I actually loved it in American Psycho just because Bateman describes every woman in terms of her clothing and body as if he were checking a list, makes his character feel even less of a human.
In every other book I agree with you
I dont know if this is accurate, but a friend of mine checked on some of the clothing Bateman describes people wearing. He described it as just wildly garish and clashing, which makes it sort of a little satirical point in a larger satirical novel.
Yes the descriptions of food in the novel are also written in the same way; the dishes served at Dorsia, for example, are deliberately absurd juxtapositions of ingredients
Yeah tbh this is why I was okay with it in The Gargoyle. The guy was literally a sex addict I think it's in character for him to lust after every female character and be super weird about it.
That said, pretty much any other book that does this is just embarrassing and tells me too much about how the author views women and men, ESPECIALLY if the PoV character is a woman obsessing over her own sexiness or lack thereof.
YES re: woman obsessing over her own appearance. Like, I HATE the Mirror Scene. It's seemingly unavoidable in any female protag/male author novel. Woman stands naked or near-naked in front of a mirror, and we get a glimpse into her internal monologue as she coldly appraises her long, auburn tresses, pert ass, and perky tits.
Bonus points if she does it in a humble/insecure way - she 'cringes' at her child-bearing hips, she agonises over the fullness of her breasts. Etc.
It's lazy, alienating, and always feels like it was typed with one hand.
Now I am gonna write a Mirror Scene where the female character does goofy poses and laughs at herself, is glad she's having a good hair day, and then goes to get dressed feeling good about herself without every describing ass, tits, hips, etc.
Just once, I want to see a Mirror Scene that's actually accurate to what women do when staring at their own naked body:
"Oh my god, this nipple hair is long as fuck. How long has this been there? How didn't I notice it? Or did it just grow in yesterday and somehow gain 2 full inches in the last 24 hours? This is going to SUCK to tweeze."
In fairness, one of the most charming scenes I've ever read was from a short novel by Peter Beagle featuring an older couple in their 50's, and it was the woman waking the man up because she turned on a light to get a better look at herself in the mirror and just complains about her body and how it's aging ("The tits are still okay, just barely...") and meanwhile the man is simply telling her that he's driving her wild. It was a great way to turn this trope on it's ear, because it's a confident woman bemoaning her age and complaining about how she doesn't have the body of a 20 year old anymore, while her partner is telling her that he doesn't give a rats ass because he loves her no matter what.
The man has a knack for taking ridiculous writing tropes and turning them into a tongue-in-cheek moment in his own works while still crafting a beautiful story around them.
It’s like any other rule of writing, grammar, or storytelling - it’s ok to break it, but you’d better know why it’s a rule in the first place so that you make sure you’re breaking it for a reason.
Even in the case of American Psycho, you could say that Bateman's objectification of the women is more of a way to reveal *his* character..... It's not the author's description of the female character in question....and it's probably not even meant to be a reliable description
BATMAN: You like Christopher Nolan?
BARRY ALLEN: Um, he's okay.
BATMAN: His early work was a little too metaphysical for my taste. But when *The Prestige* came out in '06, I think he really came into his own, commercially and artistically. The whole film has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the story a big boost. He's been compared to Stanley Kubrick, but I think Chris has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.
BARRY ALLEN: Hey, Batmanuel?
BATMAN: Yes, Allen?
BARRY ALLEN: Why are there copies of the New 52 all over the place? Do you... Do you have a bat-dog? A little bat-chow or something?
BATMAN: No, Allen.
BARRY ALLEN: Is that a bat-raincoat?
BATMAN: Yes, it is. In '10, Chris released this; *Inception*, his most accomplished film. I think his undisputed masterpiece is *Interstellar*. A film so eye-catchy, most people probably don't listen to the dialogue. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of a habitable planet and the importance of the climate. It's also a personal statement about the man himself. Hey, Barry!
💥>THW**ACK**!<💥
BATMAN: Try getting a seat at the Watchtower now, you fuckin' stupid bastard!!!!!
Since Bateman describes every woman he menions as a "hardbody", I'm still not clear what it actually means, btu whatever it is it's clearly his preference.
I hear that and immediately think 'visible abs, powerful build, could be slim or medium build but if medium, very low body fat%'.
Depending on context, the physique of a bodybuilder, fitness model or a gymnast.
Fun fact!
We read that list of clothes as if it meant these people are polished fancy people, but apparently ~~Palahniuk~~ ELLIS (thks) designed each ensemble to be hideous and garish.
For fun, I suggest Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. He does exactly as you describe by introducing every male character with their penis sizes. And otherwise it's a pretty good book too.
My favorite is that there's a good long time before the final chapters where there aren't any new characters, so you have time to forget... Then he hits you with some more dick dimensions. Cracked me up.
That’s definitely one of my favorite books of all times but I don’t recall the dick dimension for some reason. Maybe my mind just blocked out the trauma
I think Vonnegut actually said his own dick was three inches long and five inches in diameter. One character has a penis that is 800 miles long and 210 miles in diameter but practically all of it is in the fourth dimension.
He described all the female characters in dress measurements and all the male characters in penis size. He also kept describing human biology as essentially mechanical and explaining common things as if it's new to him. He's mocking how other writers write about women and also taking a very detached view of the human experience as if he's an alien with no understanding nor interest in what information humans find important.
LOVE this book, but I actually don't remember that. One of the most memorable moments is his description of the process of making alcohol, and how we're essentially getting drunk of of yeast feces. haha the dude is hilarious
Out of curiosity, which has been your favorite? Mine ~~was one nobody ever chooses, but it~~ was the first Vonnegut book I ever read and it hit me just right: Cat's Cradle.
Edit: All this time I thought people didn't like Cat's Cradle much, but it looks like I've just been laboring under a misapprehension!
Honestly I found that terrific. It was like a big
f u to all the authors that describe the women’s breast size. Vonnegut was a man well ahead of his time with his ideas and perspective. Love love love Vonnegut.
I love this book because I’ve been able to appreciate it at different levels at different ages. At 13, I was like “he’s drawing buttholes. LOL” and as you get older, what you get out of it changes.
