JK Rowling TERFing her legacy into the bin

[idunnosomename]

The alien feels a bit peaky then they fly in front of the moon penisbreath

[Rizla]

You don't feel the author's sneering contempt when reading Irvine Welsh's unsavoury characters do you?

No, but in Skagboys, his description of the young Renton's rationale for starting to write in the vernacular is a particularly toe-curling passage in a full on (Edinburgh) cringe festival of a book.
(I really love a lot of Welsh's output, he can be a fabulous writer but sometimes you're like mate wtf.)

[Mister Six]

Good anecdotes, buy dinner, no booze.

And be nine years old.

[petril]

Although does anyone think fondly of ET these days? I didn't like it much at the time and was the right age. There seems more love for The Goonies.

I suppose ET fell into the trap of becoming the really obvious cliché for 80s kid based film. bike/silhouette or finger/phone and you're sorted, so as time went on ET references just seemed cheap and too obvious and everyone moved on

[MojoJojo]

Now maybe her detective character is meant to be Islamophobic as well as thick, and another character is feeding him misinformation like "oh a burqua went in there with a big bag of halal food, it's the mooslims innit" to throw him off the scent. But given the tone of OH GOD MUSLIMS EVERYWHERE in the other excerpts, I highly doubt it.

It's been really selectively quoted. Brief expansion:
1) Strike is told by his policeman friend that a witness reported seeing a woman in a burka enter the murder house carrying a plastic bag from a halal takeaway.
2) Strike later tells Robin this. Robin's response:

"A woman in a burqa. You don't think," said Robin tentatively, "the neighbour might be a mad Islamophobe?"

We then get a few examples of the mad racists who have approached Strike's detective agency while Robin's been there.
3) Strike agrees that he might be and says that murders brings the nutters out. And then says the bit in the quote.
There's a woman in a hijab in the scene who quickly leaves on over hearing the conversation.

So the snipped quotes are massively misrepresentative. It's a bit dodgy with whole scary person* hiding in burqa thing


(*I haven't been able to check this, but I'm not sure if it's the victim or the murderer)

[MojoJojo]

I'm not trying to defend Rowling's twitter statements or even her literature, but having read Silkworm and not remembering it having anything islamaphobic in it, and being suspicious of the briefness of the quotes, felt the need to go and check.

[Sebastian Cobb]

No, but in Skagboys, his description of the young Renton's rationale for starting to write in the vernacular is a particularly toe-curling passage in a full on (Edinburgh) cringe festival of a book.
(I really love a lot of Welsh's output, he can be a fabulous writer but sometimes you're like mate wtf.)

My main problem with Skagboys is that it needed whittling down. Although I seem to remember a wall-breaking bit f cringe where Renton exclaims nobody will make a film or book about guys like them as they're robbing the Glaxo plant.

[Ferris]

As for JK Rowling, I don't know how anybody could read her nostalgic books about a public school for magic wankers and then be surprised that she's pretty conservative IRL.

The protagonist (and audience surrogate) goes to a new world with its own unfamiliar hierarchical establishment and ooh I don't have any money or establishment power how am I going to fit in - SURPRISE! Turns out you have even more money and establishment power than the rest of them! Fuck smashing the system, I'll just install myself as the head of it!

It's harsh to criticize the implicit politics in a children's book, but that's hardly righteous iconoclasm.

[Mister Six]

Yeah, and it's weird how the later books revolve around the system being swiftly used to implement fascism, blood purity and genocide, with the only people actually willing to stand up to it being a bunch of children and a handful of geriatrics, but afterwards not only does the system remain in place, but Harry goes and becomes part of it.

Especially when you watch the first Fantastic Beasts thing and the exact same thing happens there, complete with attempted summary execution of the protagonist and his pal. It's so odd that Rowling can see the dangers inherent in the system but not identify the system as a key part of the problem.

[Buelligan]

I'm not trying to defend Rowling's twitter statements or even her literature, but having read Silkworm and not remembering it having anything islamaphobic in it, and being suspicious of the briefness of the quotes, felt the need to go and check.

How long does a quotation need to be to show the paucity of the writer's ability?  Sweet liquid brown eyes ffs.

