Knyga ne tiems, kuriems nerūpi. Knyga tiems, kuriems skauda ir kurie klausia – o ką dabar su ta meile daryti? Ką daryti su meile kūriniui, jei kūrėjas – monstras? Autorė ramiai, empatiškai, išmintingai ir su humoru kalba apie genijus ir menininkus, labai žinomus ir menkiau aptartus, aptardama jų nuodėmes – nuo baisiausių iki tokių, kurias beveik galėtume pražiūrėti ir atleisti. Beveik. Kalba apie pateisinimus, kuriuos tokiems kūrėjams kuriame – ne dėl to, kad patys būtume prievartautojai, antisemitai, moteris mušantys alkoholikai, pedofilai ar žudikai, o todėl, kad menas – ne prekė, kuria vis dar prekiaujama rusijoje. Visokiems saldainiams ir tepamiems sūreliams pakaitalą rasti lengva. O vat kai kalba pasisuka apie kūrinius, kurie pakeitė gyvenimus, kito brand‘o jau nebepasirinksi. Galbūt noras mylėti, net kai problematiška, yra egoistiškas prieš aukas, tačiau labai žmogiškas. Ir man reikėjo šios knygos. Nes nepraeina diena, kai nepagalvoju – o ką man daryt su Rammsteinais? Jie gi šeši. Bet gi visi žinojo, jei vyko prievarta. Užsimerkė. Negirdėjo. Nusisuko. O ką daryti su kūryba, kuri ėjo mano gyvenime koja kojon pastaruosius 15 metų? This books provides an insight into the human psyche, the human condition - regardless of gender identity. Ooof I think Claire Dederer mentions praxis only once in this book and it shows. Maybe some people find this book helpful and I don't want to poo-poo them. I don't think this book is entirely without merit, but I also don't think that this book is the "ambitious" book that the author says is her goal nor is it a deep dive into the question of meaningful art created by monstrous people that the book advertises itself as. I will separate this review into the reasons I did not like this book: Conversational, clear and bold without being strident... Dederer showcases her critical acumen...In this age of moral policing, Ms. Dederer’s instincts to approach such material with an open mind—and heart—are laudable." The author uses the memoir format to trace her own experience feeling betrayed by artists. At one time she enjoyed Woody Allen’s movies, but was relieved to learn of a little free library filled with Woody Allen stuff so she had access to research materials for writing this book without needing to pay for them.

I have no greater clarity on whether I think works of art should be cancelled or not if their creators are problematic, but my takeaway is … the uncertainty is kind of the point? It’s all about the journey? Dederer explores this. Comes to the idea of a stain. Does a single stain ruin a silk dress? So much so that the stain becomes the dress? Perhaps for some, but for others, it's just a stain. It'll wash out. It can be taken to the cleaners. It can be fixed. But the stain should not totally ruin the dress. The impulse to farm out the decision to an external authority sounds hopelessly naive – but then, asks Dederer, isn’t there something equally ridiculous about thinking that whether we choose to enjoy a particular piece of art or not is going to change anything? That we might be able to ameliorate the harm of Polanski’s violation of a schoolgirl or Picasso burning the face of his “muse” Françoise Gilot with a cigarette? The tainting of the work is less a question of philosophical decision-making than it is a question of pragmatism, or plain reality. That's why the stain makes such a powerful metaphor: its suddenness, its permanence, and above all its inexorable realness. The stain is simply something that happens. The stain is not a choice. The stain is not a decision we make.Speaking of erasure, she has an entire chapter reflecting on the erasure of Dolores Hayes in the text of Lolita and how society often silences victims of abuse, but does not include the thoughts and opinions of the victims on the questions she purports to be interested in asking. Many victims of abusive celebrities are still alive and probably have feelings and opinions on the existence of the art. She seems to only bring up these opinions when they benefit her argument, such as with the woman who was raped by Roman Polanksi as a teen. Rowan Farrow, a victim of Woody Allen's parental abuse, did in fact call for a boycott of Allen's work when he exposed his father's misdeeds. Dederer could frame this in the context of victim centered justice, where the feelings and desires of the victims are considered above what our traditional pathways of justice are, but then that would require that Dederer be interested in the current evolving discourse around the topic that she is writing about. The things highlighted most in Dederer's text continue to be from those who are not involved in the despicable acts that she is trying to judge. The stain begins with an act, a moment in time, but then it travels from that moment, like a tea bag steeping in water, coloring the entire life." Here, Dederer writes the anti-cancel culture book. Allows us not to feel guilty about our pleasures and allows room for the gray space. A valuable meditation on some of the era’s most urgent cultural questions . . . Emerging from Dederer’s reflections is the plain truth that every personal response to art is inseparable not only from the artist’s past but also the history of each member of its audience.” Claire Dederer is a journalist from Seattle and the author of two memoirs, the most well known of which is Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses. In 2017, she wrote a piece for the Paris Review entitled What Do We Do With the Art of Monstrous Men? in which she described the experience of rewatching the early films of Woody Allen ( Annie Hall, Manhattan) in the context of the allegations of abuse made against him by his adopted daughter, Dylan. The #MeToo movement was then just beginning and this piece, according to her publisher, went viral. Six years on, and it has now also been incorporated into Dederer’s new book, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, where it loiters alongside her thoughts on several other bad (or badly behaved) men who have made good art, among them Picasso, Roman Polanski and Richard Wagner.

