Episode 6: King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes, chosen by Carmen Van Pamel

00:00:00: Music.

00:00:05: Hello everyone welcome back to a book I love we are today in Paris for the 6th episode of the podcast we find yourself in this charming and whether packed independent bookstore and publisher.

00:00:18: Alexa to hostess for this discussion we have to do to get on with two of the family of voices of a book I love and he said he can't eat yet which is a small bookshelf architecture School.

00:00:32: Helen Thomas and representing womenwritingarchitecture and Kevin female architect and writer based in Surrey who choose the book of today's episode

00:00:42: King Kong Theory written by version of the pants and published in French in 2006.

00:00:48: King Kong Theory is an autobiographical is say which was well received by the readership in contrast to her first novel entitled best more fuck me in English

00:01:00: too brutal to tries to viral out of limits bank at 13 left home when she was 17 freelancer writing about

00:01:11: she was the hostess in capsules prostitutes in a minute.

00:01:15: King Kong Theory is a shirt and kinetic text in which to describe the word of sex and prostitution of Worlds in which the role of human is to entertain and fulfilment.

00:01:27: Cameron do you want to start selling this book as.

00:01:37: The Wavertree I'm captured by The Format by the way that

00:01:43: rolls of the tongue very quickly and the place is very quickly can skin the world consuming this woman the different descriptions of women that she's coming across.

00:01:56: It has a very binocular tone which mixed the time later on with profanity or with with French language,

00:02:07: which make the text meanwhile manifesto I like a sample.

00:02:13: And I enjoy the way that that allows you to consume so easily.

00:02:20: The way that she ping pong between One start in the next without ever lingering too long and it makes me bring me back for some strange reason to buy always to the next.

00:02:34: Opting instead for repetition in order to come across to bring something across where it feels like we're staying.

00:02:41: Quite a superficial level she never scratches really deeply into topics that prostitution are sex and gender.

00:02:51: To use the term that's so much between the lines maybe to give an example of this use of word it's later on the text is she.

00:03:02: Make a note she said the better to do it not be talented and being pretty.

00:03:10: Which is something I would never associate.

00:03:13: How I think of being talented at doing something not being aesthetically pleasing,

00:03:23: when she think the men she when she speaks the ideal of a man the social construct.

00:03:37: The idea that somebody would know how to at War the words that it needs it needs his very strong impressions.

00:03:46: People that you've describing I think it's interesting.

00:03:51: There is something really honest mainstream about the west as if it was written so love you freeze anyone strength like an 11,

00:04:01: lime that's why you reading is there is construction behind it's really so very despite.

00:04:09: Read maybe more.

00:04:12: Like a bar around after somebody's had a few too many drinks and it's just as lost in addition when it's been extremely openly about something.

00:04:22: You might not allow them to stay so easily and in that sense I feel like.

00:04:29: Is it safe to pop culture in many ways there is an element.

00:04:34: Kill Bill and bloody Vengeance or lamb or wraps.

00:04:41: Which carries you along which is why I feel sometime.

00:04:47: Doughnuts there is a stream of consciousness but it moves so fast she speak.

00:04:52: Raping about 19th around the reconstructor be interesting.

00:05:00: Manifesto Exeter.

00:05:04: Realise afterwards this makes a Pinkerton and then more intellectual

00:05:10: context of the text did you have to sing in English and I think there's a difference of an English translation is really good,

00:05:22: fantastic.

00:05:30: And you know being transferred to being pretty and you know.

00:05:35: Completely by the beginning I have to say I don't I don't think that she know this is only construct yourself in the life of a person in this.

00:05:45: I'm outside the position that she said she's writing for first of all this idea having a x have been pretty is it to do with image,

00:05:53: and she is seems to be obsessed with what things look like.

00:06:00: And actually extremely convention away what is pretty if they conventional and find that strange,

00:06:08: many many things are pretty and they're not and actually.

00:06:14: Very pretty and I mean you would liking before Instagram live whole idea of how you miniplay

00:06:21: your image in order to be pretty if that to me an absolute but but that's maybe very personal image behaviour

00:06:32: tattoo of behaviour is it inherently watching.

00:06:39: And then you know I think it's really powerful about the behaviour and motivation.

00:06:47: I think motivation is what she's speaking to the first thing and then come and speak about contacts

00:06:54: talking up poetry slam that the Direct boys

00:06:58: and that's really interesting.

00:07:05: And I always think it can't in itself deactivate and it has to be performed socially and I think so when you say it has the middle of a purchase and it's already in acting it interesting tension between.

00:07:20: Reading when you're reading a book.

00:07:23: You feel confronted by her she's asking you these questions and then you just need to do anything

00:07:32: element to it

00:07:49: what was really interesting is that understood a tight at the same time.

00:07:55: In between because she does a married woman and.

