genre: fiction
Hunchback is a provocative novella living in a disabled body and finding ways to create the kind of life that feels meaningful. Did the ways that Shaka, our protagoist, found to make life meaningful make sense to me? Not particularly. It's a very sexually explicit book while at the same time, it did make me look inward and ask myself why shouldn't folks born with a congenital muscle disorder be able to live a sexual life if they choose? Something this book did definitely do is make me think about was the limits that everyone else wants to put on people dealing with significant physical/medical issues as well as how much time and effort one must spend keeping ones body alive when this is your reality. Ventilators and suctioning and positioning - Shaka shares the minutiae of what is required to keep her twisted body alive and functioning. The translation is very antiseptic, in some ways, within the language there is little to no emotionality that might make me more sympathetic to Shaka. But I am not sorry I stepped into her shoes for a couple of hours and imagined what it might be like to be her.
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