Thoughts on the latest Game of Thrones episode (Unbowed Unbent, Unbroken)

Regarding the posts I see from A Song of Ice and Fire fans regarding the controversial scene.... I think a lot of it is misguided.

. Violence towards women in Westerosi society(which tries to reflect our own history to a certain extent) is one of the themes of the book series and it's a much bigger  theme in the show. The rape is hardly the first one they've shown in the show.

 I think where the show fails is that it  has this sort of glorification of brutal power. All other forms of power are irrelevant in the show., The Sansa of the books shows a different kind of power, a power reliant on her feminine charms. She soothes the raging Hound a number of times. She takes on the role of Queen to comfort the scared women and children (even though she herself is pessimistic and terrified, she instinctively does it as a kindness to the others) by singing the Hymn to the Mother during the Battle of the Blackwater. She even is able to soothe and convince a quaking, palsied boy into taking a dangerous journey down a dangerous mountain path . And in the sample chapter which GRRM recently published on his blog, she seems to be using a more self-aware sexual element to achieve her desires and wishes. This is power. How you achieve your desires, wishes and goals is power. Which is actually also historically accurate. I mean, historically, women were not *just* victims. They also had their own forms of power, and I'm not talking about the handful of medieval queens who wielded incredible political power in more traditional ways.  More on this later.. . By cutting Sansa's storyline and throwing her into Ramsay's arms they have taken her power away. I'm not sure if it's a conscious decision to excise that view of power from the story but there is a pattern that has emerged over the five seasons that leads me to suspect that it might be partially that, which I'll get into below.

Now, Sansa is arguably the most feminine character in the series; not only is she pretty, not only does she have exquisite courtesy, but she also exemplifies a sort of medieval feminine ideal: she sews well and straight, she plays the harp, she sings, she dances. It's not that Sansa is  anti-feminist;, that is just who she is. She is a girly girl. That's her natural state. So by taking her storyline away, they are in a way saying, that 'the feminine', as a sort of Jungian archetype, can never have any sort of power; they are saying that only traditionally masculine traits can be powerful. And that's a gross misreading of the books, in my opinion, and not historically accurate. (I say historically accurate, because, even though it is a fantasy series, there are several connections with real medieval history, and several events and characters have been inspired by real historical events and characters. See the brilliant Race for the Iron Throne blog for a deconstruction of this aspect of the (books) series.)

Yet, oddly this treatment does seem to play into a form of feminism and a view of men as victimizers and women as victims that I occasionally see in American discourse. Ultimately, I think that this and other aspects of the show* reflect the show writers' view of modern American issues. They seem to be declaring themselves feminists but there is an unconscious edge of misogyny underneath. I actually this is an echo of the USA mixed vision of women in general. (I'm not picking on the USA, other places have other problems with this.)This is very different in the book. I think GRRM has a mysogynistic bone or two in his body, like many men, but I think his own unconcious view of feminism is a much more sixties-based one, and it's much less militant and much more positive. Mostly though, and this should be underscored twice,  I think GRRM's just trying to write a good story, as opposed to the show-runners who are trying to shock and yet be (barf) socially relevant .

And to some extent that is the goal of dramatic art. The Red Wedding (in book especially, but also in the show) worked because its so shocking that it causes catharsis--it's shocking because the way it's written makes it unexpected, but it's still just basically a tragic(in the classic sense) scene. But it worked because it was logical in the confines of the plot. It was not gratuitous. NOt shock for shock's sake.
 They seem to be going for more and more of these moments and they are getting less justified, less logical and therefore more gratuitous. 

But anyway, back to to their portrayal of women. It's not just Sansa's feminine power that they've taken from her.

 By taking dany's strategic decisions in her battles away from her and giving them to her generals they also take her power away. By reducing Catelyn and even Cersei to caricatures of the 'concerned mother trope'  they also take away catelyn's political smarts and her non-brutal power and strength; while the glossing over of Cersei's narcissism and paranoia and secret longing to have the sort of brutal masculine power that the show glorifies  reduces her character, too. (though it does make her more likeable)

But, personally, I'm not offended. All of these elements have been in the show since the first season and they've become more pronounced over time.  Ultimately it's just that the the show runners have a limited faith in complexity. There is a definite pattern over the series in(their portrayal of women and their presentation of brute, masculine strength being the only kind of power that exists.  In the end they just dont understand subtle characters like sansa. And that's a real shame.

