I'm not trying to yuck your yum, I'm just curious about what you like about it. 😊 I know it's a big subgenre of movies and books--body horror, gore, etc. I know the fans are out here and I'd like to hear it from an expert.

When it's not perpetuating empty stereotypes, this book is decidedly too brief about everything it talks about, rendering it overall pretty useless in my humble opinion. Regardless of that, one point that was mentioned in several reviews and discussions on Pagebound that I saw before picking this up is that the author brings up Hans Asperger without once addressing that he is a problematic person who was affiliated with the Nazis.

I did a little bit of research on this person so I’ll leave some information on him here for anybody interested. I think this is a great opportunity to learn and discuss these things for people who pick this book up. This post will be a bit lengthy, so brace yourself!

Most of the things I’m quoting below are taken or paraphrased from the book “In a Different Key” by John Donvan.

Trigger warning: Child deaths _

A little bit of context first. Under Nazi regime, each disabled child’s right to life was subjected to a kind of cost-benefit analysis. Medical professionals were called upon to judge which children’s futures were salvageable with treatment and education, and which were not. Those which were not, described in Nazi literature as “worthless”, were taken to facilities such as Spiegelgrund in Vienna. In these facilities resembling children’s hospitals, these kids would be given specific antiseizure medication on a regular basis, which would over time damage their lungs, and so their cause of death would be listed as pneumonia. Asperger was among said medical professionals who would decide who would be sent to Spiegelgrund. In his personal medical practice, Asperger also favored kids who had what he called “social worth” (and this later came to be known as “Asperger’s type”).

Aside from being directly involved with Spiegelgrund, Asperger’s diary entry from 1934 hints at him being impressed by Nazi ideology. The entry goes as follows:

“An entire nation goes in a single direction, fanatically, with a constricted vision, certainly, but also with enthusiasm and dedication, with tremendous discipline and control, with a terrible effectiveness. Now only soldiers — soldierly thinking — ethos — Germanic paganism…”

The sympathizers of Asperger often quote only the first bit of that entry (“An entire nation goes in a single direction, fanatically”) to claim he was against Nazis, but when put in context his words look way less promising.

Some time after this sus diary entry, in 1938 (some months after Austria was absorbed into the Third Reich), Asperger did a speech, parts of which were openly pro-nazi, in front of an assembly of physicians. I’ll quote some parts of his speech here:

”We stand in the midst of a massive renovation of our intellectual life, which encompasses all areas of this life—not least in medicine. (...) [This new thinking is] the sustaining idea of the new Reich—that the whole is greater than the parts, and that the Volk is more important than any single individual. [This sustaining idea] should, where it involves the nation’s most precious asset—its health—bring profound changes to our entire attitude. [This applies to] the efforts being made to promote genetic health, and to prevent the passing on of diseased heredity. (...) We physicians must carry out the tasks that fall to us in this area with full accountability.”

In 2010 a historian and lecturer at the University of Vienna, Herwig Czech, took part in a symposium which was originally intended to honor the memory of Hans Asperger, although Czech had other plans. His talk was titled “Dr. Hans Asperger and the Nazi Child Euthanasia Program in Vienna: Possible Connections.” and in it he talked about some of the above mentioned, including specific letters from Asperger where he is suggesting to send specific patients to Spiegelgrund. This talk was likely when this whole conversation about the issues surrounding Asperger officially started. Some time after this talk, Czech found more letters from Asperger, several of which used “Heil Hitler” as their closing salutation, as well as job applications in Asperger’s writing for the Nazi Doctors Association and for a medical consultant to the Vienna branch of the Hitler Youth.

Despite everything that we know about Asperger today, many people of his time thought very highly of him, portraying a very benevolent picture of who he is, and it took time for people to bring all of this information to the surface. But we must remember that Nazi Party members and collaborators from positions of influence after WWII went to great lengths to clear their name, claiming they were either secretly against Nazis, or that they were forced to comply. This whitewashing went so far that people who were “cleared” received a document called “persilschein” (trans. “Persil certificate”, named after a famous laundry detergent “Persil” originally manufactured in Germany).

Anyway. Because Czech had made his presentation in German to a mostly local audience, his findings were likely not the primary reason why the American Psychiatric Association in 2013 stopped recognizing the term Asperger’s syndrome. This was more due to the agreement that the term wasn’t useful anymore, as it seemed to mean something different every time it was used as a diagnosis. This is how the term “Autistic Spectrum Disorder” was born, and it was encompassing 4 different diagnoses that were previously separate from one another. _

That's what I found in my research! If you find anything more please feel free to post it in the comments or in a different post. I tried not to make this too long so I'm sure there is lots that I missed. I'm thankful to the amazing people from Pagebound who started this conversation and prompted my research! ♡ _

Sources: ~ “In a Different Key” by John Donvan ~ "Der Spiegelgrund Komplex" by Herwig Czech _

Without doxing yourself plzzz

Some of you are reading so much with full time jobs😭 I gotta know what y’all do and how many hours you’re doing it. I know a few people are lucky enough to get to read on the job! That’s the dream.

I didn’t expect AI to feature so prominently (especially given that this book came out in 2000!), which definitely intriguing. I am struggling a bit with the dialect this is written in and I wonder if this would be easier for me to follow as an audiobook?

“Thank you for coming to see me. Don’t hesitate to leave.”

I need to remember this one. I like this one.

Carrot is a delightful himbo. The Patrician is deeply intriguing. Lots of neat things going on in Ankh-Morpork.

Inspired by my dad, who loves first/last lines of books and has memorized many, and csdaley, whose favorite book quote is a first line, what's a first line that has stuck with you over time? Maybe it hooked you in to the rest of the book, maybe it set the tone, maybe it's just incredibly quoteable! I've got a couple:

In the myriadic year of our Lord—the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!— Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth. Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to kill a king. The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson

Does anyone else get sad when they read the last few books by an author who has passed away. Knowing that no new books will ever be coming your way. Today I started reading No Sweet Sorrow by Denzil Meyrick. It is the 2nd to last DCI Daley book. I have putting off reading them for a wile knowing that the journey was coming to an end. I still have not read the last Discworld book. I tell myself I am saving for that day when I will really need one last spike of new joy from Terry Pratchett but I know that isn’t totally true. Just thinking about reading it is making me sad.