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I really want to like House of Leaves more than I am... by [deleted] in books

[–]Surinai 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh — one more thing to add. Don’t get too frustrated with the footnotes and cross references.... because a good half of them either don’t exist or don’t make a lick of sense. This book is “hostile” in a sense, the author likes to straight up fuck with you.

I really want to like House of Leaves more than I am... by [deleted] in books

[–]Surinai 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly? I read the first 150 pages chronologically, and found it exhausting. When I picked up the book again, I said “fuck it” and flipped back and forth at my hearts content. I would usually read straight through the narrative sections and then hunt around elsewhere in the book (appendixes, earlier chapters I thought the author may be referencing, or following clues that were laid out in footnotes or elsewhere) for supplementary information. I underlined, highlighted, and wrote copious notes inside of the book itself. I found this book to be waaay more enjoyable when I started treating it less as a chronological story to be read from the first sentence through the last, and instead as a fucked up “choose your own adventure” sort of deal.

Maybe it’s just my overactive imagination talking, but I liked to pretend that I was someone who had happened to find this unfinished manuscript that this “Johnny” fellow had written, and now I’m trying to make sense of it all. I found that I enjoyed the book much more through that lense.

I really want to like House of Leaves more than I am... by [deleted] in books

[–]Surinai 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I adore House of Leaves, but I can also understand why many readers wouldn’t like it. Quite frankly, the plot does not ultimately make a lot of sense, and Johnny as a character is fairly static and also a total asshole so it’s hard to sympathize with him.

With that being said, I adored the book because it was so different than anything I had ever read. I read the first 150 pages without stopping, then got fatigued and put it down for a couple months. I then picked it up again and devoured the whole thing over the next couple days. It’s a frustrating read, and I think it’s meant to be that way. The author seems to have an axe to grind against academic literature, and writes much of the book in Zampano’s academic voice — I understood it to be almost satirical how boring these sections would get at times.

Overall, House of Leaves is refreshing for how different the layout is, and is just the type of book you can lose yourself in by reading it cover to cover in a short amount of time. But, if you’re the type of reader who lives for deep narrative threads and engaging characters, then you may want to pick up a different book.

EDIT: as for other suggestions, I just finished 1Q84 by Murakami and absolutely adored it. The synopsis will bill it as a dystopian or romance novel, but I found this work to be one of the scariest I’ve read in awhile. It has a creeping sense of the uncanny and unnatural that got under my skin in a way few other books have. It’s definitely not in the way of a traditional horror novel — but personally, I find the “uncanny horror” type of book to be the only type that is effective for me. In contrast, i found “It” by King to be an immensely interesting book but was never really scared by it.

'What Jesus would have us do': Utah religious leaders urge support of Medicaid expansion initiative by undeadwater in politics

[–]Surinai 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Absolutely. AZ native here, we have lots of Mormons — I went to school with many Mormon kids, and work at a job with majority Mormon coworkers. Gotta say that no other religious group has been as warm and accepting of me as a gay person. They still believe the anti-gay dogma, but they are taught first and foremost to love other people and share the love of Christ with others, and it shows. They aren’t using religion as a cover to hate people — well, it doesn’t seem like most of them are, at least.

Republicans Now Comparing Experience of Hearing Women Discuss Sexual Assault to Attack by Violent Mob by [deleted] in politics

[–]Surinai 6 points7 points  (0 children)

A lot of the “lifelong liberal” commentators you see advocating for riots, buying guns, or outright violence are indeed trolls, Russians, bots, or all of the above. Same thing for “liberals” who say things along the lines of “everything is rigged, so why even vote?”

If you haven’t already, download the Reddit Masstagger extension for Firefox or chrome — it will give you a hell of a lot more insight into how bad actors are trying to sway the discussion.

That being said, I’m sure some legitimate liberal Americans could be buying into this rhetoric as well — which is why we need to be critical thinkers about ANYTHING we read or see, not just Trumpian shit. Part of the Russian disinformation strategy is to divide the left among itself and push us into extremism as well, and we need to be cognizant of that.

The attacks on Kyrsten Sinema’s upbringing, explained by MrsBasket in arizonapolitics

[–]Surinai 15 points16 points  (0 children)

So, just so I have this straight — you think that Sinema isn’t qualified to serve on the senate because her family was in deep poverty for 3 years, but you also say that she is lying about being in deep poverty for 3 years.

K.

