Seeing as March is now almost over, I don't think I can call this blog post timely. I was going to provide you with a little review of a book by bell hooks titled; All About Love: New Visions, in honor of Valentine's day. And then another blog post in time for International Women's day. But I've since missed both of them, and one of those things is apparently not relevant anymore.
I've also managed to miss World Water Day, but that was because it conflicted with National Goof Off Day, which I was busy observing.
As some of you may have remembered, I mentioned in a previous post about how it can be difficult for someone who is wanting to know more about feminism to know where to start. I've definitely experienced this problem before creating this blog but I have since discovered that in this city we have an amazing Feminist Book Club.
The book club was started by Justine Little, with it's headquarters in Spartacus Books in East Vancouver, and meets once a month to talk about their latest book club selection. The FBC's facebook page had this to say. "The Feminist Book Club hopes to become a democratic collective dedicated to DIY education, respect, and community. The FBC aims to create a space to engage with feminist literature and other critical medias to facilitate growth and friendship in Vancouver's feminist community." They are also welcoming of anyone from any, race, class, sexual orientation, and gender identity, which means that men are also welcome to participate.
I must admit though, I did feel a bit nervous going to my first book club meeting, considering that I am a male and I identify as heterosexual. The problems that we would be discussing were ones that would have been brought about by hetero males, not to mention the fact that I thought I would be the only guy there. Turns out that my apprehensions were unfounded and I discovered that everyone there was very friendly and inviting. The discussion too was very pleasant and there were homemade snacks aplenty. Everyone there was also really interesting. There were activists, artists, writers, all sorts of creative, social justice types.
Anyway the book that we talked about was bell hooks' All About Love: New Visions. Bell hooks is quite an interesting woman, and a very important and respected thinker. She has written a lot on the connections between race, class and gender and how they are able to perpetuate systems of oppression.
Hooks writes about different kinds of love from romantic love, to friendship, to familial love and as a lot of great insight to offer. She examines how love has been written about in the past and how it has been gendered. How women and men have both been cultured to love, and the problems of how to love completely within a patriarchal society. Often the book is intensely personal as she draws upon her own experiences with love, and this honesty was very refreshing.
I am someone who tends to distrust critical and cultural theorists often because of how abstract, and full of jargon a lot of writing can be. While a lot of writing can be quite fascinating, there is a big gulf between academic theory and lived experience. I get the feeling of theorists talking the talk, but stumbling when it comes time to walk the walk. That's why All About Love is so interesting because throughout reading it I got the sense of hooks trying to walk that walk.
In the book she attempts to rewrite a definition of love, "the word "love" is most often defined as a noun, yet...we would all love to better if we used it as a verb." What she means by this is that love is not actually a feeling, as we have been cultured to believe, but something that we do. I certainly found this to be a really interesting and useful idea, and there were times when I felt so electrified by what she had to say that I wanted to run out and tell everyone I knew about this.
The chapters on communication, honesty, and ethics were just a few of the standouts for me. And the chapter on justice and children, made me want to go raise a kid, just based on the strengths of hooks's ideas. I wish I could get more into her ideas here but sadly this is simply a review.
Unfortunately, I also found a lot of the book to be downright bad. My experience of reading it was so strange because I felt I alternated wildly between being thrilled by what hooks was saying, and then just trying to slog through the muck of large badly written sections. In the end it became a hunt to try to just find those incredible moments of brilliance.
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| Come on Artax! We've got to get out of this swamp of self-help! |
Throughout the book, hooks heavily references various self-help books dealing with love. Often she does this with a great deal of criticality that cuts through the treacle to get to the useful bits, but I found that at times her criticality faltered and she became a sort of Oprah Winfrey character who would just heap praise on inane self-help authors. She would say things like, "so and so's profound insight helps to illuminate this revolutionary idea when they say..." then she goes on to give a quote that is not profound at all and actually incredibly dull and banal.
Other times hooks would end up taking up the writing style of a self-help book. One common thing that pops up in self-help writing is to back up whatever argument that is being made with anecdotal evidence. This thing happened to my friend Joe's daughter so it perfectly backs up what I have to say. Superficial arguments back up by flimsy evidence is something that I would expect from something like The Secret, or, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but I expect a little more from such an esteemed thinker as bell hooks.
I don't think I can give this book a wholehearted recommendation. There is so much about it that is so infuriating, or just plain irritating for me to be able to do that. The bad parts where so damn bad, but when the book was good, it was out of this world.
Next week. Back to business. Plus at least 50% more dumb pictures.
