Every time and in every forum, when it comes to critiquing U.C. the same comments seem to come up. It's almost too funny!
If you want a real world story, then real world stuff absolutely has to intrude. Life is not a pleasent stroll down the beach. It's full of despicable things, that we tend to push back out of conscience thought. When we read about these things, oft times it brings up themes we would rather not deal with. Or be reminded of.
Kinky sex. It happens. It happens more than we care to admit. We turn a blind eye to it. Sometimes it up and slaps us in the face and we scream about it. Tough. It's the real world.
Politicians may not all be such sex-crazed idiots as a certain character (or two) in the novel, but, there are some who are. Just like some in other fields of work. Just like life itself. There is another thing about these scenes that perhaps you didn't catch. In the real world, such people who wield power are known by others for their sexual escapades. They are known, and they are not looked at too closely. It sends a real message to others like them, when they die in a manner that promotes their unlooked at lifestyle. There is a definite political statement here.
Henry Bowman. He was gang raped. It actually happens, and as a society, we often tend not to believe such things can happen to a man. It is a false stereotype we have painted for ourselves. Henry goes on to conduct self defense classes for women (and men). And he does so with the real world knowledge of being a victim of just such an attack. People may not ask, but they can certainly tell that the instructor of such classes knows of what he or she is talking about. There are many subtle nonverbal clues that tell us. Henry was a success at that, because of his prior experience.
Think about the gun handling classes that some of you have taken. Would you credit your instructors with real knowledge of what they are teaching? Or have you met some blowhards that are simply "book learned," and therefore less credible than they could have been? Same concept.
As for writing these things, it's called charactor development. Without which any writing tends to fall flat on its face. A story like U.C. must encompass all the warts that our world contains, else it is simply not a believable story. That is what makes U.C. stand out. It has warts. It's ugly in parts. But to skip over the warts, would lend it nothing more than a fairy tale likeness. For its intended audience, U.C. is a good,if not great, novel.
Still, some of you will not like it. It tends to rip off those social blinders we all like to wear. It creates controversy. And that, is what a good novel is supposed to do. This book was written for adults, living in an adult world. To take out those unseemly parts would have relegated the book to the children's section, and I daresay, we would not be talking about it in the same light we do now.