The point they are making about women is clear but it's dumb.

Personally, as a fan of the boook series I"m much more disgusted with the horribly written, horribly staged, horribly acted Dorne subplot. They cut Jaime's journey of self-growth and self awareness, his slow transformation into a hero; cut Arrianne Martell's character completely and the complex plot to place Myrcella on the throne in place of Tommen coming into conflict with Doran Martell's grander plan to supplant the Lannisters entirely and replaced it with 'The Dornish are crazy. They like to fuck and fight!' It's lame. But, you know? It's like watching Star Trek at this point. It's got a campy 'so laughably bad it's kind of good' feeling to it to me.

Lance





*for examplethe reduction of the ser Loras character to a gay stereotype, and his subsequent struggle against the Taliban-like Faith Militant,  the equating of all religion to fanaticism, the glorification of the secular and the physical and the selfish...I could go on.

Goodbye Columbus by Phillip Roth

Goodbye, Columbus is a brutal, funny collection of short stories about second and third generation Jews assimilating in suburban America in the mid-twentieth century.

I really liked this complicated stories with their complex, well-drawn characters. Philip Roth does not shy away from showing the darker, pettier sides of suburban America, but he doesnt wallow in it, either. The characters are selfish, lustful, silly, yet never really less than real. I feel that I've known each of these characters. Never more so than in the opening novella from which the collection gets the title. It struck a really familiar chord in me, from its portrait of the suburban home, to it's detailing of the romantic fling the narrator has, and the concerns and worries and obsessions of the characters. In fact, it's eerie how much it pulled me in; I could feel the air conditioning, feel the heat of the summer, smell teh sweat on skin...

I'm not Jewish, but I almost felt Jewish reading this. Make no mistake, there is not a single story here that doesn't concern Jewishness. Judaism is wrapped around these stories and inseparable from them. But they transcend that.

Being set 60 or 70 years ago(published in 1959) hasn't really dated the stories too much, other than a few terms(colored boy, for example)and a few details. Overall, it really felt fresh to me. There's a bitter sadness to these stories, and an beautiful anger--and a wicked sense of humor. I chuckled to myself more than a few times. 

And man, can he write!

There are some powerful stories here which range they range from incredibly good to unbelievably good--more than a few disturbing moments too. They're probably the best short stories I've read since I read JD Salinger in the 90s. In fact, I'd say they resemble JD Salinger. They're sort of a mix of Salinger and Saul Bellow, but funnier.

I highly recommend this book to anybody who likes great 20th century AMerican literature.

My Tuesdays

Jana made the observation yesterday that me and my family 'write a lot.' That made me feel kind of proud, though I'm not sure she didn't actually mean that we were addicted to Facebook, haha. I guess she has fewer FAcebook friends than I do(though I've unfollowed most of mine) so she tends to see a lot more updates from my brothers and sister than her other Facebook friends.

It's true that I can sometimes really get into writing, whether it's a book review or whatever. I don't really consider myself a writer, though at one time I was and did.

 In truth I'm probably not disciplined enough and I have spent too much time and energy getting my business going and so on. I don't work as hard at work as I used to, partially because policies are policies and once you make them, things run more or less smoothly without you, and getting Jana and Zuzka(assistant) working for me has meant that my job on the management side has dwindled to financial management, hiring(and firing--thankfully it's only happened once) and making the schedule.   This is still an enormous amount of work, I reckon that the schedule is about 100 hours of work and hiring new teachers probably the same. But gone are the days of the 60 or 70 hour work seeks, leaving home at 5.00 and getting back at 9.pm. That was the heart attack year, incidentally!

 Fortunately, this year I don't have to hire any new teachers from abroad as they're all staying. Knock on wood. What this means is that for the winter I basically do nothing but look at the money and make sure we're not spending more htan we're taking in so that we survive the summer, when there is much less work but the same amount of fixed costs.