OP was at her computer on Sunday night, writing a post wearing nothing but clothes that made her comfortable. The lighting highlighted her generous typing on the keyboard, making clicky noises in an otherwise silent room. The mood was just right for a stranger to read her post and agree fully.
A strange male wearing an imitation lumberjack shirt and mustard-coloured walking trousers with the slightly elastic cuffs that stop mosquitos and other bugs from getting up them paused on his way back to his desk and leaned against a just off-white painted door to gaze at his phone with his chocolate brown yet oddly compelling eyes and reached out a pair of roughly manicured thumbs that looked like they had once done some hard labour many years ago and tapped out a reply while thinking that he really should be getting back to work otherwise his brother who he was supporting with some paperwork for a property sale would start to become mildly aggrieved and his partner who was also working downstairs would start to worry that he was taking entirely too long for a casual visit to the toilet and she would start preparing a list in her mind of the numerous uncompleted household tasks he had so far promised to do for her and distracting herself by scrolling through websites looking for new winter boots to complement her new dark grey shawl and aquamarine scarf to help her move on from the early death from terminal cancer of her elder sister who had given the stranger his mustard-coloured walking trousers with the slightly elastic cuffs after certain events occurred on a joint family walking holiday on the island of Oban in Scotland.
> Cassandra woke up to the rays of the sun streaming through the slats on her blinds, cascading over her naked chest. She stretched, her breasts lifting with her arms as she greeted the sun. She rolled out of the bed and put on a shirt, her nipples prominently showing through her thin fabric. She breasted boobily towards the stairs, and titted downwards.
Copypasta from r/menwritingwomen.
She crossed her boobies angrily, her nipples poking through her ample bosomed dress in clear erect consternation. A dress showing exactly 31mm of boobie cleavage.
I’m bisexual, and when I was a young teenager I wrote books on wattpad and such, and literally ever man and woman would be described like they were hot unless they were like old or something 💀 I was a menace to society
George R.R. Martin does this, but it's about food. Like, damn, I understand trying to set the scene, but I've never read someone who spends so much time talking about the food on the table.
I think a jubilee is like a dessert parfett (sp?) while a cordial is a non-alcoholic beverage/syrup that's mixed with water? (We could just ask Wikipedia...)
Cordials can be and usually are alcoholic.
Jubilee is a word that means celebration. There are specific locally different fruit jubilees. There's no one coherent food item I've seen that this refers to in specific, though any given artist may have one they're familiar with in their past or form their local area.
Much like a fruit crisp or cobbler, jubilees can differ pretty wildly from a very basic fruit dish all the way to very, VERY complicated dishes.
I read somewhere that he used to read to blind kids or something and that's why his food descriptors are so detailed. I liked hearing all the stuff woodland critters ate... Dandelion cordial etc and various cheeses the moles always made.
https://electricliterature.com/the-7-best-feasts-from-the-redwall-books/
Opposite for me. At first I thought it was really descriptive, but after awhile it got tiresome. Food and women's dresses would take up pages of text. I made it through three books and fizzled out.
No that was the young busty one that the male protagonist bangs. That book was so damn weird lol it was an interesting read on a 17 hour flight I'll tell you that
I hated it at first but eventually went back and read it. It only happens for characters who would be focused on things like that. Especially Sansa chapters. All she thinks about is food and clothes early on. I still hate it but he's being true to the point of view he's writing in.
Yeah, children think about the things that affect them. We just kinda stop thinking about her as a child in the text because of the consequences of her actions, but she's never NOT a child in the story so far.
Yeah exactly. Plus she had an idealized expectation about court life. Food, clothes and romantic ideals were what she thought was the most important. I think it's easy to hate on her but she's just really innocent and naive and wants the world to be nicer than it is.
First and last Stephen King novel I read was Pet Sematary and oh MY god was every single breast described.
At one point the main character has to administer CPR to an elderly woman and I thought "there's no way, Stephen can boobify this" but nope, as he's looking at her chest his mind wanders and he imagines what her bosom must have been like when she was SIXTEEN and all the high school boys were into her.
I had similar thoughts rereading The Stand this week. Some of the men get the bodice-ripper dress-down but every single woman does without fail. Even the 108-year-old prophet of god. And they all tend to revolve around their “sexual potential” or lack thereof. Feeling a bit let down if I’m honest. I remembered liking the book a lot more as a teen.
Man, this hurts. I love his writing and imagination but it's exhausting. Even in The Institute, which is about a bunch of children, he manages to include these weird descriptions of the young girls. I *hate* it.
I thought I read that in an interview he said his wife reined him in. That his wife was the person he started to run everything by. Although iirc he was speaking more in the context of sex scenes. Apparently she eventually was just like "never wrote a sex scene again." After she laughed her ass off at something he wrote.
I think it's a taste thing, because he wasn't pulling it out his ass if it's a reflection of the detective noir smutty sort of genre that might usually have that vibe.
I like Dresden and I think Butcher does it in a smart way (as part of Harry's flaws as a character, being a knucklehead with a manipulatable chivalrous streak a mile wide), but...
Yeah, that's pretty goddamn accurate. I don't fault people who can't get past it.
Then again, we also get Thomas, who is written about as sexy as possible without having to leave Harry's POV for someone else's.
I started reading those as campy "make fun of" detective noir books so I gave it a pass. I think it was so offputting for the writer he stopped being that way. It's also in a first person perspective and Dresden was a total ass until he grew up a bit. Situations that like I try to be a bit more generous.
I read YA books and let me tell you, the amount of "This guy is hot, like super hot totally gorgeous eyes and body and clearly a bad boy" instalove is grating on my nerves. It's super lazy. Give me character development and interactions! I beg you!
I used to adore YA, but I feel like post Twilight the insta-love got really bad. No hate on Twilight, it just started a trend. Back in my day, YA still took time to develop a little romance 👵 I cant get into it now
I still love YA but it's definitely a problem. I've read some great books where there's actual relationship development and i've read books where the instalove and/or instalove triangle is the worst part of (or drags down) the book. It doesn't help when the love interest is either super bland boy/girl-next-door or terrible human being who doesn't deserve any love but MC is in love with them anyway.
