|
Loading... SCUM Manifestoby Valerie Solanas
LibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
won't like
will probably not like
will probably like
will like
will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Why are manifestos so often written by crazies? This 50-page anti-male screed by the woman most famous for shooting Andy Warhol is, well, kind of hard to read. I can ignore the man hatred - that's a matter of opinion - but many of her suggestions for improving the world are simply batty. First, that her notion of communism would work. It's inconceivable that all the people of the world would work together towards Solanas's idea of the common good. Second, "automation" does not mean zero work. Machines must be created and maintained. (Of course, I suppose Solanas would expect men to take care of this.) Third, old age is not a disease, and scientists do not hold the secret to immortality. That's patently absurd. If they did, don't you think these supposedly selfish and insecure men would have made themselves immortal by now? So in short, while this was a reasonably entertaining read in parts purely for the novelty factor, it's not something I would recommend. They're not dangerous ideas, merely nonsensical ones. (  ) melydia | Oct 28, 2009 |  A nasty, spiteful woman calls for the extermination of all men, and comes across as being just as selfish as the men she despises. The book is absolute garbage. It's like Mein Kampf, only replace Jews with men, and remove any hint of intelligence and grace that Hitler may have had when expressing his sick beliefs. Those who defend it would not do so if the genders were reversed, and those who defend it as "satire" look like hypocrites, as they are probably the very people who get offended by "women belong in the kitchen" jokes. I may come across as the kind of uptight idiot who can't take a joke. I can. I can laugh at myself, and many jokes making fun of men can be downright hilarious. However, this book is not funny. Not even remotely funny. At all. Avoid unless you're curious. (  ) Andrew_Williams | Jan 18, 2009 | "Life in this society being, in the best of cases, a total bore, and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, it remains to civic-minded, responsible and thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, install complete automation and destroy compulsive heterosexuality." When I read that sentence I knew I had to have the book; it's a brilliant, excoriating expression of a radical feminism that I wouldn't want to see implemented any more than I would want to see Biblical law enforced. But I can enjoy both the Bible and the Manifesto for their amazing prose, and I feel sorry for those who can't separate the medium from the message. (  ) languagehat | Apr 13, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
References to this work on external resources.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Book description |
|
SCUM Manifesto was considered one of the most outrageous, violent and certifiably crazy tracts when it first appeared in 1968. Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol, self-published this work just before her rampage against the king of Pop Art made her a household name and resulted in her confinement to a mental institution. But the Manifesto, for all its vitriol, is impossible to dismiss as just the rantings of a lesbian lunatic. In fact, the work has indisputable prescience, not only as a radical feminist analysis light-years ahead of its time—predicting artificial insemination, ATMs, a feminist uprising against under-representation in the arts—but also as a stunning testament to the rage of an abused and destitute woman.
The focus of this edition is not on the nostalgic appeal of the work, but on Avital Ronell's incisive introduction, "Deviant Payback: The Aims of Valerie Solanas." Here is a reconsideration of Solanas's infamous text in light of her social milieu, Derrida's "The Ends of Man" (written in the same year), Judith Butler's Excitable Speech, Nietzsche's Übermensch and notorious feminist icons from Medusa, Medea and Antigone, to Lizzie Borden, Lorenna Bobbit and Aileen Wournos.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:57 -0400)
The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details.
Quick Links |
Wikipedia in English (6)