. The school year is winding down and I definitely have that 'home-stretch' feeling. I'm looking forward to teaching a little less and relaxing and reading a little more in the summer. One of the teachers is staying through the summer, which means I'll be able to take it a little easy and give him some of the hours I usually teach--I'm usually just as busy in the summer as not. I started out the year as one of the school's busiest teachers but I've ended up having a pretty easy schedule, though I do have some stressful classes. I've been saving money for the planned vacation in America next year, and I suppose some of that will be going for living costs this year.

We haven't really made plans for this year: what I'd like to do is maybe have a little holiday in the High TAtras of Slovakia--it's not as good for little kids as Austria is but for bigger kids and adults it's just as good,

If there's one thing living in the Czech Republic has taught me it's how to look and plan ahead and save money. The amount of money that I have saved would have been absolutely impossible in the States. I remember one time realizing that, as I walked through Denver one hot summer day that I hardly went ten minutes without spending money somewhere. And when I visit America, I was surprised at how often Dad or Blake, when they were driving, would just casually stop the car somewhere, run in and get a Coke or something to drink. It blew me away. I've been trained to think about every little purchase I make. Which is not to say I never splurge but it's something I always ask myself about first. Because, SUMMER IS COMING. Summer with its smaller amount of work and vacaations to boot. After spending a penniless summer in 2004 eating almost nothing and spending my copious free time watching fish swim in the Bečva and sitting in mz bedroom in the evening practicing saying Czech words outloud, I've learned to control my spending much more tightly than back in the US of A.

I've got an easy day today because we're doing PET examinations at a local school--well, Jana and Petr are doing them. My morning class was consequently cancelled because the students in it are taking the test. I don't go 'til 2.00 today. I'll geet off at 8.30, so really just 6 a nd a half hours of work and it's all pretty easy on Thursdays.

Tuesdays are my demanding days. Let me tell you about my Tuesdays. I get up at 4.30 and do my morning ritual of coffee and reading. (sometimes I get on the net but usually I read on my Kindle.) At 5.45, I jump in the shower, get out, skip shaving, get dressed, hunt for my keys/phone/wallet/kindle/laptop and head out to work. At abuot 6.05,  I drive across town to pick up Catherine, who, like me, also works in Val Mez on Tuesdays. Then we drive to Val Mez, which is about 13 miles away. Sometimes we chat amiably, especially now that it's light out and that gives me energy. Sometimes we exchange a few pleasantries and sit the rest of the journey in the silence. It's all good. I usually get to the office in VM at about 6.40 at which time I turn on the kettle, set up my laptop and hastily plan my first lesson, which starts at 7.00. 

My student shows up at 7. He is always exactly on time. I think he literally walks into the school at the precise moment that all the second hands in the world are pointing straight up at the twelve. I give him his tea, and sit down and teach him for 60 minutes. Jiři is a pretty nice guy. He's short and looks a little rodent-like. He's the HR manager at a factory in Hranice na Moravě. His wife is a doctor, as is his daughter and his son is studying computer engineering in Brno. He's about a typical a middle-class Moravian as you can find. Works hard. Goes for walks at the weekend. Skiing holidays in the winter. Croatia in the summer.

 After he takes off, I horse around on the Internet for about 15 minutes or talk to Petr about some important business. Then I go into overdrive and I plan the rest of my work day in the next 35 minutes or so. I make some copies and I'm out the door at about 9.25, running late for my lesson at MTT, a factory which makes plastic mouldings that make pieces for cara(like the plastic inside of your car doors or the light frames and 'glass'(it's plastic) around your tail lights. They also make tools, but not tools like hammers and such. They make these huge industrial machines that...make molds and so on. I don't really know what they do. Anyway, I usually get there about three our four minutes late(it's four kilometres away and I always underestimate how bad the traffic will be.) It doesn't matter because my student, Petr is always even later. He always comes in at about a quarter til ten apologizing for his lateness. I always say, 'that's OK, I was actually a little late, too.' We have our lessons. Petr is also pretty typical for a Moravian in these parts, but he's sportier than average, I'd reckon(and Moravians are a sporty bunch) He lives in a village about 5 miles from Val Mez, and when it's not raining or snowy, he rides his bike to and from work. He's a technical designer for MTT, meaning he designs these industrial machines they make. He's 50 but he looks about 35. He has a very thick accent. His wife is a psychologist, his son a technical designer and his second son is kind of a deadbeat of whom petr despairs. He goes on exotic holidays every couple years(safari in Africa, hiking in Nepal) and he also goes on a fishing trip to Norway every spring. At weekends, he and his wife travel somewhere in the Czech Republic, often to South Moravia to wine cellars or for cycling in the Bohemian lowlands or whatever.