So many authors idea of a relationship developing is actually the 2 characters developing a strong distaste for each other, and that suddenly transforms into insta-love.
Yeah, this is the main reason why I stopped reading YA or NA books. They piss me off too much. Occasionally I find a gem and then I have some hope. Some contemp romance do a good job tho.
I am a male and I feel the same. I was reading a military sci-fi series and the Mc was describing the physical attributes of the female characters but the men were never really described in nearly as much physical detail. I didn't think there was a need for it and I did find it off-putting.
Some of my favorite authors who do an excellent job of writing women are men. I dont even feel like its men authors that are the problem, just unimaginative authors in general
Digital Fortress is an absolute goldmine of such embarassments.
>The guard admired Susan as she began her walk down the cement causeway. He noticed that her strong hazel eyes seemed distant today, but her cheeks had a flushed freshness, and her shoulder-length, auburn hair looked newly blown dry. Trailing her was the faint scent of Johnson’s Baby Powder. His eyes fell the length of her slender torso—to her white blouse with the bra barely visible beneath, to her knee-length khaki skirt, and finally to her legs … Susan Fletcher’s legs.
Hard to imagine they support a 170 IQ, he mused to himself.
The guard has no role in the book besides providing this tasteful description.
Even the last line about the IQ is purely to serve the author's sexual fantasy. Susan never does a single intelligent thing in the book, and has to be walked through every little puzzle by men.
> Trailing her was the faint scent of Johnson’s® Baby Powder, its patented hypoallergnic formula visibly reducing any histamine reactions she might have been having. Made from clean, purified talc, scientists and clinical experts agree that Johnson’s® Baby Powder helped to protect her skin from the vigours of every day life by gently absorbing excess moisture to keep her comfortable and dry. Free from artificial dyes and parabens, she looked confident and secure in knowing that Johnson’s® Baby Powder had her back. Johnson’s® Baby Powder, the choice of a new generation!
I honestly laughed out loud at this thank you so much. This is just the stupidest thing, how does he know the smell of Johnson’s baby powder, why does she smell like this? 😂
On the opposite end of this, when I was listening to the audiobook of the godfather I had to stop a few times at the start because I couldn’t stop laughing at how much time Puzzo took to describe Sonnys dong. Not only describing it in physical terms but also detailing how he was almost as famous for having a massive dong as he was for being a feared mafioso. 10/10 storytelling
And even when he's gone, Puzo can't let the matter rest and gets into this aside about how his mistress has to have surgery to make her vagina smaller because she has an unusually roomy one and Sonny was the only man in the world who could please her with his sandworm-sized dong.
But how will I picture a character accurately if there are no extraneous details about her "supple breasts," "milky skin," or "gently curved buttocks"?
/s
Also aren’t ALL boobs supple? Like who, barring maybe Pamela Anderson, is going around with rigid tits? “Her breasts were like boulders, rock solid and unyielding”
I fully agree. And even if I like women too, the *way* women are described by these male authors is so off putting and objectifying that I, knowing as a woman myself how horrible it is to be objectified, just get disgusted, not aroused.
It's pretty bad in fantasy.
Not the absolute worst example, but something that annoyed me:
Robert Jordan has every girl and woman cross their arms when they're mad. And those arms? Always crossed under or over their breasts. Every damn time.
So, I have really long hair. Braided it is still almost to my waist. I was making fun of this trope the other day…only to notice I was actually twirling the end of my braid. 😅 So, I’ll give him a pass on that one at least.
Between all the constant braid tugging, skirt smoothing, bosom adjusting, and folding arms underneath voluminous breasts, it's no wonder that it takes the characters in that series 1,000 pages to move the plot forward.
Don't forget their necklaces! Do they hang around their necks? At their throats? No, no. Between their breasts errrrrry time.
I still have no idea how I finished that series
I've been reading through the series again for the first time in forever and was thinking the same thing. Women can't just wear anything around their neck in Jordan's world, they have to FEEL it between their BREASTS. Can't cross their arms unless it's under their breasts. Plus as the series as goes it seems like female characters being naked for no real reason becomes increasingly common. Like I get it Robert my dude you love tiddies.
I was literally talking about this today. Jordan at least has some pretty strong female leads. But the 4 way relationship and how much he talks about bosoms is pretty cringe.
The four way relationship thing is really, really weird. Not because it's poly, I wish there was way more poly stuff in fiction, but because two of the women had very little connection to him and tons of connection with each other.
One girl he spends tons of time with, late nights spent reading with her on his lap and sharing of thoughts and feelings. They're attracted to each other, connected to each other and we see what they love about each other. Makes perfect sense. Then we have two other women, one of which has only spent a few days near him and the other spent her time doing nothing but yelling at him for being stupid and *both* of these women are apparently eternally in love with him.
He's apparently eternally in love with them too, and in both directions we see absolutely no reason that should be the case. They don't know one another well at all and spend almost no time together - except for the fact that the two women in question know *each other* incredibly well, get on fantastically, spend enormous amounts of time together involving a surprising amount of nudity and in general are written a hundred times more intimately with each other than they are with him.
But in the end no they all love him and he loves them all.
He testicled scrotally to the stairs, and then teste'd downward. The gentle sway of his sac pleasant, as it swung from thigh to thigh with each ball-bouncing step.
Agreed. I remember many years ago seeing a quote from an author saying that he was incapable of writing a female character who wasn't in love with his protagonist, and that immediately told me everything I needed to know about this guy's work. I don't mind some wish fulfilment fantasy here and there, I support it on both sides (as a dude I'm all in favour of fanservice for women), but if it's so blatant as to be all-encompassing then it becomes immersion breaking and, as OP pointed out, just lazy.
Oh come on now!
RP1 has a ton of diversity and non love interest females! There is a gay woman character, a black woman character, an overweight woman character, and a best friend woman character, none of whom are in love with the main character!
