{"id":8374,"date":"2024-04-16T11:00:14","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T08:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/?p=8374"},"modified":"2024-04-16T11:00:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T08:00:14","slug":"book-review-victim-by-andrew-boryga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/?p=8374","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Victim by Andrew Boryga"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/book-review-victim-by-andrew-boryga.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>By Simon Demetriou<\/p>\n<div class=\"cypru-video-ads\" id=\"cypru-1203369426\">\n<div id=\"cypru-390565876\" data-cypru-trackid=\"478051\" data-cypru-trackbid=\"1\" class=\"cypru-target\">\n<div id=\"gpt-ad-7934896045747-0\">\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u2018\u2026if you don\u2019t have\u2026 the right skin colour and you don\u2019t have the right geographic background, you\u2019re fucked.\u2019 Reading this, most would assume that \u2018right\u2019 would equate to something like \u2018white\u2019 and \u2018affluent, Western, middle-or-upper-class\u2019. We know about systemic racism, after all. What it actually means here is \u2018black-or-brown\u2019 and \u2018the Bronx\u2019. At least, that\u2019s the perspective of Javi, the narrator who recounts his rise and fall as a professional \u2018victim\u2019. The sad irony of the fact that Javi is proud of possessing qualities that allow affluent white people to view him as a victim is part of the web of unsettling ideas raised by Boryga\u2019s excellent debut novel.<br \/>\nAfter he witnesses the murder of his father, a Puerto Rican drug dealer, Javi realises that being a victim has its upsides: he is now able to skip class whenever he wants to go to the school nurse. Then a guidance counsellor from a fancy private school starts volunteering at Javi\u2019s high school and cynically encourages Javi to exploit his personal history as \u2018material\u2019 for a college admissions essay. It works, and his entrance to an elite university puts Javi well on the road to making his name as a professional writer on the lived experiences of systemically oppressed minority groups in America.<br \/>\nExcept most of what he writes is total fabrication. Empowered by learning the discourse of critical race theory at university, Javi realises that in a world where diversity has become a corporate buzzword and where middle-class white people are obsessed with displaying themselves as advocates of social justice, he\u2019s on to a winner. Provided, of course, that he doesn\u2019t mind manipulating the truth of his life and the lives of those close to him, none of whom see themselves \u2013 or wish themselves to be seen \u2013 as victims.<br \/>\nWhat\u2019s really interesting to me is that we are given snippets of Javi\u2019s published writing. And it\u2019s awful. Heavy-handed, loaded with clich\u00e9, sanctimonious. But the question is: would I find the writing awful if it wasn\u2019t framed by both the excellent writing of the rest of the novel and by the knowledge that what I\u2019m reading is an exploitative lie? If I were reading Javi\u2019s work as a true story, would I lap it up as earnest and powerful revelations of systemic racism in my society, like the hipsters who fawn over Javi\u2019s work in the novel do?<br \/>\nI\u2019d like to think not. But I can\u2019t be sure. And it\u2019s this potential complicity in a system that is willing to exploit anything that can be commodified with one hand while flying the banner of \u2018authenticity\u2019 with the other, that makes Victim such a compelling and important read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fact: Javi, the narrator in the novel, rises to fame as a professional writer by exploiting his personal history as a victim of systemic oppression, even though most of what he writes is fabricated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1911,5654,3,2368,2167,250,3330,658,582,2788,183,3331,2254,720,470,433,6605,2687,457,6305,18,2366],"class_list":["post-8374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-authenticity","tag-book-review","tag-cyprus","tag-essay","tag-exploitation","tag-google","tag-google-news","tag-history","tag-justice","tag-mind","tag-murder","tag-news","tag-racism","tag-rest","tag-road","tag-school","tag-systemic-racism","tag-victims","tag-white","tag-who","tag-world","tag-writing"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Book 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