New Yorker - Cat Person

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

This www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person is a very long, very uncomfortable read. This www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/fiction-this-week-kristen-roupenian-2017-12-11 is an interview with the author.

Basically it's all about how women end up in shitty situations because they are too polite or too scared to say no, or stop. It made me cringe inside reading it - I thought the author was scarily accurate.

She is a terrible writer.

Well her story has had lots of readers, reaction and debate, which is a pretty big achievement in my book.

Lass, why is she a terrible writer? We need more information here. Seems like standard New Yorker fare to me in terms of the level of writing. They are not known for publishing any old crap.

“Why are you texting all the time?” Margot’s stepdad asked her at dinner. “Are you having an affair with someone?”

Really? Your 20 year old unmarried step-daughter is home and a bit pre-occupied you say "are you having an affair?"

And all that ridiculous drama in the cinema

During the movie, he didn’t hold her hand or put his arm around her, so by the time they were back in the parking lot she was pretty sure that he had changed his mind about liking her sounds like something out of the 1970s teenage magazine Jackie

Or the nonsense about the vodka soda. She comes across as a completely self- absorbed pain tbh.

LassWiTheDelicateAir have you never been hyperaware of every move someone makes and analysed it to within an inch of its life? I tend to do that with everyone. Admittedly in my case it's a bad habit garnered from life with an abusive unpredictable mother, but socialisation of females to always smooth over every social bump may play a role too.

To me it seems terribly believable.

I second ReanimatedSGB's post. It is poorly written but reeks of "gee whiz, how important and insightful I am"

Sorry I second SGB's several posts- particularly the comment about this being the story to bore on about for months.

I also agree with hipster about the overuse of trauma. She had bad, but unquestionably concensual sex.

Both characters were detestable for different reasons. He was arrogant with nothing to be arrogant about and she was a shallow airhead.

Anyway. I've had sex with people I thought I initially I was into, then realised I wasn't when it came down to it. I went through with it because I did feel too awkward to back out at that point and I felt it would be hurtful. On the flipside, if I brought a guy home for sex and he bailed at the last minute, I'd be affronted and hurt. I don't think the male character is in the wrong for feeling put out, but I feel the story would have been much more powerful if he hadn't been written as an abusive arsehole at the end, because that made me feel like he'd been set up to fail all along. If we could have gone away and formed our own opinions on both character's motivations I think it would have been more impactful.

I don't think having bad sex you're not sure about is really that bad a thing, provided there's no coercion involved. It's no different in my mind to eating a meal you don't like or going to a party you wish you hadn't.

Whenever I've done that I've never felt it was related to how I've been socialised, but then again I don't feel the thing a lot of people talk about feeling, like you have to be nice to people at your own expense. I've never given a shit, mainly thanks to my misanthropic father who told me most people were shit and not worth bothering with.

Also, I don't think fictional characters have to be PC so I have no issue with her negative observations of his weight, but I do think if a man had written similarly about a woman he would have been torn apart.

There was a big splash about it in the Evening Standard, and I thought the most interesting comment was from a (male) literary critic: he said that people seemed to be assuming it was based on a real experience and that a lot of people now think that writing is only of any value if it's based on real experience.

Also, FFS, the fact that loads of people are talking about a piece of fiction is no guarantee of it being any good. 50 Shades? Da Vinci Code? There are basically two types of people who go nuts over one specific, not-much-cop piece of fiction (or film, or music,to an extent). There's the ones who don't read much fiction at all but are drawn in by the hype and think whatever it is is wonderful (because they haven't read a single story since they were twelve and therefore the tiniest, tiniest desire to find out what happens next blows their heads off) - and then there are the people who think they are too good for genre fiction so shit themselves over a rather dull, though competent piece of work which somehow got published in a posh magazine, when stuff that isn't any better, more insightful or even more skillfully written is available in indie anthologies or romance/erotica collections, or Woman;s Weekly Fiction Special.

I could really connect on this on so many levels. The idea of fantasising about someone you barely know. Instead of asking the other person to fill the empty spaces just to fill them yourself and then in reality it being all bit of a let down as he hasn't matched your ideals.

Reminds me of the time I was walking home after a night out in my first year at uni. I lived about a 45 minute walk and I had left my friends in the club as it had been bit of a shit night. Some drunk guy was harassing me for a while when this random guy who was also walking in the same direction stepped in to tell him to do one. We exchanged pleasantries for the rest of the 10 minute walk, he was about 30-35, shorter than me and equally as drunk (both had sobered up a fair amount by this time but just tired/tipsy). It got to the end of my road when I randomly just invited him back to my place, still didn't know his name, but as I had a shit night (just gone through a break up and all my friends were getting with people in the club) and I didn't really care.

I remember laying on my single bed as he stood putting the condom on. There was silhouette of him as dawn was just breaking.If anything he had a female shape to him with this massive popped belly that wasn't in proportion to the rest of him. It really got me out of the mood but decided it was easier to go through with it than be a dramatic naive 19-year-old.

We were having sex for a few minutes when he rolled me over onto all fours and shoved his dick into my ass. Literally felt like someone had stabbed me. I rolled up into the foetal position on my side and he rubbed my back apologising then he said we didn't need to carry on!!

Me having a single bed, and what had happened he left straight away. The next morning he knocked on my door pushed a bottle of water and co-op paracetamol in my hands sheepishly and asked if he could have his rolex back.