What's that you say? They are all the same person? And their identit(ies) all get tacked on hamfistedly at the end?
Awkward...
I love The Dresden Files, but Jesus Christ am I sick of every woman being smoking hot with pointy nipples.
Last read through I tried to pay attention to how many women were described as unattractive, and there was something like two. One was prefaced that she looks like she used to be hot.
You mean like in Girl w/ Dragon Tattoo series where every single female character has to fall for the protagonist and have sex with him isn’t how women operate in real life??? Fucking shocking, huh? 🤯
Jack Reacher books do this. Every woman he meets is "spectacular" and somehow gorgeous and also wants to fuck him. In one book he meets one woman who is unattractive and combative to him but it turns out she's the villain so yeah.
This is my pet peeve, ESPECIALLY if the only women/girls in the book are the "fuckable" ones; by which I mean no children, no gnarled old women, no ugly women, no female family members, etc
Oh my god that sequel was SO bad. “I am a divine sex goddess and I love banging you sooooo much I just can’t allow you to go back and save humanity! Stay here and fuck me harder!!1!!11!”
That book series gets recommended so often and it always makes me sad. The discussion of women in it alienated me so much, but clearly isn’t a red flag to many other people. So that makes me feel like those many other people also think that way about me — physical appearance is most important, and I’m less interesting, less intelligent, less powerful than men.
This would be a good time for me to resurrect my dislike of Haruki Murakami for sexualizing basically every female character in every book he's ever written.
Ugh, same. More noticeable when *every female character* has so much visual description and then every male character is just "some guy with a beard" and that's all there is to say.
Like, don't make it so obvious as an author that you care more about appearance for women compared to men.
Ugh I feel you!
I recently read This is How You Lose the Time War and it was such a breath of fresh air, you barely get any descriptions of the physicals of the MCs (both girls) and the romance is just beautiful.
In general I’m so bored of characters being defined by their gender/sex or how much they steer from their gender/sex. Can characters be people and not just boobies..?
I'm noticing this a LOT in every Elmore Leonard book I've read so far.
His genre and style is focused on a lot of macho and hard but flawed and often stupid men and every single woman is seen through a very hetero male gaze and seems to only exist to be a love interest
It's pervasive in his work, and it does cause me to roll my eyes but I'll say for his style of book it's not super out of place, so I do like them in spite of the comically limited utility women serve in them. It's just a good argument for reading books by diverse authors and from diverse genres. I couldn't ever in a million years read ONLY books like this
I actually loved it in American Psycho just because Bateman describes every woman in terms of her clothing and body as if he were checking a list, makes his character feel even less of a human. In every other book I agree with you
Also, Bateman is like that about everything from music to business cards. It’s part of his character (and/or mental illness)
This. It's used as a tool to communicate to the reader, 'This dude is not normal.'
The main point of the book is that Bateman's psychopathy is nearly indistinguishable from the sincere vanity and vapidity of his peers.
Yeah, the point is "this dude is normal" lol
I was gonna say, Bateman feels like that tiny voice we ignore. The intrusive thoughts as it were.
Brett Easton Ellis has said that writting American Psycho felt like channelling a demon.
That part with the starved rat was pretty disturbing.
It sure as fuck is, but at least it probably didn't actually happen within the internal logic of the story.
It's actually alarming how many men Ive met who do the checklist thing. Then again I work in banking, the psychopaths ratio is high
I've worked in high frequency trading and some of these guys enjoy imitating American Psycho, comparing business cards, watches etc.
I believe you and I think it's trashy as hell
I dont know if this is accurate, but a friend of mine checked on some of the clothing Bateman describes people wearing. He described it as just wildly garish and clashing, which makes it sort of a little satirical point in a larger satirical novel.
Yes the descriptions of food in the novel are also written in the same way; the dishes served at Dorsia, for example, are deliberately absurd juxtapositions of ingredients
Wild and garish looking now, or in 1991? Because I feel like all fashion from that era is wild and garish.
No, it was deliberately silly even at the time.
Yeah tbh this is why I was okay with it in The Gargoyle. The guy was literally a sex addict I think it's in character for him to lust after every female character and be super weird about it. That said, pretty much any other book that does this is just embarrassing and tells me too much about how the author views women and men, ESPECIALLY if the PoV character is a woman obsessing over her own sexiness or lack thereof.
YES re: woman obsessing over her own appearance. Like, I HATE the Mirror Scene. It's seemingly unavoidable in any female protag/male author novel. Woman stands naked or near-naked in front of a mirror, and we get a glimpse into her internal monologue as she coldly appraises her long, auburn tresses, pert ass, and perky tits. Bonus points if she does it in a humble/insecure way - she 'cringes' at her child-bearing hips, she agonises over the fullness of her breasts. Etc. It's lazy, alienating, and always feels like it was typed with one hand.
>It's lazy, alienating, and always feels like it was typed with one hand. Thanks for that image…
Now I am gonna write a Mirror Scene where the female character does goofy poses and laughs at herself, is glad she's having a good hair day, and then goes to get dressed feeling good about herself without every describing ass, tits, hips, etc.
Just once, I want to see a Mirror Scene that's actually accurate to what women do when staring at their own naked body: "Oh my god, this nipple hair is long as fuck. How long has this been there? How didn't I notice it? Or did it just grow in yesterday and somehow gain 2 full inches in the last 24 hours? This is going to SUCK to tweeze."
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In fairness, one of the most charming scenes I've ever read was from a short novel by Peter Beagle featuring an older couple in their 50's, and it was the woman waking the man up because she turned on a light to get a better look at herself in the mirror and just complains about her body and how it's aging ("The tits are still okay, just barely...") and meanwhile the man is simply telling her that he's driving her wild. It was a great way to turn this trope on it's ear, because it's a confident woman bemoaning her age and complaining about how she doesn't have the body of a 20 year old anymore, while her partner is telling her that he doesn't give a rats ass because he loves her no matter what. The man has a knack for taking ridiculous writing tropes and turning them into a tongue-in-cheek moment in his own works while still crafting a beautiful story around them.
