I have close read the poem 5-6 times now and I keep re-reading it and analyzing different themes and metaphors in it. It's one of the most beautiful poems I have read and I am completely in love. So in love that I am stuck here. I don't want to read the schizophrenic interpretations of Kimbote. I feel like it would ruin my own enjoyment of the poem and I just want to take it in and bask in its beauty. I wish this poem existed just on its own. I can read Nabokov mulling over being lost in illusions, reflections, illusion mirroring reality, death, mortality, afterlife and just what not.

Just completed Death in Venice and I am floored. In awe, shock and even a little scared at how much this little novella was able to say and make me feel in its short length. The juxtaposition of the Apollonian protagonist with his Dionysian subject of desire and muse, the primal surrender of repression to obsession, austerity of ideal beauty leading to death and demise beautifully set against the backdrop of a sepulchral but hypnotizing city of Venice.

It's filled with so many allusions and foreshadowing, references to classical themes. But most of all the writing is sheer brilliance. It's insane to be able to write like that. Some excerpts:

>"For beauty, my Phaedrus, beauty alone, is lovely and visible at once. For, mark you, it is the sole aspect of the spiritual which we can perceive through our senses, or bear so to perceive. Else what should become of us, if the divine, if reason and virtue and truth, were to speak to us through the senses? Should we not perish and be consumed by love, as Semele aforetime was by Zeus? So beauty, then, is the beauty-lover's way to the spirit but only the way, only the means, my little Phaedrus..."

>"Forebearance in the fact of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph; and the figure of Sebastian is the most beautiful symbol, if not of art as a whole, yet certainly of the art we speak of here."

>""Beauty makes people self-conscious," Aschenbach thought, and considered within himself imperatively why this should be. He had noted, further, thar Tadzio's teeth were imperfect, rather jagged and bluish, without a healthy glaze, and of that peculiar brittle transparency which the teeth if chlorotic people often show. "He is delicate, he is sickly," Aschenbach thought. "He will most likely not live to grow old," He did not try to account for the pleasure the idea gave him."

>"His heart throbbed to the drums, his brain reeled, a blind rage seized him, a whirling lust, he craved with all his soul to join the ring that formed about the obscene symbol of the godhead, which they were unveiling and elevating, monstrous and wooden, while from full throats they yelled their rallyingcry. Foam dripped from their lips, they drove each other on with lewd gesturings and beckoning hands. They laughed, they howled, they thrust their pointed staves into each other's flesh and licked their blood as it ran down. But now the dreamer was in them and of them, the stranger god was his own. Yes, it was he who was flinging himself upon the animals, who bit and tore at swallowed smoking gobbets of flesh– while on trampled moss there now began the rites in honor of the god, an orgy of promiscuous embraces– and in his very soul he tasted the bestial degradation of his fall."

Just... just gorgeous wow. So good. So beautiful. So perverted. Honestly I feel so giddy and happy almost feverish after having read this book. I was looking for something beautiful, dark and provocative like this for a while and couldn't find anything that really quenched that thirst. Thomas Mann the genius you are.

Just completed Death in Venice and I am floored. In awe, shock and even a little scared at how much this little novella was able to say and make me feel in its short length. The juxtaposition of the Apollonian protagonist with his Dionysian subject of desire and muse, the primal surrender of repression to obsession, austerity of ideal beauty leading to death and demise beautifully set against the backdrop of a sepulchral but hypnotizing city of Venice.

It's filled with so many allusions and foreshadowing, references to classical themes. But most of all the writing is sheer brilliance. It's insane to be able to write like that. Some excerpts:

>"For beauty, my Phaedrus, beauty alone, is lovely and visible at once. For, mark you, it is the sole aspect of the spiritual which we can perceive through our senses, or bear so to perceive. Else what should become of us, if the divine, if reason and virtue and truth, were to speak to us through the senses? Should we not perish and be consumed by love, as Semele aforetime was by Zeus? So beauty, then, is the beauty-lover's way to the spirit but only the way, only the means, my little Phaedrus..."

