Reviews and Comments

I mean, it's obvious that this man is an excruciatingly racist piece of shit, but holy shit.

In 2011, we knew that the Broken Windows Theory was wrong and that Wilson/Kelling had misrepresented it with full intent to support racist policing. Pinker doesn't seem to care that Zimbardo's original experiment never supported the Broken Windows Theory and talks about it as if it were truth. Granted, this chapter is also one in which he cites Charles Murray and Francis Fukuyama, so I can't be surprised he's a fan of it.

In terms of history, he has never engaged with anything beyond what little he seems to have learned from coffee table books (which he even explicitly points to as his inspiration for a chapter on torture). We knew in 2011 that the use of the Iron Maiden and similar contraptions, like the Virgin of Nuremberg, were largely believed to be myth because we could find no contemporary evidence of their use... just a lot of things from later historical periods after that claimed it existed or was used. Pinker doesn't even bring this up.

Concept seems cool, but some writing feels really obnoxious in some regards. Like, lower-class vampires are really being used as as an allegory for some kind of marginalised demographic, and I'm guessing... queerness? Though it also sometimes seems to be race... But overwhelmingly, it's giving me a vibe of "any," but queerness comes to mind with the fact that two non-vampires are running a teahouse that also caters for vampires and creates a "safe space" for them to be themselves (like gay bars) and profiting off them. While it also does a lot of anti-colonial writing? And it hasn't really hit any notes to point out that this is an inherent contradiction?

Also, I'm kind of tired of the "we'll get ours" kind of stories that end up with people working simultaneously within the system and outside of it, since the former seems to be the most important and receives the most focus, not the actions outside the system (which also get written off as "I know it's bad but also we need to").

Also, after six or so chapters, it keeps doing perspective switches between two characters who are mostly in the same place, and that's... weird? Because other than the two chapters where, so far, they haven't been in the same place... The writing between two perspectives has been near identical? Like, I at least expect some slight differences between Arthie and Jin's points of views, but they seem like they may as well be the same person when they're in the same place.

Concept seems cool, but some writing feels really obnoxious in some regards. Like, lower-class vampires are really being used as as an allegory for some kind of marginalised demographic, and I'm guessing... queerness? Though it also sometimes seems to be race... But overwhelmingly, it's giving me a vibe of "any," but queerness comes to mind with the fact that two non-vampires are running a teahouse that also caters for vampires and creates a "safe space" for them to be themselves (like gay bars) and profiting off them. While it also does a lot of anti-colonial writing? And it hasn't really hit any notes to point out that this is an inherent contradiction?

Also, I'm kind of tired of the "we'll get ours" kind of stories that end up with people working simultaneously within the system and outside of it, since the former seems to be the most important and receives the most focus, not the actions outside the system (which also get written off as "I know it's bad but also we need to").

Also, after six or so chapters, it keeps doing perspective switches between two characters who are mostly in the same place, and that's... weird? Because other than the two chapters where, so far, they haven't been in the same

Concept seems cool, but some writing feels really obnoxious in some regards. Like, lower-class vampires are really being used as as an allegory for some kind of marginalised, and I'm guessing... queerness? But it also seems to be any, but queerness comes to mind with the fact that two non-vampires are running a teahouse that also caters for vampires and creates a "safe space" for them to be themselves (like gay bars) and profiting off them. While it also does a lot of anti-colonial writing? And it hasn't really hit any notes to point out that this is an inherent contradiction?

Also, I'm kind of tired of the "we'll get ours" kind of stories that end up with people working simultaneously within the system and outside of it, since the former seems to be the most important and receives the most focus, not the actions outside the system (which also get written off as "I know it's bad but also we need to").

Also, after six or so chapters, it keeps doing perspective switches between two characters who are mostly in the same place, and that's... weird? Because other than the two chapters where, so far, they haven't been in the same

This book, had its author not been marketed as "The Japanese Stieg Larsson," would've been... Well, it would've been okay, and I would've left it with some of the same complaints. But I felt them more strongly because what I'd been primed for was met in the worst of ways possible, in a way that wasn't at all in line with the point of Stieg Larsson's original trilogy.

There are too few books that deal with abused women, especially abused women who actually succeed despite everything. There are too few books that even engage with the concept of killing your local rapist (or abuser) and what that can possibly mean. There are too few books that engage with the internal struggle of someone who has done that to save themselves (especially in a situation where it wasn't intentional) and actually engaged with what it meant.

This book isn't that, but based on the summary and the use of the name 'Stieg Larsson'... And then based on the opening... That was the book I that I expected.

That was not what I got.

Without spoiling it for others, I hate the ending. I hate the solution, I hate how 'Detective Galileo' (a physicist) is used, I hate the friendship between him and the actual detective, and I hate the message that it sends without doing any of the fucking work for what it delivers. There were so many elements that could've been interestingly used and still supported the characters who had suffered the abuse of the victim. Higashino did none of that, and I just...

He is not The Japanese Stieg Larsson. I don't want anyone to be Stieg Larsson of anywhere, but if that were a mantle that could be passed on? Higashino could not take it because the point of his book did not at all engage with the true forms of abuse that his characters endured and felt like they would endure.

I especially hate that this book could actually properly focus on Yasuko and Misato (a mother and daughter), but he makes it all about Ishigami and his internal thoughts. This man, this man who was going to further harass and manipulate Yasuko and Misato... Who took advantage of their situation... And then committed his own heinous crime... And Yasuko being forced to understand what his "love" for her actually looked like and forced to feel guilty for decisions beyond her own control... And some flippant use of suicide for Misato...

