now I know what real crap is...
Nov. 30th, 2007 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
insanenekoI know I often bitch about the horrible characters and horrible actions the horrible characters take in some of the BL novels I've read, but...I've never been so infuriated as I was reading Host club yori ai wo komete by Kifu Kaname. There are tons of stories where the characters act out of foolish pride or stubbornness and cause lots of problems for themselves and the people they supposedly love. That's nothing new. But this one....THIS ONE.
*stops and takes a deep breath*
I'm blown away at how angry I am at this book. I thought I'd become so jaded over this genre and its failings that nothing would really outrage me. Oh, I was so naive. So, so wrong. The main character is a smart, talented, nice, gorgeous scion of a rich family. He was supposed to take over his father's company. But instead he's betrayed by the man he loved, who steals his position, his fiancee, and finally his money. I don't really know how FB (short for fucking bastard) did it, and I don't really care. In any case, main character ends up as a host. Not just any kind of host, but a host that dresses up and plays the fool. He meets FB again and attacks him, sending him to the hospital. FB then comes to the club and tells main character--I think I shall call him FSS (fucking stupid shit)--that he should quit his job as a host (FSS had always been a quiet, rather introverted type) and that he loved FSS. He tells FSS that he had divorced his wife and shows him the family registry as proof. FSS had been making FB pay through the nose at the club as "revenge" instead of killing him, but he's very unhappy. He had loved and trusted FB utterly, and the betrayal had devastated him.
In any case, FB and FSS invariably hook up. I don't really remember how it happened and at this point I don't care. What matter is that it turns out FB had betrayed FSS because men like to have the upper hand when it comes to the person they are in love with. He had always been younger, not as overall talented, poorer, lower socially to FSS. He had always loved FSS and couldn't stand being below him. So when he had the chance to turn the tables...He took it.
Seriously, we the readers are supposed to accept this batshit insane and completely lame explanation for FB's betrayal? I feel insulted by the author, the publisher, the editor, anyone else involved in this. I agree with one reviewer on Amazon (the one that gave the novel one star--can you give something zero stars? That's what this deserves) who wonders how it can be considered love when the person had betrayed his "love" because he wanted to stand above him. She goes on to say that he's putting his own self satisfaction before the other person's feelings. Yes yes, BL is full of that kind of shit. But then the author takes it one notch lower. After they finally have sex (they hadn't had sex all those years even though FSS had wanted to and had set things up so that they were alone several times--probably thanks to FB's pride about being "below" FSS), FSS finds out that FB wasn't even divorced! FB had a fake family registry made up to fool FSS! How much of a self-serving bastard masquerading as a...a...a...I don't even know what positive word I can use to describe that piece of shit...in any case, how much of a shit can FB be? And FSS tells FB that he needs to deceive FSS fully if he's going to do it! No, what FB needs is for FSS to find a nicer guy to be with. I can't believe FB actually declares that FSS would never find a guy who'd treasure FSS as much as him at one point. There are a zillion guys who'd love to be with FSS, basically a nice guy (gentle personality, etc), who's just turned into a guy with no pride, no dignity, just a pathetic "love" to a dickhead who's the epitome of all that's wrong with men in the world.
I know I'm taking this way too seriously, but I think I had one of those moments when the "it's just fiction!" excuse can't plaster over the fact that the novel just justifies male entitlement fucking everyone else over for its own satisfaction. I guess the echoes of real life male privilege filling this novel crap grated on me. I wanted FSS, as sort of a representative of the weak and oppressed and deceived, to cut off FB's dick and laughingly throw it into the ocean or something...
Arg, I think I need to stop writing. I'm just dribbling into incoherence and crude language. I have lost a lot of respect for Kifu Kaname, whom I found to be an interesting if sometimes distasteful writer who took the tropes of the genre and played with/parodied them. Her other novels also featured shithead semes, but none seemed so...petty? At least the others seemed psychopathic or seriously messed up in the head.
I need to read something happy. Pronto.
*stops and takes a deep breath*
I'm blown away at how angry I am at this book. I thought I'd become so jaded over this genre and its failings that nothing would really outrage me. Oh, I was so naive. So, so wrong. The main character is a smart, talented, nice, gorgeous scion of a rich family. He was supposed to take over his father's company. But instead he's betrayed by the man he loved, who steals his position, his fiancee, and finally his money. I don't really know how FB (short for fucking bastard) did it, and I don't really care. In any case, main character ends up as a host. Not just any kind of host, but a host that dresses up and plays the fool. He meets FB again and attacks him, sending him to the hospital. FB then comes to the club and tells main character--I think I shall call him FSS (fucking stupid shit)--that he should quit his job as a host (FSS had always been a quiet, rather introverted type) and that he loved FSS. He tells FSS that he had divorced his wife and shows him the family registry as proof. FSS had been making FB pay through the nose at the club as "revenge" instead of killing him, but he's very unhappy. He had loved and trusted FB utterly, and the betrayal had devastated him.