>"Forebearance in the fact of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph; and the figure of Sebastian is the most beautiful symbol, if not of art as a whole, yet certainly of the art we speak of here."

>""Beauty makes people self-conscious," Aschenbach thought, and considered within himself imperatively why this should be. He had noted, further, thar Tadzio's teeth were imperfect, rather jagged and bluish, without a healthy glaze, and of that peculiar brittle transparency which the teeth if chlorotic people often show. "He is delicate, he is sickly," Aschenbach thought. "He will most likely not live to grow old," He did not try to account for the pleasure the idea gave him."

>"His heart throbbed to the drums, his brain reeled, a blind rage seized him, a whirling lust, he craved with all his soul to join the ring that formed about the obscene symbol of the godhead, which they were unveiling and elevating, monstrous and wooden, while from full throats they yelled their rallyingcry. Foam dripped from their lips, they drove each other on with lewd gesturings and beckoning hands. They laughed, they howled, they thrust their pointed staves into each other's flesh and licked their blood as it ran down. But now the dreamer was in them and of them, the stranger god was his own. Yes, it was he who was flinging himself upon the animals, who bit and tore at swallowed smoking gobbets of flesh– while on trampled moss there now began the rites in honor of the god, an orgy of promiscuous embraces– and in his very soul he tasted the bestial degradation of his fall."

Just... just gorgeous wow. So good. So beautiful. So perverted. Honestly I feel so giddy and happy almost feverish after having read this book. I was looking for something beautiful, dark and provocative like this for a while and couldn't find anything that really quenched that thirst. Thomas Mann the genius you are.

I find them to be bland and very one dimensional personally. They claim to be feminist retellings but because they see everything through this modern lens of marginalization it ultimately flattens some genuinely powerful characters and takes away agency from them. They mostly seem like consolatory reimaginations for modern audiences.

So I live in India (Delhi) and I see some conversations about the recent election results and the complete BJP consolidation. Lots of doomer type of sentiment, how the country is fucked and what not... it is and I'd like to explain to the best of my ability how.

If you have noticed Indians online and even those among the diaspora seem incredibly unreceptive to any criticisms of the BJP, a sentiment that seems to baffle the western leftists. I think you guys have to understand who you are really talking to.

The average NRI/diaspora comes from an upper caste, upper middle class background. They might sound liberalized w.r.t American politics but ask them their opinions Kashmir/Indian military, Affirmative Action and the BJP they will show you their real face.

Anyways the recent elections are a complex case and every state has to be explained separately.

First Kerala. It's the most progressive state and regularly elects the Communist Party there. The communists were in power for the last 10 years there. They lost the election to the more centre left faction of Congress. It's anti-incumbancy. Generally winning the third term in elections is seen as extremely difficult. It's not a common occurrence and when it happens it's seen as a big deal. The state of Uttar Pradesh was infamous for changing its government every 5 years for decades before BJP came in power. It's the state BJP faced the biggest setbacks in the 2024 elections. They literally lost Ayodhya, site of demolition of Babri Masjid where they had just erected a Ram Temple to much propaganda, symbolic for Hindutva.

In Tamil Nadu, there's grievances among people against the dominant DMK for its dynastic politics and the guy who won Vijay is a beloved actor and superstar. Stan culture in India kinda goes crazy. I would argue Modi has his own stan culture too.

West Bengal was a result of voter suppression, one of the biggest hindu consolidation in recent years and the contentious reputation of the reigning CM Mamata Banerjee herself. If she didn't lose this election she would have lost the next one. Anyways the ethnic tensions here are off the charts. They are intentionally targeting Bengali Muslims, saying they are illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and are basically deleting their candidacy through SIR. They are also putting them in detention camps. Upper Caste Bengali Hindus are legitimately driven by intense Islamophobia here. It's crazy because West Bengal and Bangladeshis are both Bengali at the end of the day.

