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Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies And Revolution (2014)

by Laurie Penny(Favorite Author)

4.15 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1620406896 (ISBN13: 9781620406892)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Bloomsbury USA

review 1: Two and a half stars. Laurie Penny is a powerful writer. Her writing is strong, clear, and opinionated and reads with a propelling force. I think she's a great young feminist and progressive voice. I also think this book is a very worthwhile read. But I'm giving it less than three stars because of Penny's weakness (not just in this book, but in many of her columns) for hyperbole. It's a flaw in her writing that comes as much from her strength as a writer, if that makes sense, from her strong sense of conviction, enthusiasm, and opinion. These qualities work in her favor more often than not, but when they backfire on her, they do so bigtime. In past essays, Penny has made some major gaffes that have crossed the line into causing offense. She once wrote an otherwise very com... morepelling article on the Steubenville rape case comparing its meaning to the public to the Abu Ghraib torture case. In another essay, she compared the recent (non-fatal) rape case of the white American teenager Daisy Coleman to the murder of the black American teenager Emmett Till. Both these comparisons (and others, but especially her very misguided and historically and emotionally tone deaf referencing of the Till murder) offended people who really didn’t need to be offended, people who are otherwise likely on Penny’s side politically. And if her writing sometimes has that habit of alienating or offending other progressive folks, imagine how her gaffes can be used to dismiss her points by conservatives and the right-wing. I bring this up while reviewing this book because she makes the same kind of mistake, resorts to the same sometimes offensive, sometimes laughable hyperbole, in this book as in some of her essays. For example, at one point while writing about sexism in the Occupy movement, she refers to the Occupy protest camps in various cities as “temporary refugee camps.” I hope I don’t have to explain to anyone what’s wrong here. But just in case…No. No, Laurie Penny, protesters and their sit-in sites are NOT comparable to the camps of refugees, not by a longshot, not unless the protesters are themselves refugees protesting their position and status. You can commend the people who protested and organized in the full flush of the Occupy movement as well as their commitment to protesting inasmuch as going so far to staging week- and month-long vigils and sit-ins in the name of equality and justice. But they are NOT in the same boat as those people who are running from extremely dangerous and impoverished conditions in their home countries and who have essentially no status or rights whatsoever in the countries they’ve run to. It’s “slips” like this, which I think Penny employs to jolt the reader into recognizing the seriousness of a situation (and her own commitment to and solidarity with a cause), that consistently undermine her otherwise very valid points and necessary reporting. Sometimes her tendency to hyperbole isn’t so seriously tone-deaf, but just silly, as in the last (and weakest) chapter in this book when she writes things like “New York is the holy city of industrial romance” or “New York is the coliseum of competitive dating”—whatever the hell any of that means—while discussing (far too seriously and reverently) the world of modern love as represented in the TV show Sex and the City. I can’t be the only American who reads statements like this and thinks “What the hell?” before bursting into laughter. I can only imagine how a reader from New York would react. Though Penny has traveled quite a bit in her career as a reporter, it seems she could benefit from spending a little more time talking to the ordinary, po-dunk, flyover folks and to people of color while she’s in the U.S. and less time talking to New York hipsters and London Occupy dudes.But here’s the thing: I’m on Penny’s side, especially when it comes to exposing misogyny and sexism (something she bravely does in figures and movements of the left as well as the right). I think she’s a compelling voice and a courageous writer, and I recognize that maybe my expectations were just too high in reading this book. Penny is also quite young, only in her late 20s, and her writing flaws are very much the flaws of a young writer. I suspect in time she’ll write with a little more wisdom and care and a lot less hyperbole and cultural tone-deafness. At least, I hope so. Her voice is definitely needed. She is at her best when she writes about cybersexism and the new challenges that the Internet and social media present to women and other marginalized people who insist on speaking out or even on just trying to be themselves. She also has a fair and clear view of the prevalence of sexism in all political and social circles. Too many feminists and progressives I think suffer the delusion that sexism is only a problem among conservatives or the right wing, that only conservative men (and women) hold misogynistic views or work to keep women down. If only things were that simple and one-sided. Penny isn’t afraid to call folks on the left out on their sexism—in fact she’s actually a bit of a lone wolf on that. I’ve said it before in this review and I’ll say it again: hers is a very necessary voice. I will definitely look out for future books from her and will be interested in seeing how her thinking evolves and writing improves.
review 2: Laurie Penny is one of my favourite-ever columnists. However, writing a book is a completely different skill set - one which, as this one demonstrates, requires an editor or at least a re-read. It would have picked up a lot of the really distracting repetition, and left a much stronger part-memoir, part-treatise personal is political and political is personal work.Also, "fucking" should either be a verb or an adjective or you just sound ridiculous. less

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