I finish that one at 11, and drive straight back to Vsetin, where I walk in the office at about 11.30. I eat lunch which I've either prepared the night before or which I've had Zuzka order for me from one of the restaurants in town. I don't like ordering from the restaurants in town because they nearly always include something I shouldn't eat, like potatoes or they are late and I don't have time to eat. Anwyay, i finish eating at 1115, at which time I take a toilet break for 15 minutes. Then I correct homework for the next half hour and if I play my cards right, I can take it easy from 12-12.30 and check the bank account and pay whatever invoices have piled up on my desk.

At twelve thirty I pile everything into the other car(the one for teachers that no one uses this year because none of the teachers can drive, so I drive it a couple of times a week so it doesn't fall apart.) 

This car used to belong to Petr. He sold it to the school for 30 000 kc earlier this year. It's a bit of a hunk o' junk but it's the fastest ship in the galaxy. Petr smoked in it constantly so it smells very strongly of cigarette smoke. If you're not a smoker, this is absolutely the worst smell in the galaxy. But fuck it.

Anyway, I drive about 6 kms to Austin(google maps says it's 7 kms but mapy.cz says it's about 6.) a factory where they make explosives used in mining and for blasting holes in hills for highways to go through. It's an American-owned company, based in Ohio. It's called Austin for its founder who founded the company like 180 years ago or something. I teach there from about 1.00 to 4.00, to lessons back to back. I don't mind it at all. I really like the students and if ever a class is lacklustre or boring, it's nearly always my fault.

My first lesson is comprised of too IT technicians, a chemist and...Petr. I'm not sure what Petr does, to be honest, but I know he works 6 days a week. He's a big bellied, recently divorced guy who makes a lot of self-deprecating, ironic jokes, which are actually pretty funny despite the fact that he's probably the weakest student in the class in terms of language skills. Then there's Miroslav, the IT technician whose passion is building and flying model remote control planes, Bron'e, an IT technician who has a girlfriend at university in Olomouc who he visits every weekend, and Jarda, a chemist and electrician  who uses over formal words all the time as if he's learned most of his English from istruction manuals. Which he has. His daughter, who I taught at when she was 14 is some sort of English-Czech translator and teacher in Brno.

After that there's the advanced class: Jana, who is a technical designer working on her Master's Degree, Magda...I think she works in the purchasing department. She's about 32 but her sons are in their teens. Tomas, another IT guy, but higher position than the ones in the first class. And Tonda. Tonda's about 45 but he had a mild stroke a few years ago and changed his position. I'm not sure what he did before, but now he's in charge of safety procedures. Austin's pretty strict about safety because, after all, they make explosives.

When I'm teaching there, classes are intermittently interrupted by explosions echoing through the tree-clad hills as somewhere in the huge complex the chemists are testing products. The windows rattle, I mutter 'excuse me' (which no one EVER gets) and we carry on. 

Anyway, at 4 o'clock, I get into the school car and drive as fast as I possibly can BACK to Val Mez. This takes about 40 minutes on average, becaue the traffic is quite heavy between the two towns at that time. Then I get in, teach my lessons from 445-8.00 deliver the homework I've checked to the three ladies who I give extra homework to, and finally I'm finished at 8.00. I drive back home, and get in usually about 840. at which time, exhausted, I change clothes, climb into bed and read a bit before sinking....And that's my day.