Nobody expected BJP to lose in Assam. It's the most fascist, ethnonationalist state in the country. Assamese nationalist's raison d'être in recent times seems to be to lynch Bengalis and perform ethnic cleansing. This state is a lab experiment in how far fascism can go. It's also a prime example of how Delhi has colonized Assam and it's unfortunately what's going to happen in West Bengal too. Also north eastern states generally vote for whoever is in the centre. These states used to have massive separatist movements and insurgencies during the aftermath of Indian independence but were crushed by the Indian government and military through the means of not just violence but intentional settling of large hindu populations and ethnic displacement of the indigenous population. They have been trying to do that in Kashmir too.

Also people need to understand this. The leftist parties in India are mostly socdem types. They are revisionist. The Indian leftist movements actually thrive in the tribal based Naxalites Maoists movements in places like Bastar Chattisgarh. The Indian government has suppressed these movements heavily. Even before BJP came to power. The problems in India do not start with BJP imo

Which brings me to an important point: the marxist view is that the Indian state is a colonial extension over the indigenous and minority population. It's a liberal bourgeois construct IN ITS INCEPTION. This same thing applies to Pakistan too btw. These South Asian states behave as a homogenizing entity over their ethnically diverse population via the means of ethnic displacement, language imposition, censorship, violence etc.

Now why do people in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai aka the people on Reddit don't care. They are out of touch. They are privileged enough that when shit hits the fans they will simply run out of the country. They already do that. They are opposed to indigenous and socialist movements because they are jingoistic, casteist, classist, Islamophobic. They are the oppressor class. When they move to the US they turn into a Vivek Ramaswamy or an Usha Vance.

I think this was a pretty short, almost glossed over take on the recent state of Indian politics. I know I am missing A LOT. A LOT but hope this gave you a primer. Correct me if I am wrong somewhere, add to it however you want.

Okay so everyone knows intense Harry Potter adults are a bit cringe. Harmless but still a little cringe. Sort of like sports fans who I would argue are not so harmless but I digress. While people can read whatever they like (and people can judge whomever they like) I would like to focus on very specific Harry Potter discourse and criticism that is pervasive on the internet. These criticisms are not anything new but discourse flares up everytime JK Rowling opens up her mouth and says something that Harry Potter's milennial and very very liberal fanbase considers a betrayal to their values or if some new IP drops. The game for example. I expect another wave of annoying Harry Potter discourse now that a show is coming out.

Anyways so much of the criticism against Harry Potter just seems... identitarian and pointing flaws at a nonsensical world building. Harry Potter is fatphobic, ableist and time turners make no sense. Slavery bad. Goblins are anti-semitic caricatures. Did JK Rowling know about that? Or did she not? Did she know about anything? Then there's the structural critiques. Harry Potter doesn't enact structural change and upholds the status quo. He ends up becoming a cop. Harry Potter is not a communist.

I can't be the only one who finds all this annoying and misplaced? Like these are books written for 10 years olds and you are a 30 year old. Read another book. You want structural criticism, hard magic systems and well fleshed out world building and racial issues properly addressed then just read another book. I don't understand what these people want from Harry Potter. Like do they want JK Rowling to change the books or something?

Literary criticism is valid. It exists. It should exists. But nothing new has been said about Harry Potter in the last 20 years. The Harry Potter neoliberal conversation is also old and existed way before Shaun made his infamous video.

I think the real problem is that the adults who talk about Harry Potter and exclusively Harry Potter. You could tell that they are going through a derangement syndrome of sorts and now that being a fan is not fashionable they are haters.

Recently youtube seems to have filled my recommendations with Harry Potter video essays. I had to press not interested and do not recommend on all of them but I was surprised at how many of these videos even existed in the first place. So many of these videos are as latest as last month. Ofcourse many are slop youtubers but they have high views. The slop youtubers understand that talking about Harry Potter is lucrative.

