Lionel Shriver

She's a fantastic mind and very good writer. It all gets a bit Margaret Drabble dense at times, but she has a searing sense of humor and a hard cold eye for heroes. We Need To Talk About Kevin is about so much more than a school shooter.

"So Much For That" is an even better book.

I agree she's a fierce intelligence. Not sure she'll ever achieve anything again like the brilliance of WNTTAK.

She's a stupid Brexiteer, hates Muslims, and shits on Hillary.

None of those are bad positions in and of themselves R3. Perhaps you can provide some nuanced examples. As has been said, she has a fierce intelligence. That's not always popular or populist.

Excellent discussion from a few nights ago between Lionel Shriver and Douglas Murray.

"Cultural appropriation" is a unicorn. To "appropriate" something is to take it away, or steal it, you know as if it is a finite thing. Cultures have been blending, borrowing and adapting as they come in contact with each other since man walked upright, so whether we eat spaghetti, wear silk pajamas, practice yoga or wear a dashiki, it's all fine! It is NOT offensive, it is in TRIBUTE YOU ASSHOLES!

The next time you hear some "progressive" shrieking about "cultural appropriation," ask yourself if they have "stolen" said culture and prevented ANYONE else from enjoying it! If the answer is "no", then they are merely "sharing" said culture because it is appealing.

Words matter, so why pretend this shit even matters?

Agreed, R6. If someone complains about cultural appropriation I ask if they eat pizza, use chopsticks, speak another language, or use any word from another language. Of course they do.

Lionel Shriver looks like a morph of Eileen Myles and Tom Cruise.

OP, no one here is going to watch an hour long interview with her (which you've provided).

Can you give us some highlights as to what she says?

I thought as you did, R8, but here I am 30 minutes in. It's a great conversation that touches on:

the predatory nature of cancel culture

how impoverished language is when we dilute terms through overuse ("racist" and "white supremacist," for example)

how her article from the year before, which was published on a paywalled site, was taken out of context resulting in her being called a racist

how she's against only speech that incites violence, but beyond that, let stupid people say stupid things and then tell them that they're stupid

how peculiar the academic world is, in part because universities are pricey, and families developed a buyer's bossiness (my phrase; don't remember her wording) about school but also because administration has more power than professors (and fewer professors have tenure), and any institution run by administrators is fucked because administrators are beaurocrats and beaurocrats are cowards

and now she's talking sense about how fiction writers are notably silent about such shit as how fiction writers are self-restricting to support this idea that they need to stay in their lane and refrain from writing characters who are different from the writer's own experiences.

She has an odd pronunciation of "speech."

Very interesting conversation.

Thanks, r9. Much appreciated.

We need to talk about Kevin was such a chilling book and I like how it left so much open to interpretation . I think Kevin was born severely mentally off to begin with but those early years of a cold and rejecting mother poisoned the well. While the fathers decision to move them to the suburbs was well intentioned, they might have all been better off staying in NYC where Kevin (and Eva ) would have been more mentally stimulated.

WNTTAK reminded me of The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing. I think that would make a fine movie too.

WNTTAK is, imo, her worst book and I've read them all, I think. That's faint condemnation, though, as it's the worst of hers and her stuff is generally excellent. Am going to watch both videos after I take my cookies out of the oven (not a euphemism).

Her stance on cultural appropriation is 100% right, although an easy stance to take because the opposite one is utterly incoherent (if you can't make art about any experience except those of people of your race, gender, age etc. etc., I guess we have to shut art down).

Thanks for the link...

I'm a big fan. Is she a lesbian?

Married to a man so not a lez.

Just watched the video. It was...OK. Nothing to do with LS so much as it is with mediocre Youtube "interviewers" being predictable in general. It was an hour of "SJW culture bad, free speech good, SJW culture authoritarian, left wing is eating itself" etc. Which, fine. An argument can be made. But it's just as turgid these days as the repetitive shouts of "NAZI!" coming from the people they're talking about. 3 minute montage at the end, set to dramatic music, of the interviewer appearing on british morning TV to talk about a university that asked him to sign a contract saying he wouldn't be sexist, homophobic, racist etc. blah blah before letting him do a show. Just don't do the fucking show, guy. Yes it's lame as hell of them but I'm really not sure the heart-pounding FREE SPEECH WARRIOR bit is warranted.

