I wasn’t averse to the whole intro, but I guess that I thought it was a sort of gimmick that was going to kinda go away, but now it’s in far enough that I think it’s fair to say that this is more a romantic adventure (popular adventure) than a straight popular romance (general prosperous kind). And I did kinda want that cool money feel, and almost dying in a helicopter crash probably isn’t a common part of the prosperous experience of life, but, I don’t know, I get it. Girlie actually doesn’t usually want it to be this pressure situation in terms of how she looks, and then get in an have no agency, right…. 🧝‍♀️

…. The girls in Elle are pretty, though I’ve looked at “worse” than that, obviously, (and the writing is surprisingly good, given it’s reputation), but when I find a girl, I think I should find something other than mainly a pretty girl—like someone with an accomplishment, realized already or anticipated. People think they’re supposed to say “how you treat other people”, but it’s easy to fake passively treating other people well when you feel good. But to picture it in your mind and then make it physical—okay.

…. Eventually the adventure/danger subsides, inevitably, but I do think it’s adventure/romance, more than romance/general, you know. You run after somebody, tap them in the dark, and then run away and hide from them. You don’t meet at noon and talk for six hours over small sandwiches before retiring to the local public house, you know. It’s a different sort of a book.

…. It’s not that there aren’t “bad rich people” sometimes, or even just bad business plans that don’t work out, or aren’t a good fit, but people do reject help and plans and such all the time. A lot of it probably over the internet, but not all, of course. “I believe this could work for you. I could help you.” “Well, I don’t—and I don’t want you to. I don’t trust what I don’t know.” At least some of this //is// indeed just locking yourself in and forgetting that the key is in your pocket.

…. It’s true that it’s kinda mass-produced lowbrow stuff, and not high-brow or middlebrow, like, “Ok, you got me: my name’s not //really// George Eliot; I’m a woman, obviously….”, or, I don’t know, Jennifer Niven or Jenny Offill or V.E. Schwab; but, you have to remember, 150, 200 years ago, you ask: A good book by a woman? —They snort. There //aren’t// good books like //that//, although loads of crap books…. And, today: good books about rich people? —There aren’t good books like that, but there are loads of crap ones. So, honor the cr—honor the noble, chauvie man. Providing isn’t a male role, after all. It’s too much like nurturing, too much like giving milk. Now, you want to //hurt// someone…. Like this book! Chauvin Noble fought in the War of the Robot Rebellions; The NY Times calls it, “Ch—Ah, noble! Good for keeping the men in charge of fighting, and the women in charge of self-doubting (and cleaning!). Four hundred stars!” ⭐️

…. And I mean, there are plenty of things that are considered masculine rather than feminine, not because they’re masculine, but because they’re important, you know. (And women can’t //be// important.) Take religion. Who’s more likely to be an atheist. Men—by a lot. That excess of intellect, doubting intellect—or else anger, both rather masculine. Who’s more likely to go to church? Women. Which parent is more likely to be religious and stress religion or faith? The mother. But, on the other hand, this is //important// stuff, so if it’s //important//, like being a priest, or something. The same with cooking. Who cooks? Trick question: you have to ask—home cooking, or paid cooking? But people don’t look a a chef in a restaurant, and decide that cooking is the opposite of femininity, or that cooking is, I don’t know, Hitler! because chefs don’t bother people. I mean, you work for them, they bother you. The people they feed are both more numerous and generally better off, though, so popular culture….

Anyway. It could still be exaggerated. Chefs, priests, and rich guys aren’t Hitler automatically…. Especially if tank commanders aren’t Hitler automatically! And you //know// they’re not: especially if it’s a laser-tank! 😸

…. The difference between middlebrow and highbrow is pretty ridiculous, too—again, not that this is a middlebrow book you might find promoted in Elle. But any book that got published this year can only be talked about in a magazine, never a literary class. —Books written today? Well, there are plenty of //those//, but frankly my dear, I believe in the //dead//…. And Only The Dead. (It’s like only the lonely for sci-fi fans.) 🥱

…. I think it can be good to have a normative/heroic hero, you know. You tell the capitalist man that he’s a devil, you make it easier for him to live up to that. You tell people the way to be a dream-liver is to be a dream-snatcher, they start to snatch dreams. It doesn’t have to be like that.

…. And of course, money isn’t a substitute for relationship, nor is knowledge or anything else…. And love should be fun, you know. So often it isn’t. But it can be different than that.

…. And just enough negative thinking to keep the proles happy: positive thinking won’t help my eyeballs, mommy! 🤪 And remember to kill some fish and bake them, into the oven with the depleted-in-number life forms of the sea! 🐠⛏️💣

…. Anyway, Reid is a tough-as-nails cracker-settler-of-the-Outback, but he’s also great fun; he’s a —wait for it—ad-venture capitalist. 🦘 💰

…. —Grandpa, read me the story. Read me the story that begins, “In every love story.”
—I can’t.
—Why not?
—Because I don’t want to, Virginia. Did it ever occur to you that sometimes a body cannot do what they don’t want to do? And besides, there have got to be at least thirty of those stories that begin, “In every love story”. Don’t you have a problem with that?
—Oh, no, Grandpa…. This one.
—No.
—Do it! 🦍
—Oh, okay. “In every love story, there has to be at least a female partner and/or female family member who corners the hero and says, ‘Behold, I am the woman of patriarchy! I say, that //you// are in ~love~, and these, are ~the rules~. So…. Do as I say!’ Oh, God, what crap. I don’t feel so bad for you bitches anymore, about the world and all.
—Oh, but Grandpa-pa, it’s romantic! 🏝️🩰🎭🥈🤹‍♀️ 🇫🇷 🌺

…. I thought, a billion dollars, and maybe you could buy a little space between you and the village gossips and the purveyors of custom and secular ritual, you know. (disgust). (false charm) Oh how charming. (disgust) (sulk)

—God, who’d want to get married like that?
—What difference does it make how you feel! You’re getting married!

…. —Mein Fuhrer, Mein Fuhrer….
—Mein Fuhrer, your female relative says you have to get married. She says it doesn’t matter how you feel.
—(struggling to take off glasses as his fingers tremble with rage and sickness)….

Oh, and what’s this: the sequel! I bought the sequel! Yes, indeed…. The sequel, with an ice pick in the head, in Mexico, in 1940, I believe…. (surprise) Sequel? What sequel? In my possession? I believe that the Western Powers are misleading you again, my dear sir….