Blue Moon Musings

I like reading, and I often find myself discussing things with the wall about what I read. This is where you'll find those discussions. Or, you may find a one sentence opinion. It depends on the book.

On my home page you'll always find the book I'm currently reading. That's going to make an entry here once I finish it. Due to being a uni student and a rather slow reader, I mostly read books – that aren't for my studies – once I finish with all my exams for the year.

On that note, enjoy your browsing!

I waited for a whole uni-year to read this. It's not exactly as I imagined it, but I did like it.

In the beginning, I was a little confused about the conversations. I thought to myself, multiple times, why do these feel so weird? why do people talk like this?. I read it in english, which is not my native language, so at first I just thought that this just how older english books were. or maybe this was how Bradbury thinks conversations work. But of course, in the end it made sense. I thought, wow. so good actually. Of course those conversations felt weird! That was the point! In this world, where people talk to walls with scripts, this is how conversations could look like. Weird. Unsettling. Good one. I enjoyed that.

I also found it interesting that the reason the books were banned was that people felt offended. I recently saw a TikTok about not using offense but harm when talking about something. Because the real issue is that things cause harm, not that people are offended – especially since people have different tresholds for that. I don't know if that was the intention of phrasing it this way in the book, but I'll take it as a reminder that the focus should be the harm caused. That isn't to say that if this was the underlying reason to ban books, it would be fine. I don't think banning books does anythig but say hey, if the government doesn't like what you say, they will shut you up.

Overall: Can be an important read, especially with the rise of generative AI and especially with people using it to make up for lost, real life connections. Talk to people!

I found this while I was browsing in the library. I wasn't sure I'd like it, but when I opened it, the first thing I saw was the in my eyes butches on the inside of the covers and I immediately knew I was going to take it.

To be completely honest, I didn't read the whole thing. It was a collection of Borgos' writings, and so I skipped one of them that didn't really pique my interest. But what I did read was so interesting, I had to stop and look up the author. She turned out to be the founder of the first hungarian lesbian association. And I thought – after I collected my jaw from the floor –, yep. makes sense now.

I enjoyed the chapter on biphobia. It was interesting to see the opinions collected and the actual accounts of people who used the term bisexual to refer to themselves. Although, I think there could've been more of the latter. Nothing was really new about the opinions, or should I say, none of these beliefs changed over the years. But this was the first time I thought about these things in my own language, which brought out a different feeling in me than in english. It's hard to describe.

But my interest was mainly on the chapter that discussed a trans man. Unfortunately trans men lesbians / lesbian trans men, people who have contradictory labels are a weekly topic on TikTok. It's tiring. But it was good to read about something like this in hungarian actually. Borgos goes the route of not really using labels for him, simply because a lot of the labels didn't exist back then, we don't know how he would identify if he was handed the language we have now. I do understand this approach. However, she also says, that he mostly surrounded himself with men, and when asked, he would say that he was simply a man. She finds his statement unsatisfying or underwhelming. Of course, I have no idea in what context he said that, how many times, but if that's all we know, then I don't think we should talk about him anything other than a man. Trans man, sure. But to me this doesn't seem complicated.

Overall: An interesting find, and I do recommend it for people who are interested in reading about hungarian women in literature, lesbians and bisexuals. From a lesbian. Not sure if it's translated into other languages though.