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When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
May. 3rd, 2023 08:23 pmWhen Women Were Dragons
3/5. Memoir of the “mass dragoning” of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of women, “wives and mothers all” transformed into dragons. This, and the subsequent mass gaslighting about it, have profound effects on a young girl who grows up in a world in which women keep turning into dragons.
Another feminist rage book. It’s dedicated to Christine Blasey Ford, if that puts it in context. And I found it pretty disappointing. The concept is fine, the story has its interesting moments and a lot of (deliberately) enraging moments. Our heroine is a brilliant mathematician whose father doesn’t think women need an education, if that gives you some flavor.
But it’s just . . . disappointing. The metaphor is supposed to be interesting enough to carry 150,000 words. It would have been better suited to, maybe, 15,000. And maybe this is unfair of me, but this is Barnhill’s first adult novel, and while it has the pacing and preoccupations of an adult novel, it has the nuance of young adult. Which is to say, not nearly enough. A dragon at a protest carries a sign saying “our bodies, our choice,” in case, you know, you didn’t get it. Women are oppressed and turn into dragons in rage, or women are liberated and turn into dragons in joy, men are terrible, no one wants to acknowledge any of it, that’s about it.
Content notes: Misogyny of many sorts, parental death from cancer, parental abandonment, homophobia.
3/5. Memoir of the “mass dragoning” of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of women, “wives and mothers all” transformed into dragons. This, and the subsequent mass gaslighting about it, have profound effects on a young girl who grows up in a world in which women keep turning into dragons.
Another feminist rage book. It’s dedicated to Christine Blasey Ford, if that puts it in context. And I found it pretty disappointing. The concept is fine, the story has its interesting moments and a lot of (deliberately) enraging moments. Our heroine is a brilliant mathematician whose father doesn’t think women need an education, if that gives you some flavor.
But it’s just . . . disappointing. The metaphor is supposed to be interesting enough to carry 150,000 words. It would have been better suited to, maybe, 15,000. And maybe this is unfair of me, but this is Barnhill’s first adult novel, and while it has the pacing and preoccupations of an adult novel, it has the nuance of young adult. Which is to say, not nearly enough. A dragon at a protest carries a sign saying “our bodies, our choice,” in case, you know, you didn’t get it. Women are oppressed and turn into dragons in rage, or women are liberated and turn into dragons in joy, men are terrible, no one wants to acknowledge any of it, that’s about it.
Content notes: Misogyny of many sorts, parental death from cancer, parental abandonment, homophobia.
