Home For Fiction - Blog - Page 7 of 149

Review of I Fear My Pain Interests You by Stephanie LaCava

July 22, 2024

I picked I Fear My Pain Interests You, by Stephanie LaCava, looking for a literary-fiction story with strong psychological undertones. What I got instead was “the next Great American Novel“, but let me be upfront: I mean this in the worst possible manner, using it entirely ironically.

Indeed, my motivation behind writing a review for this novel was very simple: I absolutely loathed it. This is the kind of pointless drivel you’d expect from 15-year-old edgelords thinking they’re writing avant-garde literature. I know, I used to be one.

Another fun fact: I almost gave up on the novel at the 90% mark, which would’ve been an amazing thing to do, but I sadly had to finish it since I’d decided to write this review.

Of course, that I hated I Fear My Pain Interests You is not very… interesting to you. But why I hated it might be, because it reveals a lot about how and why literature is written nowadays – in the US (see earlier note) and places copying the US.

i fear my pain interests you; image of woman screaming

(more…)

“Am I the Asshole?”: The Art of Self-Assessment

July 15, 2024

Experiencing, Society

art, experiencing, ignorance, society, writing

There is an often quoted claim suggesting that if you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole, but if you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole. This isn’t always true – there are never black-and-white answers – for reasons we will examine, but it implicitly focuses on an important issue: How do we determine whether we’re right or wrong? How do we determine, “am I the asshole”?

There’s even a Reddit thread where people share incidents with strangers and expect them to answer, “Am I the asshole”? Of course Reddit, like the internet at large, relies on consensus. If 10,000 people insists you’re wrong, they must be right… Right? At least that’s what the bandwagon fallacy would like us to think. Obviously enough, this takes us back to the “assholes all day” problem.

But again, there are never easy answers.

So in this post, let’s try to unpack all this. Let’s see why we can’t rely on public consensus to figure out whether we’re right or not, and what we can do about it.

Am I the Asshole? blurry image of people — Humans are social animals. We want others’ approval. But what if others are wrong?

(more…)

Review of The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes

July 8, 2024

Book Review, Criticism

criticism, ending, literary fiction, narrative

I’ll say it right away: This review of The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes, was inspired fully – believe it or not – by its… ending. Quite frankly, it’s so atrocious that it should be taught in literature classes as an example of what not to do.

But let’s take a step back.

It all began when, looking for something to read, I noticed this short novel and was encouraged by its blurb that promised an elliptical and ambiguous narrative (more of this in a moment) with clear literary-fiction vibes. I was far less encouraged by the fact that this book in particular and the author in general have received plenty of awards and praise. Quite frankly, I’m thoroughly suspicious of such things.

In any case, I thought to give it a shot, and the result was exceedingly peculiar, as you’ll discover in this review.

review of the sense of an ending, image of old man — Probably this is what the protagonist would look like: old, alone, bored and boring

(more…)