Excellent ... Awork of deep thought and self-scrutiny that honors the impossibility of the book’s mission. Dederer comes to accept her love for the art that has shaped her by facing the monstrous, its potential in herself, and the ways it can exist alongside beauty and pathos. Go ahead, she tells us, love what you love. It excuses no one." This book makes the reader question their own ethics and moralities as the writer questions her own responses and behaviours to a delicate subject matter. This book highlights the struggle of loving an artist’s work, but not liking the artist, and should we therefore continue to support those artists even though we know what they have done. And if we do choose to continue to support them, how might that affect other people around us and the victims of that particular trauma. I mean, I was surprised with the Wagner mention that she didn't mention Leni Riefenstahl. Especially when she glossed over the Allen-apologists for how 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘯 must be looked at for its aesthetics. Riefenstahl was the very queen of aesthetics, a female champion of her time, while also being a nazi.

Customer reviews

I have absolutely no idea if any of that’s what the book remotely meant to convey at all; it’s sort of just where I landed. Anyway, I enjoyed the ride. And, I actually appreciate that the author considered the matter for herself and also nudged the reader’s thinking, but didn’t try to answer this question authoritatively for the ages. That could have been - well, monstrous! Face it. The heart wants what it wants. So, when Dederer includes personal history in the text, I realize why. Because it's personal. The people we love, the artists who speak to us from some higher point beyond moral authority and knowledge, move us, whether or not we can explain it, all out of love. What do we do with the art of monstrous men? This question is there merest gnat, buzzing around the monolith that is the biggest question; what do we do about the monstrous people we love?” Somewhere in the middle of the book, Dederer goes on to target monstrous women, shaming those that abandon their children. This comes off as round-about and personal as we finally understand why Dederer took this path. Only a monster could know a monster so well. Surely Lolita must be some kind of mirror of its author?... Just how did Nabokov come to understand Humbert so perfectly?

This is where the sense of cynicism comes from. The system is corrupt and this thing that we think can do something actually won't do anything and instead of spending time evaluating alternative systems or looking at work people are doing to dismantle it or listening to the people who are actively being harmed, she says we should just stop worrying about it and just watch/read/listen to the things by bad people. Which makes sense if you think, like she states, that people are fundamentally interested in this for some sort of virtue signaling. What she fundamentally fails to grasp is that these strategies and conflicts exist because people want to do better, people want to fix injustice. It's not just about convincing yourself and others that you are not a monster but understanding the practical effects of what is happening to people and trying to create a better world. "Voting with your dollar" is the only avenue that some people have been exposed to to make a difference and if you truly feel like we should throw that strategy in the trash, the most practical thing you can do is expose readers to things they can do instead. What is feminism if not a daily struggle against forces that are so large, so consuming, that those forces are invisible to – forgotten, taken for granted by – the very people wielding them? I originally thought I was going to devour this in one sitting, but boy oh boy was I wrong. After the first couple of chapters I realised that I wanted to take my time with this one. I wanted to sit and think about the chapter I had just read, dissect it and let it sit in my thoughts. Monsters is an incredible book, the best work of criticism I have read in a very long time. It’s thrillingly sharp, appropriately doubtful, and more fun than you would believe, given the pressing seriousness of the subject matter. Claire Dederer’s mind is a wonder, her erudition too; I now want her to apply them to everything I’m interested in.” I liked the majority of the book that conceptualized and analyzed monstrosity in the creative world and wish she stopped at that and didn’t finish the book the way she did.In this unflinching, deeply personal book that expands on her instantly viral Paris Reviewessay, "What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?" Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss? Slyly funny, emotionally honest, and full of raw passion, Claire Dederer’s important book about what to do when artists you love do things you hate breaks new ground, making a complex cultural conversation feel brand new. Monsters elegantly takes on far more than ‘cancel culture’—it offers new insights into love, ambition, and what it means to be an artist, a citizen, and a human being.” In her hands, vexed territory is oddly flattened out, its provocations mere mole hills on the way to nowhere. But in truth, I was more often baffled than bored. Virginia Woolf’s antisemitism (Dederer proudly tells a Jewish friend that she has “rumbled” this) hasn’t been forgotten; Allen Ginsberg isn’t better known than Philip Larkin (or not in Britain, anyway); JK Rowling doesn’t live in England. Monsters is populated with auteurs, with people whose instincts are singular and extreme, but its author’s real predilection seems to be for generalisation. An unwarranted detour into the world of scientists has her trotting out all the cliches about their eccentricity, the tattered garments and rope belts she believes they use to burnish their “genius”. Who can tell Picasso’s abused women apart? Not her, she tells us. They’re a “fleshy pig-pile” and she – well done, sister! – can never remember which is which. To get things going, Dederer offers up her own monstrousness. She is a mother who is also a writer, which means that she has been guilty of negligence on those occasions when she has accepted invitations for residential fellowships which have taken her away from home for weeks at a time. Worse still, she has hugged herself with relieved glee while doing it. On top of this, she spent 10 years as a functioning alcoholic, which is not something that usually combines well with engaged and committed family life. After discussing numerous monstrous examples this book comes to a chapter titled "Am I a Monster?" in which the author admits that her writing career on certain occasions hindered her role as a mother of two sons. In this chapter I didn't take such a confession too seriously because it sounded much the same as what any working mother might say. But then I as reader moved into later chapters where the author confesses to being an alcoholic for many years while her sons were growing up and that this hindered the quality of mothering.