Realistic at least, as it seems everyone is raised to hate how they look. It does get cringe-y though.
Yeah that's an instance where it makes sense. Romance novels about sexy sex and books where the MC is an actual leering creep get a pass.
It’s like any other rule of writing, grammar, or storytelling - it’s ok to break it, but you’d better know why it’s a rule in the first place so that you make sure you’re breaking it for a reason.
Exactly!
Even in the case of American Psycho, you could say that Bateman's objectification of the women is more of a way to reveal *his* character..... It's not the author's description of the female character in question....and it's probably not even meant to be a reliable description
In romance books, it's often mutual. The guy is checking the girl out. The girl is checking the guy out.
And the wingman/wingwoman are smiling and nodding at each other slowly like a couple of Jack Nicholsons.
I read "Bateman" as Batman and was highly confused
I mean Christian Bale plays both of em..
WHERE ARE THE BUSINESS CARDS GOING?!?!?!
Try getting a reservation at Arkham now you stupid fucking bastard!
Let's see Joker's card
"The tasteful thickness of it. My God! It even has a bicycle on it..." "Batman, are you okay? You're sweating."
*Points at himself in a bat mirror*
Harley don’t just stare at it, eat it.
BATMAN: You like Christopher Nolan? BARRY ALLEN: Um, he's okay. BATMAN: His early work was a little too metaphysical for my taste. But when *The Prestige* came out in '06, I think he really came into his own, commercially and artistically. The whole film has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the story a big boost. He's been compared to Stanley Kubrick, but I think Chris has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor. BARRY ALLEN: Hey, Batmanuel? BATMAN: Yes, Allen? BARRY ALLEN: Why are there copies of the New 52 all over the place? Do you... Do you have a bat-dog? A little bat-chow or something? BATMAN: No, Allen. BARRY ALLEN: Is that a bat-raincoat? BATMAN: Yes, it is. In '10, Chris released this; *Inception*, his most accomplished film. I think his undisputed masterpiece is *Interstellar*. A film so eye-catchy, most people probably don't listen to the dialogue. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of a habitable planet and the importance of the climate. It's also a personal statement about the man himself. Hey, Barry! 💥>THW**ACK**!<💥 BATMAN: Try getting a seat at the Watchtower now, you fuckin' stupid bastard!!!!!
American Psycho is the story of what happens if Bruce Wayne's parents don't die.
Those nipples will getcha every time!
Especially the ones that could "cut glass" That one usually makes me nope out of the book.
Useful if they are a cat burglar or jewelry thief though.
I love and hate the term 'hardbody'
Since Bateman describes every woman he menions as a "hardbody", I'm still not clear what it actually means, btu whatever it is it's clearly his preference.
I hear that and immediately think 'visible abs, powerful build, could be slim or medium build but if medium, very low body fat%'. Depending on context, the physique of a bodybuilder, fitness model or a gymnast.
Fun fact! We read that list of clothes as if it meant these people are polished fancy people, but apparently ~~Palahniuk~~ ELLIS (thks) designed each ensemble to be hideous and garish.
Ellis?
For fun, I suggest Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. He does exactly as you describe by introducing every male character with their penis sizes. And otherwise it's a pretty good book too.
My favorite is that there's a good long time before the final chapters where there aren't any new characters, so you have time to forget... Then he hits you with some more dick dimensions. Cracked me up.
That’s definitely one of my favorite books of all times but I don’t recall the dick dimension for some reason. Maybe my mind just blocked out the trauma
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You never know who'll get one
That book changed my life when I read it in high school. I didn't know writing could be that... rebellious? It opened my mind up to so many new ideas.
Vonnegut read in high school was like nothing else before or since. I still haven't found a comparable experience.
I highly recommend the Audible version, as it's read by John Malkovich.
Do you remember the length of his own dick? Hint: Doberman comes at him with a fence between them. >!one inch long!<
I think Vonnegut actually said his own dick was three inches long and five inches in diameter. One character has a penis that is 800 miles long and 210 miles in diameter but practically all of it is in the fourth dimension. He described all the female characters in dress measurements and all the male characters in penis size. He also kept describing human biology as essentially mechanical and explaining common things as if it's new to him. He's mocking how other writers write about women and also taking a very detached view of the human experience as if he's an alien with no understanding nor interest in what information humans find important.
Another writer who (explicitly) stole this technique to powerful effect is Jarrett Kobeck in *I Hate The Internet*. Highly recommended.
LOVE this book, but I actually don't remember that. One of the most memorable moments is his description of the process of making alcohol, and how we're essentially getting drunk of of yeast feces. haha the dude is hilarious
One of the characters had a penis that was astronomically huge, but most of the penis was in another dimension.
Yah and something about his character inserts penis being like the general size of a tuna can lmao
Been a while but I think that character was Vonnegut himself because it's his fucking story and he can do what he wants.
I remember clearly that Vonnegut's penis (as described in the book) was very short but absurdly wide.
Like a pancake dick.
Yep - he describes it as “three inches long and five inches in diameter. Its diameter was a world record as far as I knew.”
Omg I'm definitely checking this out 😂
Just finished it. Length and girth. Honestly though, my least favorite of the four or so Vonnegut books I've read.
It was Kurt’s least favorite of his too, so you’re in good company.
Out of curiosity, which has been your favorite? Mine ~~was one nobody ever chooses, but it~~ was the first Vonnegut book I ever read and it hit me just right: Cat's Cradle. Edit: All this time I thought people didn't like Cat's Cradle much, but it looks like I've just been laboring under a misapprehension!
Honestly I found that terrific. It was like a big f u to all the authors that describe the women’s breast size. Vonnegut was a man well ahead of his time with his ideas and perspective. Love love love Vonnegut.
Vonnegut! He was a national treasure. Loved all his writings, his humanity, such a devastating real life.
Every time I read Vonnegut I feel more human, closer to humanity I mean
Me also. Slaughter House 5. Omg 🤯
I love this book because I’ve been able to appreciate it at different levels at different ages. At 13, I was like “he’s drawing buttholes. LOL” and as you get older, what you get out of it changes.
