Welcome to Litsy!

Wow. Not much love for this book, which I get. I found it to be an interesting exploration of a woman's sexuality and desires, how it led to the rethinking of herself and her life, and the question of “Who gets to speak and why...“. As Joan Hawkins' afterward states, it's a theoretical fiction vs a novel. Still I understand why it's not for everyone. It's a soft pick for me. I did have the best cuddle buddy while reading it.

“We suicide ourselves for our own survival. Is there any hope of dipping back into the past and circling round it like you can in art?“

I still can‘t make up my mind about this one, but what I can tell you is this: Chris and Sylvère are covered HEAD TO TOE in red flags 🚩 If I were Dick, I would‘ve set world records for how fast I‘d run away from them. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/i-love-dick-chris-kraus/

I really didn't love this. I found it so unrelatable. A story of obsessive, unrequited, and delusional love. I think Chris would have been a really great character to read about WITHOUT her husband and Dick. But is that not the point? She talks so much of accepting that women are powerless unless in relation to their male counterparts. This text is feminist when thought about critically, but I just found it insufferable to read.

Honestly wasn‘t a fan. Read this for a seminar and struggled to get through it, as while it‘s objectively well written I dislike a lot of the content and grew to dislike Chris the character the longer I read. The first 50 so pages are especially difficult and the rest of the book doesn‘t recover from there on.

I hate dick. This was annoying characters with a story about nothing. I read it over 5 hours just so I could get through it.

"My name is Jessie and I think it's hilarious that Mum is struggling through a bad book instead of patting me"

Reading this blasted on my evening off. It seems like a good book to read while blasted.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! @melyndarae Look what finally arrived. Book mail is the best mail... Great picks. Thank you again for the generous giveaway. 😁😁😁

I Love Dick flips the male gaze around. The male ideal becomes the object of obsession and possession, switching up #powerandthepassion
The tv adaptation of the book is fantastic too. Kevin Bacon is a perfect Dick.
#MarchintoOz @Cinfhen @Lizpixie

Books and pedicures.

An impending milestone birthday and a major career set back during the time Kraus met Dick may have been the catalyst for her obsession with him, but it doesn‘t excuse the creepy way she and her husband treated him. Kraus makes interesting psychological observations, but I really wish her story had not been true. #epistolary

Ich bin verzaubert und amüsiert.

Critics say it's too late for this book. I don't believe it, this book speaks from my heart, flesh, bones, mind in so many ways.

If I can‘t make you fall in love with me for who I am, maybe I can interest you with what I understand. So instead of wondering “Would he like me?”, I wonder “Is he game?”

While I appreciate that Kraus is clearly a very intelligent author who made many insightful points, this was not my cup of tea. To be extremely blunt, this book is the overindulgent ramblings of an upperclass film maker looking for something to make her life more meaningful or edgy. I didn't think It was important for feminism at all as it focused on a woman completely fawning over a man. The characters were desperately irritating too! Sorry Kraus

October book club read! Not sure I'll be writing this title on my classroom door!

I can‘t describe this book, beyond that it‘s bizarre and addicting and incomprehensible and beautifully written. I don‘t know who I‘d recommend it to? But I still like it.

This is clearly begging to be a Panic at the Disco lyric.

I‘ve heard this one is a trip. Love the concept.

Let's just say that Dick, who is a cultural theorist/critic, possesses some amount of #fame and cultural capital in the academic and art worlds that enable him to live up to his name.

#SeptemBowie @Marchpane @Cinfhen

#strangetitles This is the one everyone's been talking about lately! On my TBR! #awesomeautumnbooks

Madeleine: "The book is about an intellectual couple who becomes infatuated with this guy named Dick. It's funny to see a highbrow couple act this way, but honestly, I think a lot of couples in New York want to be like them. I'd like be part of a couple that's known to be honest and independent. It's important to stay independent as a woman in a relationship. We have more possibilities today and should make use of them."