Anyways I think some of these people need to put this series to rest. Pick up a different book in the same genre or a different genre whatever you want but diversify. Branch out in your criticisms too. So many comments under Shaun's videos focus on Harry Potter being horrible but very few of them seem to engage with Shaun on his own political level. It shows me that their engagement with politics and literature is shallow. Ofcourse Harry Potter is a children's book it is going to be shallow but these adults seem unable to talk about them without talking about Cho Chang's name.

You have to do better.

I am about to revive a pretty old literary and political discourse. It might sound like a screed against wokeism but it's not. I suspect that I am far more progressive than a lot of the women reading and writing such books.

I am currently reading Ovid's Metamorphoses and therefore went on a Greek mythology spree. Having read a few classics in a row— Metamorphoses, some Émile Zola, some Balzac and a Proust volume— I wanted to read something light and fast. I decided to pick up a modern Greek mythology retelling. I picked– Song of Achilles, Circe, A Thousand Ships and Ariadne. I think everyone knows the fame of Lore Olympus and the unending Persephone/Hades love stories it has inspired. Something has to be said about the nature of the lens being used to retell these myths. Perhaps it might not be the most politically correct thing to say today but it's a pretty well debated topic in academia.

There seems to be a fetish for oppression in these retelling. A need to highlight the stories of the wronged, the ignored, the judged, the forgotten but from a very downtrodded perspective where the experience is reduced to lines like

"It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did."

"Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep."

and in that trend it seems like something original and genuinely subversive is missing. A lot of these women in these books, despite being feminist retellings, are quite lacking in their own agency, a lot of them rendered passive. Greco-Roman mythology is replete with complex female characters women who were submissive, those who were transgressive, those who were punished and those who were even rewarded.

But modern post-Madeline Miller reimaginings of these tales seem unable to grapple with the complexity and the utter harsh and alien culture of the Greco-Roman world. They were very different from us. It would have been a harsh, unsafe world for us so why do the modern retellings feel so safe? Take Ariadne by Jennifer Saint where the titular character is utterly flaccid, where her character is reduced to these lines.

"What I did not know was that I had hit upon a truth of womanhood: However blameless the life we lead, the passions and the greed of men could bring us to ruin, and there was nothing we could do."

Powerful characters like Athena rarely get a perspective because she holds the fate of the heroes in her hand and because it is impossible to show a romance with a famous virgin goddess. But most of all Athena is a goddess not human. She is divine, a idea, all powerful, overarching. It makes me wonder if those Aphrodite retellings are any good.

Stories that obscure faithfulness to the classic sources are also seen mostly in the retellings of Hades/ Persephone in order to tell a romantic story. The claim is that they wish to reclaim the narrative and push agency into Persephone's hands. I don't see how.

I can't help but feel that these retellings seem to lack diversity and an interesting perspective. There's almost no exploration of transsexuality in these retellings despite the gods being quite gender fluid at times. The themes of gender bending are quite prevelant in Greek mythology with gods and heroes taking forms of different gender. Ovid's Metamorphoses is almost exclusively about transformations, instability, and fluidity. So how come modern retellings way more conservative than the original source? Why do Ovid and Homer seem more feminist, more progressive than Madeline Miller? (Which makes her quote about the poets so funny).

Another thing that seems to be lacking is a genuinely exploration of sexual freedom. Marriage between Greek myth figures especially the gods has been both venerated and shown to be quite open and fluid. Yet modern retellers seem uncomfortable with these themes. The depiction of the marriage between Ariadne and Dionysus by Jennifer Saint refuses to explore the darkness of Dionysus in context of Ariadne. It seems almost uncomfortable which is disappointing since Ariadne is depicted in classical art mingling with the maenads and the satyrs.

It seems to me that these retellings are less about the myth and more about a very specific contemporary subjectivity projecting itself backwards. The almost YA nature of these books doesn't escape me. A lot of the writers come from a middle class backgrounds, somewhat of an elevated class position but still not obscured from the material constraints of reality. These authors project their somewhat liberal, milennial (and very very American) fantasies in order to write a Greek mythology fanfiction. It's a bad thing in the sense that now these retellings are rendered to merely escapist literatures. It cannot explore the psychosexual dynamics of these myths, cannot write stories where women have agency and power like in the case of Athena and cannot subvert the themes without falling into the oppressor- oppressed dynamics. It also cannot break free from the chains of escapist romance

Take for example:

One of my favourite classical myths is that of Hylas and the nymphs. It is depicted in the beautiful and dark painting by John William Waterhouse (1896).