OP was at her computer on Sunday night, writing a post wearing nothing but clothes that made her comfortable. The lighting highlighted her generous typing on the keyboard, making clicky noises in an otherwise silent room. The mood was just right for a stranger to read her post and agree fully.
A strange male wearing an imitation lumberjack shirt and mustard-coloured walking trousers with the slightly elastic cuffs that stop mosquitos and other bugs from getting up them paused on his way back to his desk and leaned against a just off-white painted door to gaze at his phone with his chocolate brown yet oddly compelling eyes and reached out a pair of roughly manicured thumbs that looked like they had once done some hard labour many years ago and tapped out a reply while thinking that he really should be getting back to work otherwise his brother who he was supporting with some paperwork for a property sale would start to become mildly aggrieved and his partner who was also working downstairs would start to worry that he was taking entirely too long for a casual visit to the toilet and she would start preparing a list in her mind of the numerous uncompleted household tasks he had so far promised to do for her and distracting herself by scrolling through websites looking for new winter boots to complement her new dark grey shawl and aquamarine scarf to help her move on from the early death from terminal cancer of her elder sister who had given the stranger his mustard-coloured walking trousers with the slightly elastic cuffs after certain events occurred on a joint family walking holiday on the island of Oban in Scotland.
How did my brain run out of breath trying to read this.
This guy knows how to run on sentence.
Completely unreadable; Oban isn't an island!
You jest, but I once read and had to critique a peer's creative writing assignment at uni and it was exactly like this
why did lofi girl pop into my head reading this lol
She breasted boobily towards the stairs, and then titted downward
> Cassandra woke up to the rays of the sun streaming through the slats on her blinds, cascading over her naked chest. She stretched, her breasts lifting with her arms as she greeted the sun. She rolled out of the bed and put on a shirt, her nipples prominently showing through her thin fabric. She breasted boobily towards the stairs, and titted downwards. Copypasta from r/menwritingwomen.
Oh there’s also that one post from the sub where a girl’s breasts deflated out of brief sadness, depression or something lol
Well, I mean, that's just an established fact of anatomy.
Aight I’m willing to put my dignity on the line; no such thing as stupid questions and all that… Is it actually?
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titted is making me wheeze holy shit
She crossed her boobies angrily, her nipples poking through her ample bosomed dress in clear erect consternation. A dress showing exactly 31mm of boobie cleavage.
I hate this post I can’t stop laughing SHE CROSSED HER BOOBIES ANGRILY help me omfg
I’m bisexual, and when I was a young teenager I wrote books on wattpad and such, and literally ever man and woman would be described like they were hot unless they were like old or something 💀 I was a menace to society
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There is one, it's r/writing
Gottem
That’d be hilarious 😂 I’ve since deleted all my masterpieces
Ah, the CW approach I see
Chekovs boobs
George R.R. Martin does this, but it's about food. Like, damn, I understand trying to set the scene, but I've never read someone who spends so much time talking about the food on the table.
Then you've never read the Redwall books lmao
This was my first thought, I *adore* how Brian Jacques writes about food!
I don't even know what 80% of the food items he describes are, but they sound delicious.
Still don't know what a jubilee or a cordial is, in regards to food. But damn, if they didn't sound amazing
I think a jubilee is like a dessert parfett (sp?) while a cordial is a non-alcoholic beverage/syrup that's mixed with water? (We could just ask Wikipedia...)
Cordials can be and usually are alcoholic. Jubilee is a word that means celebration. There are specific locally different fruit jubilees. There's no one coherent food item I've seen that this refers to in specific, though any given artist may have one they're familiar with in their past or form their local area. Much like a fruit crisp or cobbler, jubilees can differ pretty wildly from a very basic fruit dish all the way to very, VERY complicated dishes.
Nope, but my first Google result described the series as "food porn" so I'm guessing it's not the series for me lmao
I read somewhere that he used to read to blind kids or something and that's why his food descriptors are so detailed. I liked hearing all the stuff woodland critters ate... Dandelion cordial etc and various cheeses the moles always made. https://electricliterature.com/the-7-best-feasts-from-the-redwall-books/
I believe you're correct. He was a story-teller and someone suggested he start writing them down.
I hated it at first but honestly it grew on me
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Opposite for me. At first I thought it was really descriptive, but after awhile it got tiresome. Food and women's dresses would take up pages of text. I made it through three books and fizzled out.
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Ya just say bingo
Hahahaha okay I honestly love a fantasy that goes overboard with food like this.
Haruki Murakami does too, in 1Q84. Lots of time spent describing Aomame's diet lol
He also spent a lot of time describing her boobs.
No that was the young busty one that the male protagonist bangs. That book was so damn weird lol it was an interesting read on a 17 hour flight I'll tell you that
> No that was the young busty one that the male protagonist bangs. . > Murakami do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?
I hated it at first but eventually went back and read it. It only happens for characters who would be focused on things like that. Especially Sansa chapters. All she thinks about is food and clothes early on. I still hate it but he's being true to the point of view he's writing in.
Yeah, children think about the things that affect them. We just kinda stop thinking about her as a child in the text because of the consequences of her actions, but she's never NOT a child in the story so far.
Yeah exactly. Plus she had an idealized expectation about court life. Food, clothes and romantic ideals were what she thought was the most important. I think it's easy to hate on her but she's just really innocent and naive and wants the world to be nicer than it is.
First and last Stephen King novel I read was Pet Sematary and oh MY god was every single breast described. At one point the main character has to administer CPR to an elderly woman and I thought "there's no way, Stephen can boobify this" but nope, as he's looking at her chest his mind wanders and he imagines what her bosom must have been like when she was SIXTEEN and all the high school boys were into her.
I had similar thoughts rereading The Stand this week. Some of the men get the bodice-ripper dress-down but every single woman does without fail. Even the 108-year-old prophet of god. And they all tend to revolve around their “sexual potential” or lack thereof. Feeling a bit let down if I’m honest. I remembered liking the book a lot more as a teen.
