How many spams to count as a link?
On the one hand, Dear Mariella this week had me going aaaaargh, because it's another of those 'there is huge Issue in this relationship and yet the enquirer claims that apart from this Honking Great Monster in the Room it is a great relationship', and on the other, wincing thinking that some of those issues are not entirely dissimilar to certain aspects of my own Slow Motion Train Wreck relationship:
He finds things difficult in the bedroom and has particular problems with showing affection. I have decided to accept these problems and stay with him.... he is completely unloving and the physical side of our relationship has disappeared.... I want to stay with him because we do get on really well, but is it worth the pain of being in an affection-less relationship at such a young age?
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This was only a passing comment in a review, but it gave me to think: apropos of the pleasure 'of watching a female victim turn the tables on her persecutors, which has made the Stieg Larsson trilogy so popular'. Which is really that one about the kick-ass heroine has to be shown as damaged, or at least weird, to allow her the amount of agency she has. Which I'm sure I have commented on heretofore.
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Oh Robert McCrum, nevair, evair change: on the novel:
As well as retaining a certain exclusive cool, it flattered its audience into bettering itself. If you liked Daphne du Maurier you could graduate to Muriel Spark. Readers of Murdoch could aspire to Woolf. Fans of Greene could look up to Conrad or even Henry James.
Okay, honeybuns, do I need to reiterate again how dodgy the concepts of 'graduation' and 'aspire' and 'look up to' are?
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