#especially concerning since it's done by otherwise very knowledgeable and inquisitive writers

[lanotteviene]

tell me why did I trust how much of these hills is gold even after knowing it had blown up on TikTok....

#why is this family of immigrant laborers from southern china (given the 1840s-1860s background) speaking mandarin #when realistically they should have been speaking Cantonese? #this trend of western Chinese-descendants telling stories about traumas they didn't experience while erasing languages and experiences #that non-Han Chinese people and other asian people have gone through is very weird #especially concerning since it's done by otherwise very knowledgeable and inquisitive writers #like why are PoCs in this book treated like faceless background characters (despite this being a diverse take on the Wild West novel) #with magical and Good connection to The Land #while the white villains are nuanced and extremely detailed? it's also clownish to paint the white characters as overwhelmingly rich becaus #of their exploitation of The Land - which the PoC characters seem to find abhorrent and oppose to - when capitalism is a sickness that #catches everyone and the white protestant man #while more powerful than the black or latino man #was /also/ made to sweat and spit blood on a land that gave him nothing #no war but class war but I guess that's too hard to fathom! #(good book with strong plot choices here and there - the dad pov chapter was very very good and deserving of its own book imo - but yeah. i #was made for a puzzling read at times) #literature #how much of these hills is gold