Anyway. Lionel S. is an interesting person (her pet issue was a minor surprise, though) and I would have appreciated more subtle, intelligent questioning and less self-congratulatory guffawing over how ridiculous the other side is. Like yes, they're ridiculous. But so is the nutjob faction of the right. Let's talk about something fresh. it's boring watching people specifically picking the loudest, stupidest representatives of the other side and then arguing with them.

Also the name of the YT channel is 'Triggernometry'

BILLBURR Ohhhhhh Jeeeeeesusss /BILLBURR

Another great interview with Lionel. Her comments on Woody Allen and Mia Farrow will probably trigger the fraus here.

If she's not a DLer she should be. Here she makes some valid points about epidemiologists and public health officials enjoying their "moment in the sun" during the current crisis a little too much:

One of the living greats. I'm afraid intellect like hers is going the way of the dodo. I'd love to know how she spends her days, beyond writing. She sure ain't watching Netflix and scrolling Instagram.

Who? Well if she's such a great intellect i'm sure she's loving her leader Chump making her side look like lying baffoons.

R20 - if you've seen interviews with her you would know she is not a Trumptard.

Just because she challenges 'Woke' ideology does not mean she is a Far Right crazy.

R21: Some people are confused by independent thinkers and anyone they can't fit into a neat little ideological box.

After watching the video R18 posted, I felt that Shriver and Brendan O'Neill both enjoyed basking in the public spotlight to push their own (ridiculous) contrarian stance on COVID much more than any of the public health officials they gleefully mock. I respect independent thinking, but her ignorance regarding the pandemic is cringe-worthy.

r23 She's jealous that health experts are relevant now and she's not.

Is she related to Maria Shriver?

Profile in this week's New Yorker:

[quote]What’s remarkable is that Shriver, who is at her most lyrical and compelling when contemplating her characters’ ambivalence, is so inordinately assured of her positions on real-world issues that many of us find confounding. Immigration, for example. “I’m willing to admit that strict policies are potentially good for ‘us’ and bad for ‘them,’ ” Shriver told me last fall, when she was at home in London, preparing dinner for some friends. “But the European sensibility is very uncomfortable with self-interest. You would never do something just because it’s good for you—it has to be good. And I reject that!” She banged a pan of homemade cannelloni into the oven. (Shriver was a caterer before she was a writer.) “My whole sensibility is pretty brutal,” she said. “I believe that it is the right of countries to decide that, even though all these people want to come to your country and work in nail salons and send a bunch of money home, that doesn’t mean you necessarily let them in.” That day, the London papers had led with the story of thirty-nine Vietnamese people who died trying to sneak into England in a refrigerated container truck. “The coverage has been incredibly sentimental,” Shriver continued, as Williams, a lanky man of sixty-nine, poured wine. “I mean, I’m sorry for their sake that they are dead, but insofar as it instigates yet another conversation about immigration—‘Well, it’s our fault, because we don’t let people come in by regular channels, so they’re forced to come in the freezer containers’—if you advance that argument, you let everybody in, and then the country they’re coming for no longer exists.” She had argued strenuously for Brexit in her columns and on numerous television programs and podcasts.

It's always funny to me when so-called "liberals" go off about the "far left" as they themselves are fine with bigotry and create lies about what the "far left's" position actually is. It's also funny how they have endless, tiresome "observations" about the "far left" yet don't go on similar, long-winded diatribes about right-wing hate or them showing up with GUNS because they can't get a haircut. Also interesting that the same gays who whine about "cancel culture" were fine when Kevin Hart lost his Oscar gig...because I guess anything deemed offensive to (white) gays doesn't fall under "political correctness running amok." Tears over gay jokes are REAL, but blaming millions of people for the actions of individuals when they're a certain race or religion is apparently normal.

[quote]None of those are bad positions in and of themselves [R3].

Because you're a bigot.

[quote] Because you're a bigot.

R18 Great interview. It should be a must for everyone to hear.

hope she dies

Death to people who disagree with me.