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The AG Bukbang – Episode One

Catherine and CJ eat tons of food, drink wine, discuss the books they read in January, and asked each other rapid-fire lit-related questions.

Originally shot live on Instagram, on the last Thursday of the month.

13 Comments

  6. It was an absolute blast getting to watch and interact with part of it live before (and a bit during) my classes! It’s so heartwarming to see Catherine and CJ laugh with each other and all of us :smile:

  9. Alright, so I kinda managed (after lots of struggle with my free time) to finish watching the first bukbang and I love the chemistry between you two (hope the flu’s gone btw… and that this poor delivery guy didn’t freeze anywhere).

    One thing I need to tackle, however, is the rampant feminism of @CJB – I get where you guys are coming with the quasi-sexist approach of Patrick Rothfuss when it comes to character creation (or maybe not sexist but stereotypically simplified), yet I still can’t believe you gave up because of the ‘rape’ academy in the second part of the series :joy:

    A couple of things here – I believe that when it comes to crafting a female character, we (as a literary world) have already made a huge progress. Just look at the Gor cycle where the women were, pardon my French (feel free to edit this out) slave f***toys.

    The same criticism came fell on one of my favorite authors – Robert Jordan for following the same pattern which was either a woman was a feminoid with feelings closeted so deeply, they were probably having tea with Mr Tumnus 90% of the time (Galina, Nynaeve, Aviendha) or a cute idiot (Elayne for half of the series). Or both (Moiraine). Or a cheerful granny who’d rip you apart and feed to the crows (Verin). Oh, and then we had rampaging feminists with the Green Ajah.

    You could even extrapolate these accusations towards such blockbuster series like Harry Potter. The thing is, however; I believe that for any writer it’s always difficult to create a character without falling into the pit of stereotypes, regardless of sex or their background – I had to rewrite some of them myself when doodling with some stuff on my own.

    I completely get that the fantasy from that era (early 00s) has its flaws and is still enslaved to some general patterns but this extends even further – I couldn’t but read Nevernight without struggling over the main character which shouldn’t be the case.

    Anyway – I believe you should disregard the gossip about Wise Man’s fear. I read it a while ago, right after the release but I can’t recall such instrumental approach.

    …thinking of it, maybe you could actually explore the topic of stereotypes in the next video :thinking:

  10. I wanted to add that Name of the Wind has particularly been broken down and about 1/3 of the women are specifically in the novel to be sexual objects. Dude definitely has some hangups with women.

    I would also say that, while there are some absolutely abysmal writers, there’s plenty who buck the trend. Ursula K Le Guin was writing in the 1960s and wrote some profoundly feminist works. Even JK Rowling, who began writing Harry Potter in the ’90s, includes a wide range of characters that exist to be more than eye candy for Harry. Hermoine in particular stands out as a very nuanced character who holds her own as one of the core trio, but there are all sorts of characters like McGonagall, Molly Weasley, Tonks, and Rita Skeeter who have defining moments in the books and manage to stand on their own as characters. Rowling has other issues, but I think she did pretty decently on representing women.

    I don’t necessarily think writers have to be squeaky clean. Obviously that’s nice when it happens, but there are some truly exceptional writers who were garbage people. HP Lovecraft comes to mind. Harlan Ellison was apparently also a terrible human. And for folks who love Rothfuss despite his issues, that’s a valid stance. But for me… I can’t really support him. It’s too ingrained into the text for me to enjoy.

    1. Ad everything you said:

      1. True. The thing is, however, it’s a fantasy with some medieval-esque setting. One could only speculate whether this depiction of the characters is the result of Rothfuss’ Jung/Freudistic problems or willingness to preserve some quasi-historical realism. Yes, this realism falls apart when the major characters are introduced, so I’d agree that the bias is blatant.

      2. Regarding Rowling, I’d say she didn’t manage to completely escape stereotypes – what you perceive as Hermione’s strong character buildup, I’d blame on her following a generic trope of a nerd which is particularly visible in The Goblet of Fire and the failed night out with Krum. She’s a complete opposite of a romantic character and her bond with Ron leading to the marriage is almost a classic deus ex machina. While other characters are developed to some extent, I’d say the best one was Dolores Umbridge but we could still argue she’s one-dismensional until the Wizengamot trial.

      I’d say – I’m not gonna force anyone into loving Rothfuss’ works cause I completely get the stance of his sexism and I’m not trying to disregard it. I still believe, however, that to everything is context.

      This is also sort of difficult for me as I love his series for how some other parts of the world are built, especially all the unresolved arcs. Honestly, I was rather bored with the clunky depictions of Kvothe’s relationship with the women and I almost skipped them while yawning. Your arguments are strong and I see your point.

      From my perspective, I remember that I had to actually shelve one story I worked on because of how difficult to manage were the female characters. Having them set in the Victorian era didn’t help and I’ll probably have to – volens nolens – rewrite these parts from the scratch.

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