In Books: JKR's new literary offering & The Family Fang

[retsuko]

J.K. Rowling's new book, The Casual Vacancy, comes out today to much speculation and to some incredibly snide reviews. The reviews are so vitriolic/fawning that I still have no idea whether or not I actually want to read the book, only wonder at the hatred some people apparently harbor for Rowling. (Socialist rant? What?) I mean, really, some

Comments

[sioneva]

I'm so over dysfunctional family stories, I suppose because, unlike Tolstoy's famous quote, I think unhappy families generally ARE unhappy all in the same way - lack of communication and empathy.

I've basically decided to just stop reading them. Mom and Dad are selfish. The children are selfish, with promise of NOT being selfish, only they are so sure of their own importance that they can't stop being selfish, etc. etc. Nobody listens to anybody else.

I guess I just don't know many people that self-absorbed, so it doesn't ring true for me. I find myself wanting to slap sense into all of them.

Also, most books about dysfunctional people also feel the need to describe things like the aging process (she looked at her cellulite-ridden lumpy thighs with disgust) in the least flattering terms possible, with no warmth or sense of redemption/value whatsoever.

[retsuko]

I totally get where you're coming from on this, and my relationship with dysfunctional families books goes through similar cycles of the disgust. (This latest book has put me completely on your side of the fence, even as I did enjoy for the reasons mentioned above.) But every now and then, the cycle shifts, and I find myself back at the dysfunctional section, looking for clues as to how to deal. My impulse behind buying this book in particular was mostly around the idea of "what *would* it be like to have crazy artists for parents?!" and honestly, I'm still curious about it. I'd love to read a well written work of creative nonfiction/memoir describing exactly that, because it's so different from my own life, but a subject that I am deeply interested in.

I don't think I expressed this very well in the entry above. Ah, well.