the book the movie is about

[maribou]

The Stones of Summer, by Dow Mossman
I read this book because of a wonderful movie (sort of about the book) named Stone Reader which I heartily recommend to ANYONE who likes geeking out about books... I can't heartily recommend the book so broadly, but it's absolutely brilliant none the less. It's just that it's a hot mess of a book, with about 15 different things going on (about 12 of which I dug really intensely) and it's very very demanding. Yet there are parts where it's so utterly emotionally convincing that I was completely swept away by it ... and I've stayed up very late finishing it because no way was I giving it back to the library - I had to finish it NOW NOW NOW. If you like somewhat experimental weird-ass fiction of the 60s/70s, it's gotta be among the best. The dialogue and characters felt Velveteen Rabbit real.
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Comments

[aegd.livejournal.com]

Sorry to post off topic but I read your reply over on Rob's blog and just wanted to thank you for a very clear and well-thought example of the two different scenarios he was so keen to conflate. (I'm holding off posting over there since I'm sure he's tired of me by now.)

David

[maribou]

No worries about off-topic. Thanks for the thanks:)


(I picked the example that was actually really HARD for me to make clear, because it's very personal, instead of the easy one - look, I will terrify, shake, chase, whatever my cats *if they chew on cables* and I will never never yell at them, even, for stuff like scratching the furniture - because I figured those people who aren't crazy cat ladies wouldn't necessarily concur with the validity of the easy analogy;).)

I should say, although I did not want to get into it on Rob's blog, that it was *very hard* for me to make that distinction between acceptable and nasty spanking, watching people I know with their kids, and if I had not been in the weird position of having experienced both reasonable *helpful* spanking and then, later, an abusive situation, I am not sure I could make the distinction at all. I still have a visceral fear/discomfort reaction to seeing someone spanked that is not about *spanking*, but just about any kind of child-parent conflict.

[maribou]

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I can understand why someone might take so against it. I do not trust myself to spank a child. It was very difficult for me to extend my trust in my close friends to the point where I could recognize that what they were doing was different from the things that trigger my abuse memories... *even though* I had my own memories that made the difference clear. So I certainly can see why other people might feel that way.

I'm pretty glad that (middle-class, mainstream culture) parents really have to think about spanking their kids these days - I've seen plenty of examples of thoughtless spanking and I know plenty of people are NOT spanking justly.

[aegd.livejournal.com]

Surely. My dad kinda went the opposite direction. Although he never hit us in anger, his father was abusive and I noticed a marked change for the better in my father's attitudes and dealings with us when I was coming up to my teens. A little later he told us he had finally separated himself from his childhood, and I became much closer with my dad after that.