The Stand by Stephen King; Honor Amoung Thieves by Jeffrey Archer

The Stand by Stephen King
In the Stand, Stephen King's expanded, vast, ambitious post-apocalyptic epic urban fantasy, a military experiment gone wrong unleashes biological warfare on the American public(and the world) to disastrous consequences. The survivors across the US slowly group together into two opposing groups united under two very different leaders: the first, 'The Walking Man" a strange revolutionary housing an immortal demon, the second, Abagail, a simple 108 woman with a lot of faith in God. Eventually, she sends 7 people on a hopeless quest over the Rocky Mountains to confront and destroy the Dark Lord...in Las Vegas, where the shadows lie....

The most obvious inspiration for this sprawling(but never tedious) novel is the Lord of the Rings. It's roughly the same length and has several themes, actions, motifs in common. That's not to say it's a rip-off; it is most definitely not. I see it more as a homage to Tolkien's work. 

I enjoyed the book from it's horrifying beginning, it's calm, peaceful interlude at the center of the novel, to the explosive climax and long, struggling, denouement. The beginning, the accelerating spread of Captain Trips(the variant of Superflu which wipes out most of the population) and the slow coalescing of the characters into one group was very well done and believable which is no mean feat when you have a cast of hundreds and a continent-wide setting. I loved the trek through the mountains in the winter , a journey one could drive in a day and a half, but which takes the characters, bereft of modern transportation, weeks. That part, more than any other really drove home the collapse of civilizaton that this world had gone through and the spirit of the characters to achieve their objectives in spite of it all.

There is a load and a half of characters in this book, but fortunately King embues them all with enough personality that the reader can tell them apart; and the reader likes and roots for all of them. Well, most of them. Obviously, with the exception of the main protagonist, who is a supernatural being of evil, the rest of the characters, even the minor ones, are not simple: the good guys are far from perfect and the bad guys are mostly just doing their jobs out of fear rather than any real malice.

For some reason one minor character(the Kid) who appears in the first half of the novel really stood out to me; the physical description was just awesome: funny, clear drawn, detailed, very much a cartoon figure, yet...somehow very real to me in the character's stupid Neal Cassidy meets psychotic Gene Vincent schtick. The Kid is a real caracature but he's almost an American archetype in the power he had to capture and even kind of scare me. Like, I've almost known kids like that. Almost. 

The quibbles I have are few One which I have it with all of Stephen King's work that I've read(which is not much--I'll be readiing more in the future) is that sometimes the foreshadowing is a little heavy handed. I mean, he tells the story like he tells the story and that's that--who am I to argue with one of the best and most successful speculative fiction authors of all time? But sometimes I think he lays the foreshadowing on a bit too thick. I mean, not only the foreshadowing but the red herrings that are made to trick to reader into thinking it's foreshadowing..It's all so obvious. It reminds me a lot of TV movies or series (this is one of the reasons why I'm not a huge fan of TV shows). And obviously TV has been a huge influence on Stephen King and the way he tells stories. But, you know, I think King(and TV) just underestimates the reader's intelligence, that's all. 

The religious aspects of the story are also a little hokey to me--this is a book written for people who more or less identify themselves as American Christian protestants, I guess. Nothing wrong with that, really, but it is something that, again, reminds me of some aspects of TV(especially old TV shows) that I suppose is ultimately very American in it's wholehearted embrace of cheese. But it's so central to the story that I can't imagine excising it.
The climactic point in Las Vegas is unsatisfying. Literal deux ex machina. Not a fan, but whatever, teh rest of the book was enteretaining enough. 

One more thing: STEPHEN KING LOVES PRODUCTS. The constant name-dropping of all the products(not crackers, but NABISCO crackers, not a lamp but a COLEMAN lamp, not just a can of PIE filling but...well, you get the idea.) sort of rubbed me wrong at first. I know that it probably embues the story to American readers with a certain immediate realism, but I couldn't help noticing it constantly. It's a real document of American realia that way, i guess, but it took me out of the story. But, as the King is self-consciously telling a post-apocalyptic epic fantasy on the American continent, and the characters are very self-consciously American and patriotic to boot, all these trappings of Americana are fitting and even, ultimately, satisfying. _
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Honor amoung Thieves by Jeffrey Archer

I read this in a day and a half during a time when I was hospitalized for thrombosis and....

My God. Absolutely the most, the worst, the terriblest, comically bad book I've ever had the pleasure of reading all the way to the end of. 