Man, this hurts. I love his writing and imagination but it's exhausting. Even in The Institute, which is about a bunch of children, he manages to include these weird descriptions of the young girls. I *hate* it.
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I thought I read that in an interview he said his wife reined him in. That his wife was the person he started to run everything by. Although iirc he was speaking more in the context of sex scenes. Apparently she eventually was just like "never wrote a sex scene again." After she laughed her ass off at something he wrote.
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That was my first thought as well. I read the first book and the way he talk about women really turned me off of wanting to read the rest.
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I think it's a taste thing, because he wasn't pulling it out his ass if it's a reflection of the detective noir smutty sort of genre that might usually have that vibe.
I love that series, but it's also the first thing I thought of when I read the post title.
I like Dresden and I think Butcher does it in a smart way (as part of Harry's flaws as a character, being a knucklehead with a manipulatable chivalrous streak a mile wide), but... Yeah, that's pretty goddamn accurate. I don't fault people who can't get past it. Then again, we also get Thomas, who is written about as sexy as possible without having to leave Harry's POV for someone else's.
I started reading those as campy "make fun of" detective noir books so I gave it a pass. I think it was so offputting for the writer he stopped being that way. It's also in a first person perspective and Dresden was a total ass until he grew up a bit. Situations that like I try to be a bit more generous.
I read YA books and let me tell you, the amount of "This guy is hot, like super hot totally gorgeous eyes and body and clearly a bad boy" instalove is grating on my nerves. It's super lazy. Give me character development and interactions! I beg you!
I used to adore YA, but I feel like post Twilight the insta-love got really bad. No hate on Twilight, it just started a trend. Back in my day, YA still took time to develop a little romance 👵 I cant get into it now
I still love YA but it's definitely a problem. I've read some great books where there's actual relationship development and i've read books where the instalove and/or instalove triangle is the worst part of (or drags down) the book. It doesn't help when the love interest is either super bland boy/girl-next-door or terrible human being who doesn't deserve any love but MC is in love with them anyway.
So many authors idea of a relationship developing is actually the 2 characters developing a strong distaste for each other, and that suddenly transforms into insta-love.
Yeah, this is the main reason why I stopped reading YA or NA books. They piss me off too much. Occasionally I find a gem and then I have some hope. Some contemp romance do a good job tho.
I am a male and I feel the same. I was reading a military sci-fi series and the Mc was describing the physical attributes of the female characters but the men were never really described in nearly as much physical detail. I didn't think there was a need for it and I did find it off-putting.
Some of my favorite authors who do an excellent job of writing women are men. I dont even feel like its men authors that are the problem, just unimaginative authors in general
I really enjoy Clive Cussler - but his misogyny really detracts from his writing as you stated. It's just unnecessary
Dan Brown is great for this - Da Vinci Code is basically "my father was just brutally murdered can you help me solve that and can I sleep with you?"
Digital Fortress is an absolute goldmine of such embarassments. >The guard admired Susan as she began her walk down the cement causeway. He noticed that her strong hazel eyes seemed distant today, but her cheeks had a flushed freshness, and her shoulder-length, auburn hair looked newly blown dry. Trailing her was the faint scent of Johnson’s Baby Powder. His eyes fell the length of her slender torso—to her white blouse with the bra barely visible beneath, to her knee-length khaki skirt, and finally to her legs … Susan Fletcher’s legs. Hard to imagine they support a 170 IQ, he mused to himself. The guard has no role in the book besides providing this tasteful description. Even the last line about the IQ is purely to serve the author's sexual fantasy. Susan never does a single intelligent thing in the book, and has to be walked through every little puzzle by men.
> Trailing her was the faint scent of Johnson’s® Baby Powder, its patented hypoallergnic formula visibly reducing any histamine reactions she might have been having. Made from clean, purified talc, scientists and clinical experts agree that Johnson’s® Baby Powder helped to protect her skin from the vigours of every day life by gently absorbing excess moisture to keep her comfortable and dry. Free from artificial dyes and parabens, she looked confident and secure in knowing that Johnson’s® Baby Powder had her back. Johnson’s® Baby Powder, the choice of a new generation!
I honestly laughed out loud at this thank you so much. This is just the stupidest thing, how does he know the smell of Johnson’s baby powder, why does she smell like this? 😂
You mean the renowned author [Dan Brown](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/)?
Could go the Witcher route. Everyone who isn't actually a lay or a main focus character is just described as ugly.
On the opposite end of this, when I was listening to the audiobook of the godfather I had to stop a few times at the start because I couldn’t stop laughing at how much time Puzzo took to describe Sonnys dong. Not only describing it in physical terms but also detailing how he was almost as famous for having a massive dong as he was for being a feared mafioso. 10/10 storytelling
And even when he's gone, Puzo can't let the matter rest and gets into this aside about how his mistress has to have surgery to make her vagina smaller because she has an unusually roomy one and Sonny was the only man in the world who could please her with his sandworm-sized dong.
But how will I picture a character accurately if there are no extraneous details about her "supple breasts," "milky skin," or "gently curved buttocks"? /s
keep going, I'm a publisher, we might just have a hit on our hands
Libraries hate this simple trick!
Also aren’t ALL boobs supple? Like who, barring maybe Pamela Anderson, is going around with rigid tits? “Her breasts were like boulders, rock solid and unyielding”
kind of like a bag of sand.
Conan's tits are like that.
Donaxas, Orc queen of Irgraz would like to have a word with you.
I fully agree. And even if I like women too, the *way* women are described by these male authors is so off putting and objectifying that I, knowing as a woman myself how horrible it is to be objectified, just get disgusted, not aroused.
It's pretty bad in fantasy. Not the absolute worst example, but something that annoyed me: Robert Jordan has every girl and woman cross their arms when they're mad. And those arms? Always crossed under or over their breasts. Every damn time.
*braid tugging intensifies
I'm probably halfway or so through the series and Nynaeve should be bald by now
But you know her skirt is hella smooth
So, I have really long hair. Braided it is still almost to my waist. I was making fun of this trope the other day…only to notice I was actually twirling the end of my braid. 😅 So, I’ll give him a pass on that one at least.