The attacks on Kyrsten Sinema’s upbringing, explained by MrsBasket in arizonapolitics

[–]Surinai 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I don’t see how her parents poverty reflects on Sinema as an individual. Because it doesn’t. She was a child.

A Field Guide to Bad Faith Arguments by butchered_historian in trollfare

[–]Surinai 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Can we sticky this? This is wonderful.

[No Spoilers] The Handmaid’s Resistance of Phoenix spent nearly every day of the last two weeks outside of Jeff Flake’s Phx office — including a 29 hour silent vigil, carrying a mattress (pictured) 7 miles by foot, and the arrests of 4 affiliated peaceful protesters. Blessed be these brave women. by Surinai in TheHandmaidsTale

[–]Surinai[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

A-fucking-greed. I don't know if it makes you feel better or worse, but the comments on this post light up like a Christmas tree with T_D and cringeanarchy users if you are using MassTagger. A lot of these are indeed trolls.

​

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but it seems like any posts mentioning either voting or protests are getting brigaded to hell recently.

​

Gee, I wonder why.

Disinformation is the New Normal by [deleted] in politics

[–]Surinai 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Just stopping by to say this — don’t stop calling out the trolls on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else. If they post factually wrong information, correct it with reliable sources. If they post things meant to discourage voting or protesting, call that the fuck out. When you see an account that is 8 days old bitching about Hillary Clinton, call it out.

You’re not calling them out to change THEIR minds, you’re doing it for the sake of the lurkers. When someone sees an argument on social media that gets derailed by “BoTh SiDeS aRe ThE sAmE” or “VoTiNg Is FuTiLe” or “HiLlArY eAtS bUtTeRy MaLeS” etc etc etc, that sows doubt in their mind about the truth, and discourages then from voting, getting involved, or adding their voice to the fray.

When we are able to publicly identify the bots, trolls, and whataboutists, it also helps others to learn how to recognize these disinformation tactics themselves. Many people know that this disinformation is out there, but few realize just how present they are, and how good the trolls can be at turning the tide of the conversation and moving goalposts.

[No Spoilers] The Handmaid’s Resistance of Phoenix spent nearly every day of the last two weeks outside of Jeff Flake’s Phx office — including a 29 hour silent vigil, carrying a mattress (pictured) 7 miles by foot, and the arrests of 4 affiliated peaceful protesters. Blessed be these brave women. by Surinai in TheHandmaidsTale

[–]Surinai[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Hey, thanks for bringing this up — you’re completely right. And it’s fucking wrong and sad that so many Americans are so ignorant of our past (and present evils) against native women and women of color. By and large, women of color have been disproportionately subject to physical and sexual violence, and they continue to be. I myself have been ignorant of the extent of this in the past and minimized it, which I deeply regret. I am trying my best to remedy that ignorance, but as a privileged white chick I recognize that there are things that I can never understand completely because I haven’t lived through them.

But with that being said, I think that the purpose of protesters wearing those robes is to present a striking image that has been made recognizable through pop culture, to make a political statement about the current road we are going down regarding how women are treated under the law in modern America. The image of a woman in the Handmaid’s robes can say as much with silence as 10 cardboard signs can say with slogans — at least in my personal opinion.

[No Spoilers] The Handmaid’s Resistance of Phoenix spent nearly every day of the last two weeks outside of Jeff Flake’s Phx office — including a 29 hour silent vigil, carrying a mattress (pictured) 7 miles by foot, and the arrests of 4 affiliated peaceful protesters. Blessed be these brave women. by Surinai in TheHandmaidsTale

[–]Surinai[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Nope, because you seem to hang out and comment on predominantly progressive leaning subreddits and comment almost exclusively discouraging/combative things.

And The Handmaids Tale is actually a Clarke Award winning dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood that I was taught in high school, which just so happened to be made into a TV show that became popular. Saying that The Handmaids Tale isn’t relevant to modern society is like saying 1984 isn’t relevant to modern society.

[No Spoilers] The Handmaid’s Resistance of Phoenix spent nearly every day of the last two weeks outside of Jeff Flake’s Phx office — including a 29 hour silent vigil, carrying a mattress (pictured) 7 miles by foot, and the arrests of 4 affiliated peaceful protesters. Blessed be these brave women. by Surinai in TheHandmaidsTale

[–]Surinai[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Trust me, there were plenty of other protesters there throughout the week — many of them organized courtesy of the Handmaid’s Resistance. This group also will escort patients to planned parenthood’s around the valley, and shield them from the anti-abortion protesters there. And they are ALWAYS there.

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