I've had too many encounters of 'really don't want to do this but it's easier than not'. Uni was a good life lesson for sure..

Omg auntie that's horrible. Some men are such shits.

The bits I identified with most closely were a) when she feels frightened of him and thinks he might murder her - I think this is something we all go through when meeting a man we barely know, don't we? and b) that feeling that she's committed to having sex and can't get out of it, even though it's going to be awful and c) not knowing how to let him down nicely

"Doesn't everyone get turned on thinking about how turned on the other person is?

Isn't that the major joy of sex, feeling someone enjoying what you're doing together/for them?"

No, everybody doesn't. I don't. People are all different.

This is possibly the reason I don't understand the super-duper empowefulisation of giving blow jobs and getting nothing in return.

I get turned on because I'm with someone I fancy and they are doing something that turns me on. Like foreplay.

I don't think men are expected to feel like this so much. Men are expected to get turned on if they are looking at someone they want to fuck or fucking someone they want to fuck. Very few adverts and things feature men trussed up like chickens stroking their own thighs and with the implication that because they know that they meet the generally accepted image of "sexy" it makes them feel sexy.

This is the basis for men who have a fetish about wearing women's underwear isn't it? I've also read stuff about how men assume that women getting ready to go out get turned on by themselves, by their own bodies and underwear. And this in turn is fetishised. Meanwhile most women don't get aroused by putting a pair of tights on.

This all ties into the repression of female sexuality and the forming of it into whatever men think it is / should be, and then having that reflected back so strongly that it becomes real for some.

So it’s not that it’s badly written, its that it’s literary fiction and you are making a value judgment about particular kinds of writing. Just as, perhaps, people do about ‘chick-lit’.

Actually, I don't think it's any good as literary fiction, to be honest. The authorial voice is too in-your-face. It tells us what we should think of the characters, rather than letting the reader work it out for themselves. It doesn't allow any scope for ambiguity, any shades of grey, any idea of the complexity of human beings. (But de gustibus non est disputandum and all that...)

It reminds me - not so much this particular story, but the reactions to it - of various books that emerged in the 90s - 'shocking, wonderful, insightful' stories about sexuality. Which differed from standard erotic fiction (eg Black Lace and all the piggyback imprints) only by being duller, longer, and no one having any fun... or if they had any fun it ended up in injuries, social diseases, unwanted pregnancies or death.

Cat Person is basically too long and pretty dull. Very little happens, so you're clearly supposed to think about the 'wonderful writing' - which isn't all that wonderful, anyway.

So it’s not that it’s badly written, its that it’s literary fiction and you are making a value judgment

No, it is badly written.

Your examples do not evidence that. Why not say you don’t like it? Why does it have to be badly written? There’s loads of ambiguity in it.

This is possibly the reason I don't understand the super-duper empowefulisation of giving blow jobs and getting nothing in return.

Exactly my thoughts on the matter, Vertical. Glad to know I'm not the only one.

I feel it would have been more powerful and ambiguous if Robert hadn't been written as an arsehole at the end, then we could have made our own decisions about the motivations of both characters

Your examples do not evidence that. Why not say you don’t like it? Why does it have to be badly written?

Well we will have to disagree on that. The sections I highlighted were in my view clunking and unrealistic.

Do you seriously think the question which the stepfather posed "are you having an affair" is good writing? What an extraordinary and implausible way to speak to an unmarried daughter who seems a bit pre-occupied. Any normal parent would ask about whether she had boyfriend problems.

As for the teenage gushing of "ooh he didn't hold my hand in the cinema" - it is exactly the sort of drivel which appeared in the Jackie teenage magazine.

@lass also the description of how she lost her virginity was laughably unrealistic. I really couldn't fathom why the author wrote that in

The virginity bit is ludicrous.

And this bit too.

The room they were in was dimly lit and full of objects, all of which, as her eyes adjusted, resolved into familiarity. He had two large, full bookcases, a shelf of vinyl records, a collection of board games, and a lot of art—or, at least, posters that had been hung in frames, instead of being tacked or taped to the wall

Even if the room had been lit by one candle she would recognise a book case and other stuff usually found in a living room. "

A lot of art" - what an ungainly expression to describe a picture filled room.

And why bother commenting on the entirely unremarkable fact Robert's pictures are in frames? Given his age and his having a house it would be more remarkable if he were still tacking or taping posters up.

I think this stands as a piece of literary fiction because Margot, though we have a direct line into her mind, reveals more to the reader than her words intend. Her reactions to Robert show her to be narcissistic and self-obsessed. There is a ton of intertextual stuff going on for example, uncomfortable class relations, and the issue surrounding consent and social conditioning. Margot seems to want a bit of rough, and does an almost faux-act on the date, but when faced with the reality she changes her mind. Her revulsion to Robert as she lies on the bed is not new - she hated his kiss and the choices he made before she got drunk and went home with him. She comes across as immensely superior, and would have been a whole lot better off examining her own reactions and actually asking Robert questions (and no, not 'are you a murderer?') because that's what unconceited people do. Where the text fell down for me was in the totally unbelievable dialogue. I'm left feeling pretty revulsed by Margot actually - she has no capacity for self-reflection - you get the impression she'd walk right into the same scenario having learned nothing. Robert is, of course, unpleasant. Two unpleasant characters with no redeeming features. Makes it a hard read for me.