(no subject)
Mar. 17th, 2024 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelavfinished 'the reproduction of evil' by sue grand
i made a real silly little chart at 1am one night that better summed up where i think this book mentally hit versus a review.
* so i found this book through a true detective gifset with a bunch of quotes (lol).
but on seeing the quotes, i was struck at how instantaneously visceral this book felt. for the last ten years i've picked up random quotes that i feel like pokes at that nameless red-black ruthlessness of leaving-your-bloodied-nails-embedded-in-the-walls-of-clawing-out-of-hell survival, and this was one of the few entire analytical books that had that same sort of 'bzzt' live wire feeling to it.
* caveat that this book is so not for everyone, still. generally how you respond to these two quotes is going to tell you what 90% of this book is like.
the funny thing is i personally avoid ""trauma lit"" because they usually end up feeling way too too twee/therapist-y for lack of a better description. they're often swimming in the little obnoxious 'you are not a victim' gentleness when honestly sometimes the more honest feeling is being smashed over a head by a brick. i'm spooked by the feather duster feelin. i need the brutality of the brick smash. i trust the book that doesn't pull its punches more, you know what i mean? and this book talks about a lot of heavy shit like (irl) incest perpetrators, sexual crimes and genocide, you know. worst of humanity kind of shit.
* on that note, i felt like this would never be popular on tumblr other than an out of context quote or two because this book makes a direct conclusion of most malignant perpetrators of evil having some form of trauma. the metaphorical balls to suggest this intrigues me, since i feel like the current cultural tendency is to treat anybody with trauma with "always sinless" kid gloves. and not the more realistic angle of 'sometimes the fucked up people who do fucked up shit are stuck in a cycle of fucked up, and then whoever survives has a lot of jagged fucked up edges that at best get scrawled out in shadow play-acting of what was done to them and trying to separate the nuances of that is impossible but listening is a start.'
* this is tangential to the book itself but if you swap out the word "evil" with "kink" (hear me out), you get some genuinely interesting concepts of catharsis. there is so much subtext in this book that screamed to me "major delicious messy kink shit" where there's possibility of.... "healing" as a word feels far too twee, but that ragged-breath trust in baring one's worst desires is the first step to untangling a lot if this. (like, in the doujin circle we talk kinda often about the vibes how dominants/sadists are often given the stank eye/assumed the absolute worst of with their wants and ... there's something to chew on with reading this book and rotating this thought - not in a nuance-less 'they are a direct 1:1' way, but 'let's talk multiple levels deeper than just that, and get into the internal mentality'
anyway i think i would recommend this book to people who are restlessly searching for something (art or nonfiction) that hits hard and merciless at what it takes to survive, what's left behind (in the shape of flesh), and won't flinch.
i made a real silly little chart at 1am one night that better summed up where i think this book mentally hit versus a review.
* so i found this book through a true detective gifset with a bunch of quotes (lol).
but on seeing the quotes, i was struck at how instantaneously visceral this book felt. for the last ten years i've picked up random quotes that i feel like pokes at that nameless red-black ruthlessness of leaving-your-bloodied-nails-embedded-in-the-walls-of-clawing-out-of-hell survival, and this was one of the few entire analytical books that had that same sort of 'bzzt' live wire feeling to it.
* caveat that this book is so not for everyone, still. generally how you respond to these two quotes is going to tell you what 90% of this book is like.
the funny thing is i personally avoid ""trauma lit"" because they usually end up feeling way too too twee/therapist-y for lack of a better description. they're often swimming in the little obnoxious 'you are not a victim' gentleness when honestly sometimes the more honest feeling is being smashed over a head by a brick. i'm spooked by the feather duster feelin. i need the brutality of the brick smash. i trust the book that doesn't pull its punches more, you know what i mean? and this book talks about a lot of heavy shit like (irl) incest perpetrators, sexual crimes and genocide, you know. worst of humanity kind of shit.
* on that note, i felt like this would never be popular on tumblr other than an out of context quote or two because this book makes a direct conclusion of most malignant perpetrators of evil having some form of trauma. the metaphorical balls to suggest this intrigues me, since i feel like the current cultural tendency is to treat anybody with trauma with "always sinless" kid gloves. and not the more realistic angle of 'sometimes the fucked up people who do fucked up shit are stuck in a cycle of fucked up, and then whoever survives has a lot of jagged fucked up edges that at best get scrawled out in shadow play-acting of what was done to them and trying to separate the nuances of that is impossible but listening is a start.'