I feel extremely meh about this book. Hoping someone at my book club can explain why I should care. #theadventurersbookclub

I finished reading Chris Kraus‘ “I Love Dick” yesterday and I am thoroughly amazed by it. It‘s a deconstruction of heterosexuality, a daring, less bourgeois re-write of Woolf‘s “A room of one‘s own,” and it posits Kraus as one of the few women of postmodern critical theory who center on woman‘s experience. The tension writing love letters with her partner is something I‘ve never read like this before. Bold feminine narrative. Fascinating read!

So, I thought I'd revive my litsy account as a few more of my Bookstagram buddies have made it over to litsy now! This is my current read

In Love with Chris Kraus' "I Love Dick". For me one of the most important books about being a woman and and the difficulty of human relationships.

#currentlyreading #feministbooks

I'm so glad to be finished with these people. This book really annoyed me, Kraus is so narcissistic, self-obsessed and such a wannabe intellectual that I ended up rooting for Dick, who's actually a dick. How did a book about obsession manage to end up so extremely uninteresting?

Wait, what?

Trying to finish this one... 😒

Kraus' constant name dropping is annoying, and everything she writes she seemingly has to relate to someone else (famous) ALL THE TIME, but sometimes she touches upon interesting themes.

Wow, this book is seriously shitty. I couldn't be less interested in Kraus and what she has to say while trying to pass for an intellectual (and I suspect Dick couldn't be less interested either). Once her husband disappeared from the narrative I lost all interest. Will I make it to the end?

Ugh! An extremely stressful start of the day with only a 2 minutes margin to reach the train (I prefer 10) to go to the airport and then to Stockholm for work. I want to stay at home 😩 I love Dick has grown ever so slightly on me, but it still feels pretty artificial and fake, and who writes about themselves in the third person?

Started this, and it's not at all what I expected. I'm getting annoying Joan Didion pretentiousness vibes, and the swearing bothers me. 😒

"(And sometimes I feel ashamed of this whole episode, how it must look to you or anyone outside. But just by doing it I'm giving myself the freedom of seeing from the inside out. I'm not driven anymore by other people's voices. From now on it's the world according to me.)"

Eileen Myles and Chris Kraus at the 92nd Street Y tonight! Part of my extended Birthday Weekend (and Then Some) Celebration. Myles has a book coming out about a beloved dog. Kraus has a book coming out about her frenemy Kathy Acker. All very relevant to my interests!

When you're living so intensely in your head you actually believe when something happens you've imagined, that you caused it... when you're living so intensely in your head there isn't any difference between what you imagine and what actually takes place

I went to the Tate Modern today! This is a very small selection of some of the amazing books they had on sale! I could have lost a fortune in the Tate shop! 💷💷💷Guess which book caught my eye...😉😉😉 (Turns out Dick is actually someone's name 😂)

Beautifully wrote and heart breaking at times! Very happy this was my first book of 2017!

Look what the postman just delivered! I probably won't raise many eyebrows reading this in a café or on the train in Tokyo, so I may not enjoy it as much as if I were reading it in public back in Canada. :-) All kidding aside, I've heard really good things about this one.

Decisions, decisions.

Why the F*ck Are You Reading That? #Bookmarks.
A set I designed for people who read in public places. Each bookmark has two reading excuses that will stick out of the top of your book to tell the onlookers around you exactly why the f*ck you're reading that. Never be embarrassed by an awkward book cover ever again. 😜 #booktober

I had to resharpen my reading pencil after this book.

I took my time with this one and am grateful for it--wrestling with the concept of what a woman is supposed to do, be, what form her sexuality is allowed to have and which gender shapes it, and how it breaks through all of this so openly and does away with the shame. I'll be thinking about this one for a long, long time.

Michelle: "It's Monday and I'm not feeling that brave so I folded over the cover while reading on the train. This is a feminist novel comprised of a bunch of letters. A woman falls in love with this cowboy and starts to write him - his name is Dick. It's about much more than her eventually leaving her husband for Dick. It's about her finding her voice and being honest about her own life and what she wants."