konniecanread's reviews
71 reviews

Pretty good book. It's basically an extended paper, so it's not really readable, but it was super interesting nonetheless. It was also published in 1953, so a lot of it is outdated, in data as well as (sometimes) in methodology. Highlights were the methods section, where the authors basically come up with a complicated interviewing technique to get old people in the 50s to talk about sex, the totally amoral way of researching sex and relationships, especially considering the time of writing, and the incredibly breadth of topics they thought about.
 
Honestly, if you find Kinsey or his research cool, just watch the 2004 film. It gets across the main points and also isn't 824 pages of outdated scientific findings and methodological discussion. 

I am surprised at how little progress we have made in thinking about sex in the last 75 years. Kinsey & co are already finding high rates of homosexuality, polyamory, and a wide breadth of sexual practices here, and are able to discuss these without any judgement. Today, these topics seem comparably controversial, and academics trying to describe them face the same challenges Kinsey did - there has been no study of this scope since then. Kinsey himself has been cancelled around once a year since he published this, and from all parts of the political spectrum. Sex is, like, pretty normal, and stuff. Can we relax about it?

A disorienting, dissociative book - like nothing I've ever read. The 4200 pages are full of endless descriptions of random sights, memories, and senses, the plot, barely existent, moves forward at an arbitrary pace, and the detailed ramblings about deep, unconscious parts of the brain inevitably cause you to drift off and reflect what Proust is writing about onto your own life.

This is not a book you are supposed to pick up and read "properly", remembering who all the characters are and what exactly is happening in the plot. I think this is why so many people struggle to read this - approaching this like any other book is like trying to make sense of a dream after waking up. Most of the time you won't have any idea what's going on, you will drift in and out of the plot and blend Proust's experiences with your own - but in a book about buried, half remembered memories, about deja-vu and dissociation, isn't that exactly the point?

EDIT (some months later): I have decided to downgrade this from 5*s to 4. Two reasons: first of all, since finishing the book, I've barely thought about it, something which I generally want my 5*s to make me do. I've also thought more about the length of the book - is it an artistic choice, or just bad editing? Do the additional 3000 pages that follow the first 1000 really add much to what we get? If not, why are they there?

Started reading this for a uni module, finished it in my own time, so adding it here.

As much as I appreciate Plato for trying to be a little more pragmatic (compared to the Republic, in particular) the dialogue format he uses makes reading long lists of laws unbearable. Read some of his other stuff instead, I think: this didn't even have very much impact on the history of philosophy.

I read this book because I wanted a different perspective. I generally embody the stereotype of the unemotional, cold, rational, scientism-y man, and Hustvedt is the opposite: an emotionally tapped in, stylistically warm woman who emphasises the weaknesses of rationality and science.

I got what I was looking for! Hustvedt's experience of life is so different from mine that I occasionally had to remind myself that what she was writing was a genuine report of her own perspectives and experiences. Lots of stuff to think about all around, and a huge amount of perspective gained :).

I had some issues as well, though. Hustvedt occasionally makes kind of incomplete arguments and dramatically oversimplifies philosophical stances she is arguing against. This was worst of all in the long second section of the book, where she attacks rationality, science, evolution, etc. head on. She would sometimes end her argument at: "The conclusions of this worldview are different from the conclusions of feminist theory" and think that sufficient - this was very frustrating, especially when I thought there were stronger arguments to be made.

But maybe these concerns just demonstrate that I am not able to free myself from my cold, rational, man-ness enough. Who knows.

A set of pretty mid short stories about various things Mauthner is interested in. Unlike his philosophical work, I understand why his novels were forgotten. The stories don't get much deeper than "Modern philosophy bad" or "Isn't copyright law strange".

I will admit: I did not read this as thoroughly as it deserves. I was mainly interested in how Churchland's arguments apply to moral antirealism, not so much a lot for the detailed philosophy of mind stuff. So I am not sure if I can assess this properly until I inevitably re-enter a consciousness arc and reread it. Until then, a 3; the quality really varied between the different sections.

Depression disguised as a philosophical view disguised as a novel. Like yeah bro I get it life is meaningless so what get over it

He's right on so much that it's a shame his style is so obfuscating - especially when it comes to linguistic philosophy, where the minutia is all that matters. Wittgenstein made the right call in writing the Tractatus like that.

Really interesting premise and well written. I loved the aimless day-to-day narratives, just describing how the two main characters went about their lives in the field, writing ethnographies and interacting with the cultures they were living in. I also really enjoyed all the anthropological discussions, both substantive and methodological - the author really did her research.

I was not so much of a fan of all this love triangle/abusive relationship/murder and drama business. The life of the real Margaret Mead (on whom the novel is based) is much happier. Why does everything need a plot? Real life doesn't have a plot and is quite good as it is!