In order get back at the USA for the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein steals the original copy of the Declaration of Independence: THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT, fellow Americans? The one with Thomas Jefferson's decaying DNA on it!! Outraged, aren't you? horrified at the very thought, I'm sure. The infamy!!!


His evil plan? To tear it up on LIVE TV. Despair, O US of A! Gnash thy teeth and tear out thine hairs from the very roots for thou hast been bested!!

In the wake of the decade long WAr of Iraq, I guess there is a sweet sentimetality in viewing the cartoon villain of Saddam Husein during the Clinton era. Life was so much simpler then, wasn't it? Remember when we were the good guys, the winners of the Cold War, the benevolent empire...?(sigh)

Archer's understanding of the nature of American nationalism is about as nuanced and accurate as Roland Emmerich's. 

At least I"ll never make the mistake of reading Jeffrey Archer again

THe Final Quest, by Richard Monaco

1.The third book of what was initially a trilogy(and which now has had two 'interqels' added) seems more like part two of the Grail War. It seems to pick up immediately after the last book ended, and the last books ending felt more like the climax of an act than the climax of a complete story. 

Once again, we enter a world of horror and war. This one is set after the horrific, climactic, almost nuclear conflagration of the last one, and the characters wander in a landscape wasted by fire and psychological horrors. Parsival,(eventually joined by his friend Gawain and his lover Unlea)  having abandoned his quest for the Grail, searches for his long-lost son, the only remnant apparently of the family he once had.
His son, Lohengrin, meanwhile, wanders also, suffering from amnesia from a chuck of the grail that has embedded itself inside his skull. At the same time, the sturdy, practical Broaditch continues to let fate run him on its course, eventually meeting up refugee family.

There is a lot of despair and depression in the characters, in fact, if there is one overarching theme, I would say it's probably the idea that amidst all the hell that is life on earth, there are these fragments of beauty that we all share and partake in, and it's human nature that largely creates the hell. Although there are definite Christian themes(it's a medieval, magical Christianity, though) there also seems to be something very Eastern about a lot of it...very...Taoist, maybe? I'm not sure.

My first impressions were that the book was more colorful than the relentless browns and greys that characterized the last one...but it's also more horrific, at least to me. The post-war 'Britain' it depicts is a hell of the squabbling remains of armies, religious fanatics, cannibals, murderers and madmen. Again, the story builds to a climax that left me in awe at it's bloody scope--it wasn't so much like reading a book it was like looking at a live-action uber-violent Hieronymous Bosch painting of hell on acid. Really disturbing images and events that almost got to be too much for me, and I'm not super squeamish...and finally a vision of an inhuman, destructive mechanized future, that must refer to the time we live in now.

None of that is to say it's not good. The author was reaching for a lot, and I think that what is so weird about these books, is, yes, they are novels, but they are also prose poems, prose paintings, even prose opera--the rhythms of the language are extremely musical and with the grand-if-depraved-and-bloody images building upon each other and the rhythm building too, it reminds me more of a climax of a symphony or opera than of a book.

More than anything, I want to impress upon anybody reading this the following: these books are written like no other I've read. I mean, I see a bit of Faulkner in there, maybe, but otherwise the books are unique works of art that transcend their genre of dark fantasy or whatever. They almost transcend the form of the novel itself in a way, and I think that's what the author was going for.

    

Review of Rogues(short story anthology edited by George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois

A very good cross-genre collection of short stories about morally ambiguous rogues. I originally bought it in summer 2014 for the George RR Martin novella that caps the anthology. As in other anthologies of its sort(Warriors, Dangerous Women...) I ended up feeling that the story I bought it for was (almost) the least of the stories here. While I didn't enjoy the anthology quite as much as the aforementioned two ( I definitely missed Megan Lindholm/Robin Hobb and Gabaldon's voices), there are a lot of really great stories here. At least a third of them I enjoyed enough to check out their authors other work, while the other 2 thirds were still highy enjoyable, if not always my cuppa joe.

The stories I enjoyed the most were: Joe Abercrombie's Tough Time All Over--the crime caper written in the literary equivalent of a single shot--amazingly written and funny.

What do you do by Gillian Flynn: cool story about a grifter/prostitute.