In any case, FB and FSS invariably hook up. I don't really remember how it happened and at this point I don't care. What matter is that it turns out FB had betrayed FSS because men like to have the upper hand when it comes to the person they are in love with. He had always been younger, not as overall talented, poorer, lower socially to FSS. He had always loved FSS and couldn't stand being below him. So when he had the chance to turn the tables...He took it.
Seriously, we the readers are supposed to accept this batshit insane and completely lame explanation for FB's betrayal? I feel insulted by the author, the publisher, the editor, anyone else involved in this. I agree with one reviewer on Amazon (the one that gave the novel one star--can you give something zero stars? That's what this deserves) who wonders how it can be considered love when the person had betrayed his "love" because he wanted to stand above him. She goes on to say that he's putting his own self satisfaction before the other person's feelings. Yes yes, BL is full of that kind of shit. But then the author takes it one notch lower. After they finally have sex (they hadn't had sex all those years even though FSS had wanted to and had set things up so that they were alone several times--probably thanks to FB's pride about being "below" FSS), FSS finds out that FB wasn't even divorced! FB had a fake family registry made up to fool FSS! How much of a self-serving bastard masquerading as a...a...a...I don't even know what positive word I can use to describe that piece of shit...in any case, how much of a shit can FB be? And FSS tells FB that he needs to deceive FSS fully if he's going to do it! No, what FB needs is for FSS to find a nicer guy to be with. I can't believe FB actually declares that FSS would never find a guy who'd treasure FSS as much as him at one point. There are a zillion guys who'd love to be with FSS, basically a nice guy (gentle personality, etc), who's just turned into a guy with no pride, no dignity, just a pathetic "love" to a dickhead who's the epitome of all that's wrong with men in the world.
I know I'm taking this way too seriously, but I think I had one of those moments when the "it's just fiction!" excuse can't plaster over the fact that the novel just justifies male entitlement fucking everyone else over for its own satisfaction. I guess the echoes of real life male privilege filling this novel crap grated on me. I wanted FSS, as sort of a representative of the weak and oppressed and deceived, to cut off FB's dick and laughingly throw it into the ocean or something...
Arg, I think I need to stop writing. I'm just dribbling into incoherence and crude language. I have lost a lot of respect for Kifu Kaname, whom I found to be an interesting if sometimes distasteful writer who took the tropes of the genre and played with/parodied them. Her other novels also featured shithead semes, but none seemed so...petty? At least the others seemed psychopathic or seriously messed up in the head.
I need to read something happy. Pronto.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-01 08:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-07 07:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-01 09:14 am (UTC)Isn't there a movie where something like that happens? A Japanese one.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-07 07:34 am (UTC)That's...disturbing...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-01 09:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-07 07:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-01 10:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-07 07:36 am (UTC)Who is Tanaka Mecca? What's good by her/him?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-01 05:06 pm (UTC)Honestly, that would've made me furious, too. I hate that sort of thing. I can't believe anyone would write it and then try to romanticize the relationship. If anything, it's fucked up beyond belief and the seme deserves death or worse.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-07 07:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-03 03:28 am (UTC)Speaking of which, is Kifu Kaname the author who keeps writing scary (as in, so horribly screwed up that they're scary) stories like the one where the seme has memory erasing powers and made the uke believe that he was the perfect lover when in reality he'd totally fucked up the uke in the past, leading to the uke having a mental breakdown which is why he erased his memory in the first place? And that weird-ass story with the seme that told some "villain" holding his uke hostage that he didn't care what the villain did to said uke's face as long as he left uke's ass intact so he could continue to fuck him?
If so, I am DEFINITELY steering clear of this woman's stuff. Her stuff sounds like it would creep me out. And what creeps me out even more is that the publishers are actually fine with publishing and selling this stuff. *shudders*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-07 07:44 am (UTC)I'd say that only people who gleefully swallow BL tropes fully and uncritically or really warped people who can be amused by everything and not offended by much should read her books without caution. Unfortunately I don't fall into either camp. ^^;