The more that I think about it, the more I find reasons for disliking something that could've actually been interesting. I genuinely hate this, and I hate that it's being marketed as if it's in line with the point and purpose of Stieg Larsson's novels (and it's the fact that it's not actually engaging with the abuse of the characters that makes me so upset; Larsson is a symbol, as this marketer utilises them).

This book, had its author not been marketed as "The Japanese Stieg Larsson," would've been... Well, it would've been okay, and I would've left it with some of the same complaints. But I felt them more strongly because what I'd been primed for was met in the worst of ways possible, in a way that wasn't at all in line with the point of Stieg Larsson's original trilogy.

There are too few books that deal with abused women, especially abused women who actually succeed despite everything. There are too few books that even engage with the concept of killing your local rapist (or abuser) and what that can possibly mean. There are too few books that engage with the internal struggle of someone who has done that to save themselves (especially in a situation where it wasn't intentional) and actually engaged with what it meant.

This book isn't that, but based on the summary and the use of the name 'Stieg Larsson'... And then based on the opening... That was the book I that I expected.

That was not what I got.

Without spoiling it for others, I hate the ending. I hate the solution, I hate how 'Detective Galileo' (a physicist) is used, I hate the friendship between him and the actual detective, and I hate the message that it sends without doing any of the fucking work for what it delivers. There were so many elements that could've been interestingly used and still supported the characters who had suffered the abuse of the victim. Higashino did none of that, and I just...

He is not The Japanese Stieg Larsson. I don't want anyone to be Stieg Larsson of anywhere, but if that were a mantle that could be passed on? Higashino could not take it because the point of his book did not at all engage with the true forms of abuse that his characters endured and felt like they would endure.

On his writing technique, the man struggles to know how to transition between sections or chapters without telling what this chapter or the next will be about. It's like he has one trick, and he's not quite sure how to lead in to something else.

In terms of the history, he makes a lot of assumptions that no one is qualified to make and that even the data we do have cannot possibly support. We cannot know precisely how violent people were in times where we have no documentation of violence; we can only make assumptions based on what artifacts remain, and it's silly to assume that the handfuls of skeletal remains can tell us precisely how violent a society was. This way of deciding how violent the world was is much in the same vein as when archaeologists categorise unknown objects as "religious relics," even when it's not. (This is something that may have largely gone out of vogue, but we still live with its ghost until it's been totally rectified.)

He also focuses entirely on the positions of Hobbes and Rousseau for his initial "history of violence," and I suspect there were more perspectives on violence than those presented by either man. In fact, I'd be there were lots of people of other classes and demographics whose views were systematically erased at the time and after who could've provided more interesting thoughts than either of these two men who have been used as the template for how to deal with violence or what violence is or how violence can be mitigated, blahblahblah.

Oh, and he also hasn't defined what is violence and what isn't violence, according to him. But I suppose a lot of the constant and daily violence that many of us endure... doesn't count. The constant stress of "what ifs" that many of us have to think about or are faced with, the refusal of care providers to provide the care we seek, the perpetual stress placed upon us by others through varying forms of coercion to exist in certain ways... None of that is considered violence because it doesn't immediately result in us being stabbed or clearly murdered.

On his writing technique, the man struggles to know how to transition between sections or chapters without telling what this chapter or the next will be about. It's like he has one trick, and he's not quite sure how to lead in to something else.

In terms of the history, he makes a lot of assumptions that no one is qualified to make and that even the data we do have cannot possibly support. We cannot know precisely how violent people were in times where we have no documentation of violence; we can only make assumptions based on what artifacts remain, and it's silly to assume that the handfuls of skeletal remains can tell us precisely how violent a society was. This way of deciding how violent the world was is much in the same vein as when archaeologists categorise unknown objects as "religious relics," even when it's not. (This is something that may have largely gone out of vogue, but we still live with its ghost until it's been totally rectified.)

He also focuses entirely on the positions of Hobbes and Rousseau for his initial "history of violence," and I suspect there were more perspectives on violence than those presented by either man. In fact, I'd be there were lots of people of other classes and demographics whose views were systematically erased at the time and after who could've provided more interesting thoughts than either of these two men who have been used as the template for how to deal with violence or what violence is or how violence can be mitigated, blahblahblah.

Oh, and he also hasn't defined what is violence and what isn't violence, according to him. But I suppose a lot of the constant and daily violence that many of us endure... doesn't count. The constant stress of "what ifs" that many of us have to think about or are faced with, the refusal of care providers to provide the care we seek, the perpetual stress placed upon us by others through varying forms of coercion to exist in certain ways... None of that is considered violence because it doesn't immediately result in us being stabbed or clearly murdered.

On writing technique, his only ability to transition between sections and chapters is to tell you what the chapter is supposed to be about, even if he's already told you what the chapter is about.

A lot of what he views as historic data related to violence is... Not actually data and relies upon a lot of assumptions that we cannot and should not (and honestly are not qualified in the here and now) to make. Hobbes and Rousseau are not the only people to make determinations on what violence is, and I'm sure there were people who were entirely unlike them in their own time and sharing the same continent who would've said as much. But what else can you do when you systematically ensure that the history you look at doesn't involve any other sorts of people or that they appear to never have existed in the first place.