* this is tangential to the book itself but if you swap out the word "evil" with "kink" (hear me out), you get some genuinely interesting concepts of catharsis. there is so much subtext in this book that screamed to me "major delicious messy kink shit" where there's possibility of.... "healing" as a word feels far too twee, but that ragged-breath trust in baring one's worst desires is the first step to untangling a lot if this. (like, in the doujin circle we talk kinda often about the vibes how dominants/sadists are often given the stank eye/assumed the absolute worst of with their wants and ... there's something to chew on with reading this book and rotating this thought - not in a nuance-less 'they are a direct 1:1' way, but 'let's talk multiple levels deeper than just that, and get into the internal mentality'
anyway i think i would recommend this book to people who are restlessly searching for something (art or nonfiction) that hits hard and merciless at what it takes to survive, what's left behind (in the shape of flesh), and won't flinch.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-18 09:52 pm (UTC)lol. truly random unhinged gifsets remain some of the finest sources of recs :D
re: people doing bad shit coming from trauma: tickled my brain and reminded me of this essay an acquaintance of mine wrote that miiiiight be relevant to your interests (like 60% confidence)? particularly the opening section where she's sharing Ambivalent Feelings about this psych program she was an assistant in in a program for violent dudes with anger issues; had a pretty unique perspective on it as a survivor of some trauma herself etc
book sounds interesting; thanks for the writeup!
(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-18 10:14 pm (UTC)(right with tumblr gifsets?? library of alexandria right there :D )
(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-19 12:58 am (UTC)oooh this sounds interesting !! i read a lot of psych books, esp about abusive parents/families/the like, and now thinking about it, they do lack a certain... connection (?) between victim and abuser, and arguably how someone can become an abuser. at most, they tend to say an empty "by committing to reading this book, you will be on a journey to healing your trauma" but barely anything on if your trauma tends to predispose you towards anti-social/deviant/abusive behaviors (<- stopping myself from rambling about help options, or lack thereof, for pedophiles or other highly stigmatized paraphilias)
/r/raisedbynarcissists -- loathe as i am about their view on npd/bpd/cluster b disorders, they are one of the only big subreddits i can find that will generally have discussion about a wide breadth of abusive behaviors -- describes the phenomen of mimicking abusive/toxic behavior in victims as "FLEAS" ... but it still has that distinction, between victim and abuser. that a victim is not an abuser, but they may be acting like one, so ya know. where's the line? when does a victim become an abuser? (not when someone armchair diagnoses them with npd, for sure LMAO)
all this to say ive added the reproduction of evil to my reading list (✿^‿^) lol
related: there's a heidi priebe video i just watched recently that i think also touches upon this. heidi priebe talks a lot about attachment styles and family dynamics, focusing on parent/child abuse and how to heal from it, and surprisingly i found her video dysfunctional family roles: should we blame our parents? pretty nuanced in describing how a victim of child abuse can go on to perpetrate abuse of their own children.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-19 02:39 am (UTC)(you also might be interested in the 'long dark night' book that's kinda infamous in the paraphilia circles in the sense of being frank/realistic about what that potential help and dignity away from all of that would be. also another one on my to read list. )
love the heidi video so far from the quick skim- saving that one for tomorrow when i'm more awake but much appreciate the rec there too. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-19 03:21 am (UTC)ehhh, *for* victims, *about* victims, they're close enough to me. besides, the body keeps score is a book people highly recommend for trauma, but iirc it's written for clinicians, not for victims.
(oooo do you happen to have the author name as well? did a quick search for "long dark night" but all i could find were fiction books ;-; lol)
woohoo!! :D im enjoying going through her backlog, i feel like she's really good at talking about actionable steps regarding attachment style healing (which ive been thinking of as interconnected with parent/child abuse & trauma), rather than the popular dr phil-style "here are ten different ways your abusers may be horrible unforgivable people" popcorn clickbait. i mean, there is a certain enjoyability and healing in reveling deep within the headspace of "i was hurt, here are all the ways i was hurt, here is all of my anger at being hurt," but it's important to be able to step out of that as well -- and to know how to step out of it is fundamental (but unfortunately not favored by ragebait algorithms)
(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-20 03:17 pm (UTC)and oh big mood with the fustration at one style of videos there being super popular with algorithims. quality healing requires nuance to your point and unfortuantly it's tougher to thread that needle in a digestible way (idk maybe it kinda isn't easily digestible by default, recovery is /hard/). def one of the ways that the modern internet could use some work on.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-20 09:48 pm (UTC)thankyuu !! (✿^‿^)