Bent Twig: a short story about two vigilante/thugs delivering their version of justice.

Bad Brass: by Bradley Denton: a hilarious (I literally laughed out loud) story about small time crooks, tubas, substitute teachers and interracial romance in small town Texas.

The Meaning of Love by Daniel Abraham: medieval (and vaguely Asian) urban fantasy: amazing world building for such a small story(perhaps it's set in a previously published milieu by the author which I'm unfamiliar with.)

Diamonds from Tequila: Great story about the movie business and murder in Mexico by Walter Jon Williams.

I definitely enjoyed this anthology a LOT and I do hope I get a chance to read more stuff by the above-mentioned authors!

All My Life...Trouble in America

THis morning while getting up, I checked my email and there was a notification from Quora. The question was something like: what assumptions to foreigners abroad make about Americans that are laughably untrue.

I had to think about it. First of all, I think what most foreigners fail to grasp about America is its size. Not only geographically but especially in terms of population. No, it's not the most populous country on Earth--it doesn't even approach China or India. But it might be the third most. I'm not sure. Brazil is big, too.

 On top of that there is the fact that it's made up of lots of immigrants or the sons of immigrants...willing and unwilling. It is by no means homogenous. In fact, I would say that is probably the most common assumption that foreigners make that is the most untrue is that American society is as homogenous as theirs.

When I point this out, it's almost unbelievable at how much resistance there is to this idea. I think it's not due to malice or stupidity; it's just that the concept is really hard for people in a relatively small, relatively homogenous country like the Czech Republic to get their heads around.

(Relatively homogenous: I want to stress the relatively part of that. It's easy to oversimplify things. No country is truly homogenous. Maybe the Vatican is.)

The fact is, (and this is something that people can grasp is that no matter what you say about Americans,) no matter how ridiculously good or bad the extreme stereotype you hold is...IT'S ABSOLUTELY true. You can say anything about Americans and then find literally millions of Americans about whom it's true.

So what I've heard:

all Americans are rich! Not all Americans...but(bearing in mind that 'rich' is a relative term: a Czech's sense  of wealth is different than a West German's or a Thai's) millions and millions of them are.

All Americans are poor! Millions upon millions of them are.

American schools are the best! Some of them are.

American schools are the worst! Some of them are.

Americans are fat and lazy! You can find tons of examples of this.

 Americans are unhealthily obsessed with their health. Tons of those, too. Though presumably less tonnage.

Americans are really friendly! That's true.

 Americans pretend to be friendly but hate you underneath! That's true too.

 Americans are racist! Yeah.

 Americans are open to other kinds of people. True.

 Americans are nationalistic. Well, I've known a lot who are and they scare me, too but not everybody is; in fact, I think being American often means bitching about your government 24/7.

The list goes on and on. The fact that so many examples can be found coupled with the fact that American media permeates most countries in the world means that all our best sides and worst sides are constantly being shown to people. *

When I watch the news about America in the Czech Republic, it's very rare that I watch footage shot by a Czech crew . Nearly always it's footage that's been taken from an American news source, edited and translated and then broadcast here. Nearly always when I read the news in Czech,it's come from an American source. It's quite telling what details they edit out of the story.  They usually serve to make America seem much worse than the story I read in American or British sources. I assume this phenomenon is worldwide or at least EU-wide. I also assume that prior to EU acession(is that the right word? Opoosite of secession) the exact opposite happened: Czech news sources turned a blind eye to the darker side of the USA.)

I try to avoid conversations about America too much. Because the truth is always way more complicated than what the listener wants to hear. the thing is, I don't think that people want America to be complicated. But it is. I get frustrated by it because it's really tiring to try to explain this simple fact all the time.

 A case in point is recently a British teacher, Catherine, that works for me was asking questions about why Americans are so anti-immigrant.(As if the British aren't?) Another teacher who works for me, Peter, who is from Oakland CA, was arguing that you can't believe the media: that Americans don't hate immigrants. I was listening.

 I saw his Peter's point. I feel the same way he does: I honestly have never had a class...or lived in an apartment building...or had a job...which did not have foreigners in it. And not only Mexicans. Chinese, Indians, Koreans, Phillipinos, Irish, English, German, Pacific Islanders from god knows where, Thais, Japanese, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Italians, new Zealanders,Russians, French...I've run into all of them several times in the US. Some of them were there to stay; others were only there for a time.