Hylas is a beautiful man, Hercules' companion, part of the Agronauts who, when he goes to fetch some water for his men after a tired journey, happens upon a pond filled with naiads. Enchanted by his beauty and— he by theirs— Hylas gets submerged in the pond to live enternally with the nymphs, losing his mortality. The painting depicts the darkness of this tale. There's a psychosexual almost sadomasochistic tone to this story and if someone were to write a retelling they could write a lyrically beautiful and horrifying tale dealing with the cruelty of beauty, seduction and surrender.

There's no feminist exploration of something like this. This painting is seen by modern scholars as depicting the anxieties of men living during the women's suffragettes' movements. These anxieties are generally depicted in the form of the femme fatale archetype. Yet the subject is not passive. Yet the man in the depiction is surrendering not trying to conquer. So why is a subject like this not interesting to modern myth retellers?

Finally I will just say this: if women allow themselves to be consoled for their culturally determined lack of access in the modes of intellectual debate by the invocation of hypothetical great goddesses, retellings that claim to give voice (apparently) to marginalized women of mythology– women from a different culture, different moral standards– they are simply flattening themselves into submission (a technique often used upon them by men). All the mythic versions of women, from the redeeming purity of the virgin to that of the healing, reconciling mother, are consolatory nonsense.

Not all of them ofcourse. Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson escapes these pitfalls, I suspect because it's not trying to be YA and escapist. There's something almost insidious about the nature of YA and escapist literature. In consoling its readers a lot of times it refuses to challenge them.

Ofcourse the reality of this type of fiction is that it is corporate publishing trend. Madeline Miller started it in 2011 and now we are drowning in this genre. The aim isn't to write transgressive literature, it's to sell books and sell them in bulk. It's consumerism not literature. And that's why it's not good. One day when the well has dried up someone will write an Athena retelling. She will seem like Hillary Clinton. The readers will hate it and make it flop. That would be the end of this trend.

Anyways I would appreciate if people earnestly engage with my ideas and if I didn't get comments like

– you hate fiction written by women, you are a misogynist, bad feminist, classist, elitist etc. These conversations were rife during 80s and 90s in the academia and also in mainstream. I don't think there's anything wrong with discussing them now in the context of a different type of fiction and in the light of new publishing trends.

– "why don't you write your own fiction?" A strawman argument if I have seen one. It serves no purpose and indicates that you don't wish to engage only condescend.

I thought r/bookscirclejerk was mean for no reason and sometimes even exaggerated but wow a lot of the normies there genuinely live like that huh. I saw someone argue that psychosexual drama is akin to kink fanfiction from AO3 and that prefering Anne Carson or Simone De Beauvoir to Supernatural ABO fanfictions is classist because they came from privileged backgrounds and the fanfic writers are middle class writers trying to write something that resonates with them.

I recently completed Ovid's Metamorphoses and went on a Greek mythology spree. Having read a few classics in a row— Metamorphoses, and two Proust volumes— I wanted to read something light and fast. I decided to pick up a modern Greek mythology retelling. It was A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. I think everyone knows the fame of Lore Olympus and the unending Persephone/Hades love stories it has inspired. There has been a lot of criticism of this trend but something I generally see missing from the said criticism is what I want to talk about. I think it's missing because perhaps it might not be the most politically correct thing to say. Please understand that this is not a screed against wokeism or anything.