[FredNurke]

Builder's tea eyes.

[Dayraven]

Again though I don't think his comments were meant to state the books were lacking in morality just that he didnt intend very direct allegory such as say The Ring = Nuclear Weapons.

He was a medieval literature academic, it wouldn't be surprising if his definition of allegory was a strict one.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Builder's tea eyes.

Ultrabeat consider rewrite.

[Rizla]

My main problem with Skagboys is that it needed whittling down. Although I seem to remember a wall-breaking bit f cringe where Renton exclaims nobody will make a film or book about guys like them as they're robbing the Glaxo plant.

The whole things written either as a prospective film, or to satisfy an audience used to cinematicals. "What the fuck am I gaunnie dae with ma life?" as the carnage of the miners strike erupts in the background. Sick boy listening to pink Floyd as he contemplates murdering the bad pub landlord. Spud and his confessions...of a junkie that's just shagged nico up the arse. It's very poor.

[Shit Good Nose]

Builder's tea eyes.

Ultrabeat consider rewrite.

Kim Carnes also considers rewrite.

[Better Midlands]

Kim Carnes also considers rewrite.

And Limp Bizkit.

[gib]

and The Adverts

[Catalogue Trousers]

And Half Man Half Biscuit

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

It's been really selectively quoted. Brief expansion:

yeah none of that explains why someone thinks that stomach contents can be analysed for halal food.

[bgmnts]

I dont mind her stance on halal food just dont Ramadan my throat.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I dont mind her stance on halal food just dont Ramadan my throat.

BOOO

[earl_sleek]

I've jihad it with Muslim puns, they Mecca me angry.

[Paul Calf]

People for saying that slating John Lennon and David Bowie is leftie iconoclasm and that criticisms could be made about the prophet Mohammed and it feels to me like those who would be willing to cancel Bowie and Lennon would recoil from criticism of Mohammed is like slating John Lennon and David Bowie is leftie iconoclasm. Harsher criticisms could be made about the prophet Mohammed and it feels to me like those who would be willing to cancel Bowie and Lennon would recoil from criticism of Mohammed.

[pigamus]

I couldn't have put it better myself.

[Dex Sawash]

This got buried too quickly

[MojoJojo]

yeah none of that explains why someone thinks that stomach contents can be analysed for halal food.

That's not what's being suggested in the quote. The body was all cut up and chained up in a weird ritualistic way. So it looks like some crazy religious nut has done it. And they've mysteriously taken the stomach and intestines away. So the suggestion is that the killer has taken the guts with halal food in away because they are mad.

It's not an amazing explanation but it's a one off comment that is never followed up. The word halal appears 3 times in the book in total.

Weirdly you've stumbled on half of the explanation - the weird ritualistic set up of the murder, which had acid and stuff, was actually designed to mess up the forensics. But more in general terms, not in any specifics.

But at the time of the quote, the characters are wondering why the murderous psychopath took the guts with them.

[evilcommiedictator]

Slating John Lennon and David Bowie is leftie iconoclasm. Harsher criticisms could be made about the prophet Mohammed and it feels to me like those who would be willing to cancel Bowie and Lennon would recoil from criticism of Mohammed.

He never got back to the heights of his first album, and the "Jesus is dead" groupies bore me to tears

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

That's not what's being suggested in the quote.

"Was his last meal halal? Is that why the killer removed the guts?"

Why even say this as if there would be some connection between halal food and removal of same from the crime scene post ingestion? Why not say "is this a thing what ISIS does, gutting people like fish?" Unless the characters are ignorant and don't know what halal means, it makes no sense.

[MojoJojo]

They're speculating that the person with the halal takeaway was the killer, so they would know the food in the victims stomach was halal. And were crazy so might remove the guts for halal food.

I mean, it's not a great line or anything, and doesn't make a massive amount of sense. But it's said as think out loud speculation by one of the characters, and it's single line in the whole novel. Trying to hold it up as evidence that Rowling is an Islamaphobe is a ridiculous stretch. There are plenty of other things to criticise her for.

[Dr Rock]

Like she's a an abysmal writer