kid charlemagne
Well-known member
Earlier today, I made my return to book club after being away for a couple months. I had not read the book, but as the discussion wrapped up, I offered a book to read next. Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea. I loved the book when I read it a few months ago, and the club's theme for April was Japanese Literature. The members weren't familiar with the book or the author, so I watched as they buried their faces in their cellular devices to look up reviews, what the book was about and... trigger warnings. A girl suddenly looked up from her phone addressing me,
"Is there anything I should be aware of in this book?"
"You can be specific." I replied, just completely baffled and not really sure what she was getting at. If you have something to say or something to ask me, just do it. "There's no explicit violence in the book", I then added, still unsure of what the game was here.
"There can be other trigger warnings besides violence", a different girl added in, to which the first girl then listed off two trigger warnings.
Which I replied with "Yes, that's correct.".Then like an assembly line a third girl listed off two more trigger warnings, and received the same reply from me.
I was able to calm the masses and convince them to accept this book as our next book for discussion, but I was left in complete bemusement as to what just happened. I am familiar with trigger warnings, and I understand if you don't want to see something, or if you want to double check before you show a film or book to a younger person, but I had never encountered these sheltered types of people in real life. As a long time commended leftists, this is likely my most conservative belief. When it comes to media, sometimes you need to grow the fuck up. You will encounter subjects, circumstances, and ideas in books and art that are upsetting, but hey, that's fucking life. You don't know when a bad day is going to happen, you don't know when a good day is going to happen, it just hits you, and you deal with it. Why are people so soft when it comes to media literacy? Is this something that is just big with my generation? When did this shift occur? Is it possible to return to an unflinching reality? Is it really so bad to blindly confront yourself with potentially upsetting art? How often do you read reviews of books before you read them? Me? hardly ever.
I try my best to be understanding of different races, cultures, genders, sexualities, but sometimes, I'm baffled.
I will update this thread after our discussion of the book.
"Is there anything I should be aware of in this book?"
"You can be specific." I replied, just completely baffled and not really sure what she was getting at. If you have something to say or something to ask me, just do it. "There's no explicit violence in the book", I then added, still unsure of what the game was here.
"There can be other trigger warnings besides violence", a different girl added in, to which the first girl then listed off two trigger warnings.
Which I replied with "Yes, that's correct.".Then like an assembly line a third girl listed off two more trigger warnings, and received the same reply from me.
I was able to calm the masses and convince them to accept this book as our next book for discussion, but I was left in complete bemusement as to what just happened. I am familiar with trigger warnings, and I understand if you don't want to see something, or if you want to double check before you show a film or book to a younger person, but I had never encountered these sheltered types of people in real life. As a long time commended leftists, this is likely my most conservative belief. When it comes to media, sometimes you need to grow the fuck up. You will encounter subjects, circumstances, and ideas in books and art that are upsetting, but hey, that's fucking life. You don't know when a bad day is going to happen, you don't know when a good day is going to happen, it just hits you, and you deal with it. Why are people so soft when it comes to media literacy? Is this something that is just big with my generation? When did this shift occur? Is it possible to return to an unflinching reality? Is it really so bad to blindly confront yourself with potentially upsetting art? How often do you read reviews of books before you read them? Me? hardly ever.
I try my best to be understanding of different races, cultures, genders, sexualities, but sometimes, I'm baffled.
I will update this thread after our discussion of the book.
