Left on Read: A Confederacy of Dunces (ft. Min Straussman)
Added 2024-01-07 13:32:44 +0000 UTCFriend of the show Min joins Riley and Alice to discuss John Kennedy Toole's strange and only book, A Confederacy of Dunces.
Comments
Large Adult Son: the Novel
Rory Fagan
2024-01-15 12:32:47 +0000 UTCThis probably isn’t the best place to suggest it, but another extremely, ahem, problematic novel I just remembered is Peshawar Lancers by S. M. Stirling, which is also somewhat iconic within its own niche of steampunk speculative fiction. Peshawar Lancers is in some ways intoxicating with its alternate history of Britain being subsumed into India, with the British elite taking on Indian names and aspects of Indian culture. (And, of course there are airships and steam computers.) On the other hand, unsurprisingly, Peshawar Lancers is legitimately, shockingly racist. It presents Russians as diabolical and ritually cannibalistic; it presents the Thuggees as real; it entirely glosses over a Peshawari genocide; and it presents Afghans as simultaneously brutish and queer-coded. (The frenemy relationship between Narayan Singh and Ibrahim Khan is IMHO one of the more redeeming parts of the narrative.) So, um, yeah. Could be “fun” to pick that one apart.
Elsie Hupp
2024-01-12 14:22:26 +0000 UTCThanks I hate it, I suppose that's what qualifies it as art
Type
2024-01-11 22:11:34 +0000 UTC
