conflicting philosophies, love. And you wouldn't love to hate me for it if I didn't point them out. :-)
btw, cute blog. :-)
i mean, i'm not killing them...
i just don't like horseracing and killing something just because it can't do its job anymore. why can't they just cast her up? i also don't think it's fair to say that just becuase someone eats meat they're automatically all about animal cruelty.
Unfortunately, horse's legs, especially their cannon (what would be your instep) are almost completely unable to heal if broken. They are subject to very prolonged and painful infections, such as laminitis, and their bones simply do not heal like ours do. Even if put into a cast, as with Barbaro, the majority of horses would die anyway, no matter how much medical attention they are given.
While it may seem strange, it's simply a fact of horses and horse racing. Disagreeing with the whole premise of horse racing is another matter, but it's far more humane to euthanize a horse than to let it live with severe leg fractures.
The best outcome that can usually be hoped for in that scenarios is a slow, protracted, painful death.
A horse with a broken leg, even if it did heal (unlikely), would be very, very, very unlikely to ever race again.
For a horse, a broken leg is basically equivalent to an above-the knee amputation for a human -- but with the caveat that the wound never heal, and always be open.
I'm not saying you're all about animal cruelty. I'm just saying that it's the same situation - an animal getting killed for food IS its job. That's the point of its life. And that's what's pretty sad. It has a purpose that we gave it, and that's it. Same thing with horses put into racing. We just want what we can use animals for, and nothing else. Them living their lives is just inconvenient for us.
i mean i think there is a difference between food and entertainment. animals eat animals, all throughout the animal kingdom... and humins are animals too
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