Annie Kapur
Film and Writing (M.A)
British Born Punjabi Girl.
Focus in Film: Adaptation from Literature, Horror Filmmaking Styles and Auteur Cinema
Twitter: @AnnieApprox
IG: @AnnieApproximately
Book Review: "Men Who Hate Women" by Laura Bates
Before I read this book, I definitely had heard of Laura Bates before. Like other feminists that have since become more and more famous by the day - she has become steeped in the culture of female liberation from the very beginning. Since then, she has started to climb the ladder of being a person who is qualified to speak about gender and sex related issues but from time to time I will not lie and say that I don’t worry about the way in which she presents herself as an academic writer of ‘essays’. Be that as it may, there are many good arguments within this book that too, deserve extra attention for their ability to not create a binary of Men vs. Women but show how the two are equally disadvantaged by the upholding of these blatantly sexist ideas that are held by the groups in question within the text.
Annie KapurPublished about 8 hours ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Sleeping Beauties" by Suzanne O'Sullivan
I remember when I was at school and university and first started to read the books of Oliver Sachs. I was amazed to see what people were afflicted with and yet, how they managed to still keep in touch with themselves and try their best not to isolate themselves or lose hope. His writings were often narratives with emotional outpourings and stories which resonate with the empathy that one human being has towards another. I cannot say that this is exactly the same type of book but it follows the same guidelines of medical narratives and explorations in science. This book entitled "The Sleeping Beauties" traces one of our more modern ideas concerning health and wellbeing and that is psychological health. The health of the mind in times of chronic stress and/or trauma, the theories surrounding something called 'resignation syndrome' and the way in which the people around the suffering person become confused, riddled and often helpless when having to care for the person with the condition.
Annie KapurPublished a day ago in Psyche
Book Review: "Earthlings" by Sayako Murata
I have read some pretty disturbing books in my time. From Chuck Palahniuk’s “Haunted” to Bret Easton Ellis’s “American Psycho”, from “The Girl Next Door” by Jack Ketchum all the way back to “120 Days of Sodom” by the Marquis de Sade. These books are some of the more extreme ones I have read. When we come more and more into our own times we see names such as Stephen King, we see names such as Lionel Shriver - author of the traumatising novel “We Need to Talk About Kevin” and we also see the more recent works of Cormac McCarthy. From the Sci-Fi terror of Harlan Ellison to the disturbing love stories of Vladimir Nabokov, Iain Banks, Joyce Carol Oates, V.C Andrews and many more - the world of the psychological thriller is filled with intense stories of absolute horror. But, I have to say that one of the most disturbing things I have read in the last five years has got to be “Earthlings” by Sayako Murata - the author of the famed “Convenience Store Woman”. It is not only a psychological thriller, it is a post-apocalyptic dystopian nightmare, it is a political system which regards itself as an overlord of the planet, it is a fight for survival when one defers from the path given to them. From murder to incest, from cannibalism to rape - this book is quite possibly one of the most disturbing things you will read to date. Her is a tip for doing so: make sure you are not eating anything at the time.
Annie KapurPublished 2 days ago in HorrorYou Are My Headache
I have a headache that runs from my forehead to my jawbone And the sound of each move annoys me. The existence of you Is like a plague raining down on humanity and kicking me out of
Annie KapurPublished 3 days ago in Poets
Book Review: "Jack" by Marilynne Robinson
I think we have all heard enough about the segregational culture of America in the 1950s and though I love 1950s music and film culture, I can definitely say that I was not 'born in the wrong generation' due to the fact that I am brown and happy that I am in a time where that is respected as a positive aspect of my character. However, I understand that the kind of music I listen to and the films I watch from the 1950s had a culture where that was not so and thus, when I read a book from this time or set during this time, I keep that in mind no matter what it is about. There are many books set in this period such as the famous “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee all the way through to the African-American Southern Gothic books of Toni Morrison. But I think that possibly one of the best modern examples in our own day of this is the books of Marilynne Robinson, especially this one entitled “Jack” which explores the more subverted aspect of interracial romance at a time where this only just was not accepted but was condemned outwardly by others.
Annie KapurPublished 3 days ago in Humans
Book Review: "Dreamland" by Rosa Rankin-Gee
Normally, I would say that fiction set in the future has ‘all been done before’ and that there are no more stories to tell. When it comes down to “Dreamland” though, I think that there has not yet been a book set in the not so distant future quite like this one. Strangely different from its title, “Dreamland” has absolutely nothing to do with the atmosphere or subjects of the book but instead it is regarding a specific place within the book. Instead, “Dreamland” is a cross between a migration novel and the post-apocalyptic nightmare of hell in a hand basket. However much I thought this book was dark and grim to the extreme, it was also extremely well written and is set in our own near future, to become one of our generation’s modern classics alike to “1984” and “Brave New World”. A future which is possible, which is plausible and yet, one we can only imagine in our darkest thoughts.
Annie KapurPublished 4 days ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Legend of a Suicide" by David Vann
I have read quite a few books about people killing themselves or contemplating suicide. There seems to be this narrative of having been overtly depressed so to that it is reflected in the language whether it is narrated by the victim or not. But there is something different about “Legend of a Suicide” in the sense that there is not this sense of desperate grief but instead this question of why. There is this question of why because of the fact the victim of the suicide is someone whom the protagonist and narrator viewed as not only successful financially but also as a person who was moving on with their lives. Now, there is an argument of the fact that people commit suicide when they believe people least expect it as to not worry anyone in advance, but the scene in which the fact does kill himself is something else entirely. There is this sense of time stopping, but there seems to be none of this helplessness that surrounds it. In actuality, the scene is pretty disgusting. The father shoots himself in the head and his own brother finds him later on when the birds have already been pecking at him and the flies, eating him. His desecrated corpse is then reported to the child (narrator) and his mother. We then get this flashback upon the parents and why the marriage crumbles into nothingness.
Annie KapurPublished 5 days ago in PsycheWe, the Depressed Night
A heartless break, the exhausted soul rips apart The black hole of darkness, the ultimately trip and fall Out of the air and into the nothing. Nothing at all.
Annie KapurPublished 6 days ago in Poets