There seems to be a fetish for oppression in these retelling. A need to highlight the stories of the wronged, the ignored, the judged, the forgotten and in that trend it seems like something original and genuinely subversive is missing. A lot of these women in these books, despite being feminist retellings, are quite lacking in their own agency, a lot of them rendered passive. Powerful female characters like Athena rarely get a perspective because she holds the fate of the heroes in her hand and because it is impossible to show a romance with a famous virgin goddess. Stories that obscure faithfulness to the classic sources are mostly seen in the retellings of Hades/ Persephone in order to tell a romantic story. The claim is that they wish to reclaim the narrative and push agency into Persephone's hands. I don't see how.

I can't help but feel that these retellings seem to lack diversity and an interesting perspective.

One of my favourite classical myths is that of Hylas and the nymphs. It is depicted in the beautiful and dark painting by John William Waterhouse (1896).

Hylas is a beautiful man, Hercules' companion, part of the Agronauts who, when he goes to fetch some water for his men after a tired journey, happens upon a pond filled with naiads. Enchanted by his beauty and— he by theirs— gets submerged in the pond to live enternally with the nymphs, losing his mortality. The painting depicts the darkness of this tale. There's a psychosexual almost sadomasochistic tone to this story and if someone were to write a retelling they could write a lyrically beautiful and horrifying tale dealing with the cruelty of beauty, seduction and surrender.

There's no feminist exploration of something like this. This painting is seen by modern scholars as depicting the anxieties of men living during the women's suffragettes' movements. These anxieties are generally depicted in the form of the femme fatale archetype. Yet the subject is not passive. Yet the man in the depiction is surrendering not trying to conquer. So why is a subject like this not interesting to modern myth retellers?

It seems to me that these retellings are less about the myth and more about a very specific contemporary subjectivity projecting itself backwards. A lot of the writers come from a middle class backgrounds, somewhat of an elevated class position but still not obscured from the material constraints of reality. These authors project their somewhat liberal fantasies in order to write a Greek mythology fanfiction. It's a bad thing in the sense that now these retellings are rendered to merely escapist literature. It cannot explore the psychosexual dynamics of these myths, cannot write stories where women have agency and power like in the case of Athena.

To me all this seems to be a part of what I consider consolatory fiction to make up for the lack of historically absent and marginalized position women have had in the sphere of intellectual debates. But the problem is that this consolatory stuff just flattens women and makes them submissive– a well known technique used by men on women.

I wonder if this is simply an ignorant take and a mere projection of my taste or if there is something real here. It's a trend that has been noticeable to me for a while now.

I recently completed Ovid's Metamorphoses and went on a Greek mythology spree. Having read a few classics in a row— Metamorphoses and two Proust volumes— I wanted to read something light and fast. I decided to pick up a modern Greek mythology retelling. It was A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. I think everyone knows the fame of Lore Olympus and the unending Persephone/Hades love stories it has inspired. There has been a lot of criticism of this trend but something I generally see missing from the said criticism is what I want to talk about. I think it's missing because perhaps it might not be the most politically correct thing to say. Please understand that this is not a screed against wokeism or anything.

There seems to be a fetish for oppression in these retelling. A need to highlight the stories of the wronged, the ignored, the judged, the forgotten and in that trend it seems like something original and genuinely subversive is missing. A lot of these women in these books, despite being feminist retellings, are quite lacking in their own agency, a lot of them rendered passive. Powerful female characters like Athena rarely get a perspective because she holds the fate of the heroes in her hand and because it is impossible to show a romance with a famous virgin goddess. Stories that obscure faithfulness to the classic sources are mostly seen in the retellings of Hades/ Persephone in order to tell a romantic story. The claim is that they wish to reclaim the narrative and push agency into Persephone's hands. I don't see how.

I can't help but feel that these retellings seem to lack diversity and an interesting perspective.

One of my favourite classical myths is that of Hylas and the nymphs. It is depicted in the beautiful and dark painting by John William Waterhouse (1896).

