The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time Summary
The review that I chose to review was one about Steven Sherrill’s book The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time, by the New York Times journalist Allan Gurganus. In his review, titled A Minotaur’s in Maintenance in a Tale of Rust Belt America, Gurganus ponders whether the Minotaur is a worthwhile subject to place into contemporary American life; and while the Minotaur may be a multi-millennia year old beast, Gurganus believes that a once feared creature reduced to average Joe’s level is a good comparison to the standard populace of the United States.
2.
A Tomboy’s Niche Liz Prince’s graphic novel Tomboy captured something very specific, personal, and something that most Americans of recent years have experienced in their early years: fitting in. Now, most people can’t say that they’ve experienced Prince’s specific plights; I highly doubt that most people grew up denying their societal status of gender. Yet, despite this obvious difference, most can say that they struggled in some way to find a place to fit in to; to this day, even I’m not entirely sure where I fit in with society. Prince shows many examples of her pathway to community, but I chose to focus on the …show more content…
last chapter of her memoir, chapter thirteen. The finale of Liz Prince’s memoir was one that was filled with punk rock, feminist zines, and donuts. Chapter thirteen begins with Prince meeting a girl named Maggie at a teen art center. Maggie, by Prince’s standard, is a cut above the rest; they seem to form an instant connection, and quickly become friends. While at the teen art center, called Warehouse 21, Prince stumbles across a zine with the title, Fuck Girl Culture; while reading it, she realizes that not only has she been wrong about gender roles her whole life, but she’s been buying into the binary concept of gender the entire time. By prescribing specific traits to men and women, she was essentially holding herself back. Which is what leads to the end of the chapter.
After attending a punk rock concert at Warehouse 21, and realizing she found a community of likeminded individuals, Prince went to a donut shop with Maggie. While there, the employee addresses Prince with: “What can I get for you, young man”. Throughout the novel, Prince has always accepted herself as a pseudo-boy; but, in this instance, she responds with: “Actually, I’m a girl.” The chapter ends on this, signifying the end of an era of her life of being absolute.
Prince’s narrative of self-realization was one we all felt as readers; some would say that this memoir was one of bildungsroman. Actively through Prince’s novel, she shares moments in her life that show her questioning not only how she fits in with society, but her own identity. Prince’s dénouement was at the moment where she says the phrase: “Actually, I’m a girl”. She’s not really telling the donut worker of her gender, but herself; she realizes that despite being different from the canon of femininity, she can still identify as a girl and be comfortable. Comfortability is what Prince has been really looking for since the start, and here, it seems as though she found it.
After wading through the shallows of self-ascribed gender expectations, Prince has finally reached a point of contentment.
Really, though, her memoir isn’t just for the benefit of getting a weight off of her psyche; while it may exist for partially that purpose, Prince had something to say. In the end, Prince’s novel was a critique of the American gender standard. Her message was that despite gender binaries existing, there is no reason to feel out of place being outside of those standards. Not only that, but those inside of those binaries should not feel bad for buying into societies preconceived roles of gender; no matter what, you should feel comfortable and happy with yourself. And if people don’t like what makes you happy, do what Liz Prince did many times throughout her memoir: raise a middle
finger.
3.
All in all, I can’t say that my chosen book review affected my critique very much. I probably could have chosen a better review, but at the same time, a Minotaur fitting in with small-town America seemed pretty similar to a tomboy existing in a gender-obsessed society. Content aside, the review did give me a brief, well, review, of how to properly critique a book’s rhetoric.
2.
A Tomboy’s Niche Liz Prince’s graphic novel Tomboy captured something very specific, personal, and something that most Americans of recent years have experienced in their early years: fitting in. Now, most people can’t say that they’ve experienced Prince’s specific plights; I highly doubt that most people grew up denying their societal status of gender. Yet, despite this obvious difference, most can say that they struggled in some way to find a place to fit in to; to this day, even I’m not entirely sure where I fit in with society. Prince shows many examples of her pathway to community, but I chose to focus on the …show more content…
last chapter of her memoir, chapter thirteen. The finale of Liz Prince’s memoir was one that was filled with punk rock, feminist zines, and donuts. Chapter thirteen begins with Prince meeting a girl named Maggie at a teen art center. Maggie, by Prince’s standard, is a cut above the rest; they seem to form an instant connection, and quickly become friends. While at the teen art center, called Warehouse 21, Prince stumbles across a zine with the title, Fuck Girl Culture; while reading it, she realizes that not only has she been wrong about gender roles her whole life, but she’s been buying into the binary concept of gender the entire time. By prescribing specific traits to men and women, she was essentially holding herself back. Which is what leads to the end of the chapter.
After attending a punk rock concert at Warehouse 21, and realizing she found a community of likeminded individuals, Prince went to a donut shop with Maggie. While there, the employee addresses Prince with: “What can I get for you, young man”. Throughout the novel, Prince has always accepted herself as a pseudo-boy; but, in this instance, she responds with: “Actually, I’m a girl.” The chapter ends on this, signifying the end of an era of her life of being absolute.
Prince’s narrative of self-realization was one we all felt as readers; some would say that this memoir was one of bildungsroman. Actively through Prince’s novel, she shares moments in her life that show her questioning not only how she fits in with society, but her own identity. Prince’s dénouement was at the moment where she says the phrase: “Actually, I’m a girl”. She’s not really telling the donut worker of her gender, but herself; she realizes that despite being different from the canon of femininity, she can still identify as a girl and be comfortable. Comfortability is what Prince has been really looking for since the start, and here, it seems as though she found it.
After wading through the shallows of self-ascribed gender expectations, Prince has finally reached a point of contentment.
Really, though, her memoir isn’t just for the benefit of getting a weight off of her psyche; while it may exist for partially that purpose, Prince had something to say. In the end, Prince’s novel was a critique of the American gender standard. Her message was that despite gender binaries existing, there is no reason to feel out of place being outside of those standards. Not only that, but those inside of those binaries should not feel bad for buying into societies preconceived roles of gender; no matter what, you should feel comfortable and happy with yourself. And if people don’t like what makes you happy, do what Liz Prince did many times throughout her memoir: raise a middle
finger.
3.
All in all, I can’t say that my chosen book review affected my critique very much. I probably could have chosen a better review, but at the same time, a Minotaur fitting in with small-town America seemed pretty similar to a tomboy existing in a gender-obsessed society. Content aside, the review did give me a brief, well, review, of how to properly critique a book’s rhetoric.