Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian (and what it says about relationships)

So this could make for an interesting discussion, as it's the rare fictional story to go viral.

Story by an up-and-coming writer in The New Yorker this week, one that depicts an encounter between a 2o-something woman and a 30-something man.

“Cat Person”

A lot of women in my social media feed have said it's the most accurate thing they've read about what it's like for a woman today. Lot of complex questions raised about consent, and women "managing men's feelings" and why sometimes they have sex just to avoid being accused of rudeness when they'd rather get up and leave.

There have been many, many TAKES as a result of this piece. MUCH BACKLASH and allegations of narcissism! And complaints that men are unfairly being lumped in with the main character. And backlash to the backlash!

New Yorker says it's their most-read fiction piece of the year, and one of their most-read pieces published this year period.

Any thoughts?

It's a really good piece of fiction (in that it could easily be nonfiction because so much of it rings true).

 

I couldn't get past the facial hair on both members of the couple in the lead art. Sorry, bash away.

 

Before I read ... is it "fiction" like Taibbi's nonfiction was fiction?

 

I really liked it, and there's a good "interview with the author" linked at the end that mentions that it was based partly on her own bad experience after online dating. I'm male, so I can only go on what my girlfriend and ex-girlfriends have told me, but yeah, it rings pretty true to me. (Heck, even I've had far more bracing interactions online than I ever have face to face, and I don't consider myself an especially argumentative person.)

 

If you'd like a window into how polarizing this piece has been, this Twitter search is a good place to start.

News about Cat Person on Twitter

 

I didn't notice it on her until you pointed it out, but yeah, on him, it was off-putting enough that I had no interest in reading it.

 

I've found that a Twitter search is never a good place to start for fucking anything, though.

 

1, That wasn't fiction.

2, It had no heart or soul.

3, It's a simple story of a boy and a girl. The end.

 

Nah. I was a great piece of fiction, and sometimes fiction makes people uncomfortable and has unlikeable characters.

 

They weren't even unlikeable. I would have embraced unlikeable in this situation. They were droll at best.

 

Yo, DD, remember at Funny Farm 2.0 during the book club ... you introduced The Things They Carried.

I hadn't read it and enjoyed the first few chapters and thought it would be something I'd enjoy to the finish.

And then I got to the chapter where the girlfriend -- or whatever her role was -- was introduced.

I had a very hard time with that chapter because it felt like O'Brien labored so hard to write the female voice.

I stopped reading the book at that point. Unfair? Probably. But my reading tires went flat after that chapter.

This story felt the same way in that Roupenian fell woefully short in writing the male voice, the male tendency.

She inhabited both characters with the same voice. There was no gender separation between the characters.

 

No gender separation between the two characters.

Hmm. So, it was about two heartless pansexuals using each other?

[No, I have not read it yet.]