Hylas is a beautiful man, Hercules' companion, part of the Agronauts who, when he goes to fetch some water for his men after a tired journey, happens upon a pond filled with naiads. Enchanted by his beauty and— he by theirs— gets submerged in the pond to live enternally with the nymphs, losing his mortality. The painting depicts the darkness of this tale. There's a psychosexual almost sadomasochistic tone to this story and if someone were to write a retelling they could write a lyrically beautiful and horrifying tale dealing with the cruelty of beauty, seduction and surrender.

There's no feminist exploration of something like this. This painting is seen by modern scholars as depicting the anxieties of men living during the women's suffragettes' movements. These anxieties are generally depicted in the form of the femme fatale archetype. Yet the subject is not passive. Yet the man in the depiction is surrendering not trying to conquer. So why is a subject like this not interesting to modern myth retellers?

It seems to me that these retellings are less about the myth and more about a very specific contemporary subjectivity projecting itself backwards. A lot of the writers come from a middle class backgrounds, somewhat of an elevated class position but still not obscured from the material constraints of reality. These authors project their somewhat liberal fantasies in order to write a Greek mythology fanfiction. It's a bad thing in the sense that now these retellings are rendered to merely escapist literature. It cannot explore the psychosexual dynamics of these myths, cannot write stories where women have agency and power like in the case of Athena.

I wonder if this is simply an ignorant take and a mere projection of my taste or if there is something real here. It's a trend that has been noticeable to me for a while now.

I recently completed Ovid's Metamorphoses and went on a Greek mythology spree. Having read a few classics in a row— Metamorphoses and two Proust volumes— I wanted to read something light and fast. I decided to pick up a modern Greek mythology retelling. It was A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. I think everyone knows the fame of Lore Olympus and the unending Persephone/Hades love stories it has inspired. There has been a lot of criticism of this trend but something I generally see missing from the said criticism is what I want to talk about. I think it's missing because perhaps it might not be the most politically correct thing to say.

There seems to be a fetish for oppression in these retelling. A need to highlight the stories of the wronged, the ignored, the judged, the forgotten and in that trend it seems like something original and genuinely subversive is missing. A lot of these women in these books, despite being feminist retellings, are quite lacking in their own agency, a lot of them rendered passive. Powerful female characters like Athena rarely get a perspective because she holds the fate of the heroes in her hand and because it is impossible to show a romance with a famous virgin goddess. Stories that obscure faithfulness to the classic sources are mostly seen in the retellings of Hades/ Persephone in order to tell a romantic story. The claim is that they wish to reclaim the narrative and push agency into Persephone's hands. I don't see how.

I can't help but feel that these retellings seem to lack diversity and an interesting perspective.

One of my favourite classical myths is that of Hylas and the nymphs. It is depicted in the beautiful and dark painting by John William Waterhouse (1896). Hylas is a beautiful man, Hercules' companion, part of the Agronauts who, when he goes to fetch some water for his men after a tired journey, happens upon a pond filled with naiads. Enchanted by his beauty and— he by theirs— gets submerged in the pond to live enternally with the nymphs, losing his mortality. The painting depicts the darkness of this tale. There's a psychosexual almost sad masochistic tone to this story and if someone were to write a retelling they could write a lyrically beautiful and horrifying story dealing with the cruelty of beauty, seduction and surrender.

There's no feminist exploration of something like this too. This painting is seen by modern scholars as depicting the anxieties of men living during the women's suffragettes' movements. These anxieties are generally depicted in the form of the femme fatale archetype. Yet the subject is not passive. Yet the man in the depiction is surrendering not trying to conquer. So why is a subject like this not interesting to modern feminist retellers?

I wonder if this is simply an ignorant take and a mere projection of my taste or if there is something real here. I am not unbiased but it's a trend that has been noticeable to me for a while now.

So much of the modern mainstream genre fiction is just anti-intellectual trash being written by fanfiction and wattpad writers and fantasy nerds who have no interest in exploring the human condition and universal themes, writing allegorical pieces of fantasy literature or exploring the intimacies of human relationships.

Romance is not supposed to be this wattpad level monster-sex ABO smut filled slop. It's supposed to explore the intimacies of human relationships. It's supposed to explore the complexities of those intimacies, the varied emotions, longing, desire, the dynamics of sex etc.