 I never had a problem with them. Nor did anybody I personally knew. In fact, oddly, I remember saying the same thing to the Catheirne in September. I told her the exact same words: Don't believe everything the media says. I tried to explain to her that the real prejudice in America lies amoung perceived lines of race. Because I think in Europe it's more about ethno-linguistic nationalism(which sometimes overlaps with race but not always). In America it's not. Ethnnic nationalism is kind of a bizarre concept to Americans because the idea of 'nation' is actually very very different to the European idea of nationalism which is more tied to ethnicity and language. I tried to explain that: In America the intolerance is largely about race; in Europe it's about ethno-linguistic nationalism.**

But on the other hand, I read the media too. Obviously there is anti-immigrant sentiment in America. Some of it, a lot of it, in fact, is probably racial prejudice since so many immigrants are Mexican. And those people seem to have no valid arguments about how to solve the problem of illegal immigration. In fact, sometimes it seems to me that they'd be most happy with just rounding up the 12 million or so and putting them in concentration camp and letting them rot. (this alarms me to no end, but it's the subject of another post.) But whatever the base root of it is, it's there.

So when I overheard the conversation I butted in and pointed out that, while maybe most people Oakland Peter knew felt that, in fact, not everybody did. "I'm sure Melinda"(another teacher
 from Arizona who was in on this conversation) "knows people who feel differently." And of course, being that Arizona is a border state, she did. Apparently some border-crossers commit crimes(especially theft) in parts of Arizona and indeed many people regard immigrants(especially 'illegal immigrants') as being a problem. And maybe they are there. who knows. As a leftist I feel it's my duty to say that she's wrong, but that's just the politicization speaking, not my rational mind.

And then I realized the problem. It's not only foreigners who tend to oversimplify America. It's actually Americans themselves.

Media that comes from America is framed in terms of American debate. Which is nearly always over-dramatic and extreme.(Americans are overdramatic: there's a stereotype about Americans that is actually true but which I never hear from foreigners .) I mean, take the health care debate. For Christ's sake to hear the left talk about it, 20 million Americans are dying on the streets. And if you listen to the right you hear horrible horror stories about long waits in hospitals in 'socialist' countries and dying from the wait. Yeah. Well, anybody can google examples of these things happening. But neither of them is the norm.

But sadly, these debates, which are loud and overdramatic(and this fact, by the way, keeps anything from ever changing in any meaningful way) and politicized to the max reach the ears of the rest of the world who take what essentially is high sense of drama as gospel truth. Because it is, after all, easy to grasp.

It's Americans' own oversimplification of America, perhaps that leads(or at least contributes) to the oversimplification of America by non-Americans.

In the end, America is like the fable of the elephant and the five blind men. One blind man feels the elephant's tail and says its a snake, another blind man a leg of the elephant and says it's a tree, another feels the the flank and thinks it's a wall, another the trunk and thinks it's...a really big snake(or something.) None of them are right. It's an elephant. You can't see the forest for the trees; and you can't see America for the Americans.

In fact, most things in the world are like that.

What got me thinking about this is hearing this song on the radio. It's about ten years old but such is the extent of my disconnection with popular culture that I don't remember ever hearing it. It was a huge hit in most of Europe, apparently.
 It's pretty cool and I think says a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9NhncU5_CE

(I have no idea how to embed a link. I guess you'll just have to cut and paste it. If you listen to it at all. If you read this at all.)

*There are two stereotypes that I hold about Americans that I honestly think do apply to a great majority of Americans: a) they are ignorant about the rest of the world. and b) they are nearly all incredibly wasteful.

**The idea of last year's secession referendum in Scotland is something I think is alien to most Americans. Some Americans might support it because of Scottish nationalist myths as exemplified in Braveheart, but in reality it's hard to imagine an American state taking something like that serious. Oh, yes, I know that Texas had several thousand people sign a secession petition when Obama won the second time, but in my honest opinion it wasn't serious and was just an example of how overdramatic Americans can be.