Ben Elton's Identity Crisis

[TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross]

Has anyone else read this? Am reading it now - a satirical reflection on today's society with a particular focus on gender identity and social media.

I've just got to the bit where Mumsnet gets name-checked: after a trans woman is murdered, there's a thread on MN asking why this murder gets more attention than the murders of "ordinary women" and then an online campaign forces MN moderators to ban the phrase "ordinary women" as hate-speak.

I did pause to reflect on this passage, where the protagonist is thinking about the character who is very clearly based on Germaine Greer:

"Even five years earlier no one would have imagined that a whole generation of women with vaginas would unite in defence of women with penises to take down a woman with a vagina who had previously been a feminist icon."

I'm really sorry but I'm really narked.
what 'exactly' are you saying OP?
nothing is clear about this. what exactly has been said?

I'm completely confused about what the issue is here. and I'm really cross. what are you actually saying op?

and what is he saying?

does anyone have any clear links? because everything that's been linked to so far is completely non-descript and confusing and vague and is this is really irritating.

oblomov - what? I don't understand what I've done/said to make you really narked?

And really cross too? All I did was share a book I was reading, and quoted a passage I found interesting!

Doobiegetta - I see what you're saying, but not sure I agree completely with your description of the Woke. The Home Office pathologist is fairly savagely satirised.

Hmm I'm only about half way through so do not know how the story will pan out but so far I've found his poking fun at identity politics taken to the extreme pretty spot on, and everyone is a target...

I got a copy of Stark signed by the man himself when it first came out in the eighties. He was at a bookshop in Birmingham and a really nice decent person. Time after Time is a cracking book which is the last one I read of his.

Yup - got this as an audio book (narrated by BE) a couple of months ago and loved it!

TheOnly yes, she is, and I loved the book when that was as far as I’d got, but as it I felt it was portraying the woke characters more positively. Look at the difference between the two junior detectives, for example. And the way that all of the Rainbow Islanders, including the lesbian woman and the two with DSDs, were woke and happy together except for the two stupid straight people. And of the two “feminist” women, one was an OTT lunatic, and the Greer-a-like was clearly intended to be very unlikeable.

Maybe I’m being over-sensitive, the Navratilova doc last night and a particularly upsetting sex gone wrong murder I read about this morning have got to me, sorry.

I LOVE him and his books. I’ll need to buy this

I didn't watch the Navratilova doc because I wondered whether she was going to end up taking a less forthright stand on the issue and didn't want to see her bowing to the need to backpedal.

I do see your point about the Love Islanders, and the stupidly baffled straight ones. I thought, though, that the Greer character was portrayed with a great deal of sympathy in many ways - I certainly felt that Elton was critical of the idea that the way to deal with opposing views is simply to no-platform and silence.

Still really baffled by what I've done to upset Oblomov by the way!

TheOnly maybe Oblomov may well have posted that comment on the wrong thread.

I love upstart crow too. It’s brilliant and on the money in so many ways.

The whole issue about women not being able to act, the running joke about ‘where would you put the melons?’ And the whole idea that they are so certain that a woman can’t play a woman on stage convincingly and never question their assumptions on gender - or class or politics etc for that matter. That’s what his comedy is built upon - holding a massive mirror up.

I can’t read the fiction though - as someone said it’s a bit clunky. He’s so clever with language but it’s much better interpreted by actors - makes the ideas less didactic and more nuanced.

I have always been a big fan of Ben Elton.
I downloaded this the other day and have just started listening to it.

I'm about half way through and finding it so perceptive. He's really captured so much of the zeitgeist. I'm reading it as fairly GC at the moment but not sure yet where it will end up so I'll reserve judgment.

I've just downloaded it as I need something to read on a plane tomorrow. If it turns out he has drunk the koolaid you will hear me shouting from over your heads somewhere!
(Haven't bought a kindle book at more than 99p for some time)

I think he’s GC but he’s also a comedian. He isn’t going to miss the opportunity for a good joke just because it’s aimed at his own side. Comedy that only targets the other side isn’t satire, it’s propaganda. It’s the kind of thing that politicians force themselves to laugh at during conference speeches. Good comedy should make you cringe now and then.

Finished this and thought it was really good. Sends all sides up but fairly GC as he comes down firmly on the side of material reality. His sympathies lie with the generation who don't believe TWAW but keep being told that they are and are trying to do/say the accepted thing. He sends up the ridiculousness of people/organisations being swayed by on-line pile ons on people for wrongthink - particularly as these are very easily manipulated.
Worth a read.

He recognises material reality, but there isn't any discussion of women's spaces. The Hampstead Ponds are briefly referenced, but I think that's the closest he gets? I don't think that recognising that sometimes it's useful to know that someone is trans because it might suggest another motive for a crime tells us very much about how he thinks we should navigate the issues of eg refuges or sport.

I think a strength of the book is that it touches on those issues just enough to make people think. He couldn't write a full scale GC book as it would have been shut down. He can write a book that lambasts different sides of the gender debate but that is clear on the primacy of material reality.

He also makes very clear points about male violence.

The book isn't perfect but I think he is right to be relatively subtle.

I listened to this about 6 weeks ago on audible.
I really enjoyed it, found it to be very perceptive about a number of issues going on today. Particularly the England out campaign and the social media manipulation.
It was a little too on the nose at times though, like he was making a point with a sledge hammer. Pretty funny though and from my perspective pointed the finger at pretty much everyone.

there isn't any discussion of women's spaces

No, but nor is there required to be. He's writing a work of fiction that, yes, addresses many of the issues that are proving so contentious at the moment but he's not claiming to write an exhaustive social commentary on all such issues.

Why does he need to tell us how we should navigate the issues of refuges and sport? I'm not sure that either of those was remotely relevant to the plot of the novel - so why would they be in there?

Am really enjoying this, can't wait till people have read it so we can discuss it properly. And he definitely reads Mumsnet!!

I’m still going to have to wait for the paperback, I’m afraid, but I’m pretty sure it will still be topical.