cat person

Twitter discourse on this today is horrible

This really doesn't seem like a big deal to me. What is actually the same as her life?

- An age disparity in the relationship (very common)
- The description of the man (not her issue, not about her but about him)
- Type of workplace, university and first date location, all of which are far in the past (should have changed at least some of this imo but it's still quite general, e.g. "an artsy cinema" is not that specific and a multiplex is a common place for dates)

It's not actually telling the story of her relationship at all, and it's not trying to. It's the original author going "I know this dude who had a relationship with a much younger woman, that's an interesting jumping off point for a story". And while I don't rate the story very highly, it's relatable for a lot of people because those experiences have been had by a lot of people. It could be anyone.

It could be interesting to explore how real-life people who have been the inspiration for stories feel, but this article seems more like it's geared to create some sort of "shock-horror, how invasive" reaction that I just don't think is warranted.

i only skimmed the piece but at the beginning it talks about including some of her actual clothes but then i think never mentions it again, anyway there was enough detail in there that people were asking her about it, which considering that the relationship in the story is depicted as worse than the real one was at the very least did lead to some discomfort for the real people

The ethics are pretty unclear to me. Only a handful of people could have linked her to the story before she published this piece, but maybe that's enough. Like treeship, I would probably feel shitty about this if it happened to me, but I'm not sure that means it was an ethical breach. Probably obvious to note, but I assume if Charles hadn't died, she wouldn't have written this? I'm not sure how to make sense of her publicly linking him to something as infamous as "Cat Person" after his death tbh

One small quibble: I believe mentioning "an artsy cinema" that happens to be in Ann Arbor could only refer to one place, the Michigan Theatre, though I never lived there and might be unaware of another candidate

ethical breech is a big term its pretty easy to call it inconsiderate tho

Feel bad for Charles, who apparently was nothing like the awful guy in the story and seems to have suffered a great deal from it, she should have known he would read the story and should have reached out to him when it got huge.

That is what I felt as well. It seems like Roupenian knew him though—she said she had an “encounter” with him—and it seems possible that, to her, he may have acted badly. So from Roupenian’s perspective the depiction wasn’t unfair, even though the model for the young girl in Cat Person didn’t see him that way.

it would have been so easy to change the details and indefensible that they didn't, or at least didn't reach out, imo. the "i didn't expect this to be popular" excuse is just that, an excuse.

Like this part of her letter:

It has always been important for my own well-being to draw a bright line, in public, between my personal life and my fiction. This is a matter not only of privacy but of personal safety. When “Cat Person” came out, I was the target of an immense amount of anger on the part of male readers who felt that the character of Robert had been treated unfairly. I have always felt that my insistence that the story was entirely fiction, and that I was not accusing any real-life individual of behaving badly, was all that stood between me and an outpouring of not only rage but potentially violence.

So she is saying that she insisted that there was no real life model for Robert out of self-protection. But bringing it up like this implies that maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe Charles was the model for the character.

The one thing she doesn’t do in the letter is say she feels bad for Charles.

tbf doesnt seem like we got the whole letter

lag∞n is right about the new cat person discourse

and she says they had a second, off-the-record conversation. kinda imagine that Roupenian filled her in on the real-life inspiration for the details that didn't match her story

Are we to assume or infer from the cagey language in the article that "Charles" committed suicide? Is this the assumption being made elsewhere? Because that was my assumption from the writing and the "off the record" conversation that is pointedly mentioned.

tbc I can understand being cagey about that if that's the case

Ooooh didn’t think about that

is "dick move" still an acceptable way of referring to this behavior

genital manoeuvre

We don’t know about his behavior. He wasn’t the predatory guy in the story. Xp

I’m thinking that many, many works of literature past and present have some element of real life inspirations and obsessing over this one is kinda weird. Did someone read Crime and Punishment and think “oh shit he wrote about my life he makes Raskolnikov sound like such a dick and I’m totally not.”

Or is it that now in the 21st century all art is assumed to be thinly veiled autobiography.

my assumptions are as follows: roupenian had a bad date/dates/experience with this dude.

she was talking about this with a friend, they mentioned that he used to have a much younger girlfriend.

she fictionalized her experiences with the guy - how closely the story hews to reality we'll never know. she also made the character not her, but the much younger girlfriend, who she only knew small biographical details about which she included.

then it's also possible that the overly sensitive guy perhaps stewed over the depiction of him to the extent that it was a contributing factor in his death

I’m thinking that many, many works of literature past and present have some element of real life inspirations and obsessing over this one is kinda weird. Did someone read Crime and Punishment and think “oh shit he wrote about my life he makes Raskolnikov sound like such a dick and I’m totally not.”

― KEEP HONKING -- I'M BOBOING (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, July 8, 2021 9:46 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's an age old question. i believe thomas mann, right after he married his wife, wrote a book where a character based on his wife fucks her brother. this was not without controversy im sure

Looks this way, yes

xp

Bernhard wrote that one book about how much the narrator hated everyone at this one party while he sat in a chair and people at a party Bernhard went to sued him for it and tried to get the book destroyed

cat person story nbd, who care, etc, but yeah the writer was lazy and could have changed a couple things

i've been waiting my whole life to say this sentence, but, Bongo Jongus otm

I just repeated a lagoon post tbh

great artists steal iirc

damn i hate all discourse about this story nearly as much as the story itself

krat person (a story about kratom)

yep very happy to avoid it completely (beyond this thread) xp

even this thread! in what way does this merit any thought at all!

brad extremely otm

sorry i've been really cranky lately

I think it's interesting

It’s salacious tho

.... all right

wasn't there a mad tv sketch where eric clapton tried to push ppl out of windows to write more hit songs

I get that sentiment totally, but I actually found the response piece quite moving(?) and worth reading on its own, even divorced from the original story, just as a reflection on the moment

(many xps to brad)

think it's a perfectly fine short story tbh

the ethics of writing about real people - in fiction or non-fiction - is something we're never going to get to the bottom of so yes, the discourse is a bit useless. but this essay introduces a possibly sensational and yes, as per treeship, salacious element which interests some (including myself)

The big question has to do with Charles. The woman in the story has now had her say—she was not some naive victim, and resents being presented as such. She has warm feelings toward her now deceased older ex boyfriend. But he is dead now and Roupenian’s letter strongly implies he did something that justified her representation of him. And we know he was bothered by this, maybe tormented. Was that right or fair? We don’t know.

y’all are weird i’m out

The big question has to do with Charles. The woman in the story has now had her say—she was not some naive victim, and resents being presented as such. She has warm feelings toward her now deceased older ex boyfriend. But he is dead now and Roupenian’s letter strongly implies he did something that justified her representation of him. And we know he was bothered by this, maybe tormented. Was that right or fair? We don’t know.

― treeship., Thursday, July 8, 2021 10:09 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

everyone he knew, even acquaintances, would be aware that he was cat person also. which depending on how he actually acted towards roupenian could be a kind of "just desserts", or you know, could've been an unjustified nightmare

Roupenian’s letter strongly implies he did something that justified her representation of him

I don't really see that this is strongly implied by the quotes in the Slate piece.

I mean she doesn’t say she understands how hard it was for him, just her

Emil.y otm — that’s why it resonated when it came out

And while I don't rate the story very highly, it's relatable for a lot of people because those experiences have been had by a lot of people. It could be anyone.

And she said they had an “encounter.” Kind of an ominous phrase.

Cp