The best fantasy is an allegory for the real world. It explores themes relevant to our society by the way of magic, myths and symbolisms. It provides philosophical insight into abstract themes.

Similarly with science fiction which is supposed to reflect the anxieties of a modern technological society, explore the faults and merits of existing political and social systems by situating them in a futuristic or a different perhaps an allegorical setting.

Yet modern genre fiction is just Wattpad level smut or nerds writing about hard magic systems and what not for escapism.

Modern publishing houses are forcing people to consume books not read books. Book sales are currently on an upward rising trend yet they are mostly dominated by these mainstream escapist literature. It doesn't solve the problem of anti-intellectualism. In fact saying anything against these people or these books can get you "pretentious" allegations as if reading books that don't have forbidden vampire sex makes you pretentious. They hide behind criticisms like "you only promote literature by old white men" etc. but it's simply posturing. Most of these people are milquetoast liberals who explicitly refuse to engage with political fiction. They behind identity and bad faith arguments to legitimize not trying. Legitimize being able to not think because this criticism is applicable only to a very specific section of critics who are not longer considered fashionable.

Books are no longer an intellectual pursuit which sometimes provide entertainment and an escape. They are now only about providing entertainment and an escape from people's shitty lives. I just think it's so sad that so many people these days don't even want to explore deeper themes. That they hate thinking and actively run away from it.

Escapist literature has always existed yes. For people to forget their shitty lives for a while but there was a gap between serious literature and escapist one. The escapist genre fiction never occupied the front and centre of the publishing world like it does now. Now publishes houses actively promote escapism and consumerism to push sales. It's so sad.

Anyways I typed this rant in 5 minutes on my phone so excuse any grammatical mistakes or typos.

Hear me out. It's likely a contrarian take but Michael Jackson's legacy has never felt timeless to me.

So much of his legacy doesn't feel timeless like that of say Prince or D'Angelo. In that way he is kind of like Queen to me. The name recognition, the fame, the greatest of all time lists, even other artists' references are there but it's all nostalgia. Nostalgia for a monoculture that doesn't exist anymore. Nostalgia for its peak.

Perhaps it's because I did not grow up with his music or perhaps because I was only 8 or 9 years old when he died but unlike a lot of 60s or 70s artists he doesn't have that lingering impact upon me.

Perhaps it's because his music is renowned for setting a new standard in the realm of pop from a commercial standpoint of view and not so much redefining a genre or a style.

Everytime I talk to someone who mentions MJ as the GOAT they always have to mention sales and records. I mean... sure but what about the music? The influence of so much of the present day alternative R&B and the likes of Frank Ocean can be attributed to D'Angelo and the neo soul movement. You've got Madonna now who has inspired so many daughters in the likes of Britney and now Addison and Sabrina. But male pop stars don't really exist anymore. I mean not dominant in the way female pop stars do. Perhaps that gap is why MJ feels so distant.

I am tired of reading the anxious social commentaries on societal decay and urban alienation in a technological world that the likes of Houellebecq write about. It almost feels like the humanities folks be it literary writers or philosophers have no idea how to deal with technology and modernity so they keep screaming at the clouds like old men. I recently read Byung Chul Han's Non-Things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld and it exhausted me a little. These guys have been saying the same things since the 60s and still have nothing new to say.

We get it. Capitalism has subsumed everything, technological advancement has led to social bonds becoming more fragile, the internet has led to the atomization of interests, the constant stream of information and content has slowly replaced tangible social connections and that is bad for humanity.

Can I get something new now? Something different? Something original? Criticism that doesn't feel like the 50th rehash of Baudrillard and all the 60s post-modernist. There has to be more to modernity and technology than the anxiety of human experience being replaced by robots.

Sometimes when I read 19th century french literature I am awed at the level of beauty being portrayed even in bleak writings like that of Zola's Germinal. I am hard pressed to find such beauty in contemporary novels. So suggest me something.