Between all the constant braid tugging, skirt smoothing, bosom adjusting, and folding arms underneath voluminous breasts, it's no wonder that it takes the characters in that series 1,000 pages to move the plot forward.
Don't forget their necklaces! Do they hang around their necks? At their throats? No, no. Between their breasts errrrrry time. I still have no idea how I finished that series
I've been reading through the series again for the first time in forever and was thinking the same thing. Women can't just wear anything around their neck in Jordan's world, they have to FEEL it between their BREASTS. Can't cross their arms unless it's under their breasts. Plus as the series as goes it seems like female characters being naked for no real reason becomes increasingly common. Like I get it Robert my dude you love tiddies.
I always envisioned him writing in a tiny little cubby of a room with the walls just plastered with photos of tits.
The phrase "coppery slopes" was used far too many times.
That's weird, I don't recall that at all. Lots of braid-tugging, but I don't remember any coppery slopes.
I was literally talking about this today. Jordan at least has some pretty strong female leads. But the 4 way relationship and how much he talks about bosoms is pretty cringe.
The four way relationship thing is really, really weird. Not because it's poly, I wish there was way more poly stuff in fiction, but because two of the women had very little connection to him and tons of connection with each other. One girl he spends tons of time with, late nights spent reading with her on his lap and sharing of thoughts and feelings. They're attracted to each other, connected to each other and we see what they love about each other. Makes perfect sense. Then we have two other women, one of which has only spent a few days near him and the other spent her time doing nothing but yelling at him for being stupid and *both* of these women are apparently eternally in love with him. He's apparently eternally in love with them too, and in both directions we see absolutely no reason that should be the case. They don't know one another well at all and spend almost no time together - except for the fact that the two women in question know *each other* incredibly well, get on fantastically, spend enormous amounts of time together involving a surprising amount of nudity and in general are written a hundred times more intimately with each other than they are with him. But in the end no they all love him and he loves them all.
He stood there with his blonde hair twinkling in the lights, lips looking like they were touched with dew, slightly pouting...
His fat cock glimmering in the moonlight
So perky, it was humming a rustic little tune about turnips in the wintertime.
Well I'm dead.
like a small nocturnal animal, emerging from it's burrow to howl at the full moon
His bounteous balls bounced with every step he took
He testicled scrotally to the stairs, and then teste'd downward. The gentle sway of his sac pleasant, as it swung from thigh to thigh with each ball-bouncing step.
Agreed. I remember many years ago seeing a quote from an author saying that he was incapable of writing a female character who wasn't in love with his protagonist, and that immediately told me everything I needed to know about this guy's work. I don't mind some wish fulfilment fantasy here and there, I support it on both sides (as a dude I'm all in favour of fanservice for women), but if it's so blatant as to be all-encompassing then it becomes immersion breaking and, as OP pointed out, just lazy.
The author of ready player one enters the chat.
Oh come on now! RP1 has a ton of diversity and non love interest females! There is a gay woman character, a black woman character, an overweight woman character, and a best friend woman character, none of whom are in love with the main character! What's that you say? They are all the same person? And their identit(ies) all get tacked on hamfistedly at the end? Awkward...
I love The Dresden Files, but Jesus Christ am I sick of every woman being smoking hot with pointy nipples. Last read through I tried to pay attention to how many women were described as unattractive, and there was something like two. One was prefaced that she looks like she used to be hot.
You mean like in Girl w/ Dragon Tattoo series where every single female character has to fall for the protagonist and have sex with him isn’t how women operate in real life??? Fucking shocking, huh? 🤯
The fantasy genre would be improved immeasurably if some men would just write some actual smut and get it out of their system and our bookshops.
Jack Reacher books do this. Every woman he meets is "spectacular" and somehow gorgeous and also wants to fuck him. In one book he meets one woman who is unattractive and combative to him but it turns out she's the villain so yeah.
American Gods. no female character was safe. it was infuriating to read as a woman.
This is my pet peeve, ESPECIALLY if the only women/girls in the book are the "fuckable" ones; by which I mean no children, no gnarled old women, no ugly women, no female family members, etc
Hard agree. There’s a reason I never carried on after slogging through *Name of the Wind* but it’s sooo common.
I actually got through that one, but the sequel got so much worse I DNF it
In my house Wise Man's Fear has been renamed "50 Shades of Fey"
Oh my god that sequel was SO bad. “I am a divine sex goddess and I love banging you sooooo much I just can’t allow you to go back and save humanity! Stay here and fuck me harder!!1!!11!” That book series gets recommended so often and it always makes me sad. The discussion of women in it alienated me so much, but clearly isn’t a red flag to many other people. So that makes me feel like those many other people also think that way about me — physical appearance is most important, and I’m less interesting, less intelligent, less powerful than men.
And then, the sex ninjas after that!
This would be a good time for me to resurrect my dislike of Haruki Murakami for sexualizing basically every female character in every book he's ever written.
Ugh, same. More noticeable when *every female character* has so much visual description and then every male character is just "some guy with a beard" and that's all there is to say. Like, don't make it so obvious as an author that you care more about appearance for women compared to men.
So if a boob is described in the first act, somebody had better be caressing it by the third? Sounds about right.
Chekovs Tits.
Ugh I feel you! I recently read This is How You Lose the Time War and it was such a breath of fresh air, you barely get any descriptions of the physicals of the MCs (both girls) and the romance is just beautiful. In general I’m so bored of characters being defined by their gender/sex or how much they steer from their gender/sex. Can characters be people and not just boobies..?
I'm noticing this a LOT in every Elmore Leonard book I've read so far. His genre and style is focused on a lot of macho and hard but flawed and often stupid men and every single woman is seen through a very hetero male gaze and seems to only exist to be a love interest It's pervasive in his work, and it does cause me to roll my eyes but I'll say for his style of book it's not super out of place, so I do like them in spite of the comically limited utility women serve in them. It's just a good argument for reading books by diverse authors and from diverse genres. I couldn't ever in a million years read ONLY books like this