00:08:01: In comparison and there's nothing can in between these two extremes.

00:08:09: You're standing in the middle reading the book and then you'll be ok this is this is me but this is also me and she's criticising this in all and I was always like feeling.

00:08:19: Very understood by a friend that is like sober I don't know understanding but at the same time is not afraid to tell you that what you're doing.

00:08:29: My needs to be considered or you should like look at it from a different.

00:08:34: Kind of you so this was really interesting because the first lines was like ok it is like a book where I will be.

00:08:42: Understood as a woman you know she's like writing for me and then.

00:08:47: Later in the book the reports are like OK well I'm doing that the conventional things that women do even though I come from a generation that is really trying not to do with the things.

00:08:59: Women we're going for a very long time so I thought this was quite interesting to be like in between there was a little bit angry actually that does

00:09:08: is comparison and Dad this is so extreme even though I know she's like a punk girl and everything has to be.

00:09:15: Extreme when you talk about it but then I felt like when the King Kong team comes into play you just realise that ok but she's.

00:09:25: Is King Kong just like trying to be louder and trying to say something and she's not trying to push this rivalry between a married woman and sex worker

00:09:35: but she's just like trying to get something out of her season she's like wanting to be disallowed King Kong and then I was like okay

00:09:44: King Kong Theory is parties in a beautiful internet but what you're saying because that makes it also like more like a poem or later

00:09:59: but is it a free for the internet

00:10:01: because that is completely different it has a positive method is suggested and something is categorisation

00:10:12: also it's kind of really shut it down and I know she's been compared to an A-level

00:10:19: play Philip who also write for the memory and also writes about her being as a sexual being.

00:10:29: The compensation there isn't the categorisation that you talked about that I mean when somebody in a life and she's talking about the circus.

00:10:42: Just to give some context to first part of the book is mostly about her rape story and then we go to expensive prostitutes and then she speaks about pomography and it feels like in the way she goes to the dentist she goes straight to the problem

00:10:58: understood

00:11:00: this is using a selfie ASDA goodbye to experiments and to go to places that triggers her community and putting her at risk in different describing,

00:11:13: she speaks about the expenses The Prestige

00:11:16: she William or she said I think that a lot too and thank at this idea looking at things in the struggles of the weather in the violence because this is watching

00:11:31: pursues the answering to this rate situation is by she's really violent in the book she's angry.

00:11:39: You feel so she's embracing the same.

00:11:42: Printing out of dependence of men and so I think this look at things that have to find where is positive

00:11:52: about them and I think you were saying in the celebration of somehow every night to connector she's depicting to the other percentages

00:12:04: she's celebrating defected projects

00:12:16: I just thinking like being mean and I'm just giving you a telling yourself today Eminem

00:12:30: non-institutional building for the Olympics so that there is a slight attack on institutions and maybe that's why

00:12:40: the institutions of marriage or institutions of prostitution in the constitution.

00:12:49: I just want you that's part of you that's what being a friend means quite close to.

00:12:57: What does with Punk is always also again institutions all the time.

00:13:05: I'm coming to my head with a film by Derek Jarman and a candle which one it is an early one and it is in the Docklands in the 80s and the 80s

00:13:15: is the character with and have postmodern

00:13:19: Radon the wall and postmodern Architects,

00:13:30: bricolage takeaway it's means

00:13:33: after the modern Estate it's very different to to the French pants I just I just wondered what your idea of institutions and attacking them.

00:13:46: I am not special.

00:13:53: I feel like the importance of going between these extremes Theory speaking of the kind of the Academy between the married wife and the and the.

00:14:04: Is this location is allowed connections really putting it in the boxes to find the middle ground again.

00:14:13: I am just gonna back track a little bit.

00:14:16: I understand when we might say oh I don't recognise myself inside one or the other there is no complete separation of the two.

00:14:27: I feel like that's what I was sitting between in this because she she went for that as.

00:14:36: Well you ever had them a true mother and encouraging or the.

00:14:42: Subservience women or the B Corp.

00:14:48: Deliberated that's not where I would recognise femininity or where I think of easy to find one.

00:14:57: But I think by breaking the box with each.

00:15:02: That's a institution or trying to define it we see lots of Middle ground.

00:15:08: In the same way that she started describing men who don't want to be.

00:15:13: You don't want to go into a boxing match or don't care about protecting them all the people around them are making money for.

00:15:21: Going off to warn that.

00:15:23: Example there is something interesting as an attitude to the equilibrium use as a methodology or Reading even as an architect singer things and,

00:15:37: I'm looking at the building right that it's Not About Beauty to accept the ugliness and the reaction to that in the book it's really big lads.

00:15:51: I think it would be interesting to transform them into.

00:15:55: I don't have an answer to the extremely qualified to engage with issues your class English and I think maybe in France.

00:16:10: Yeah there's obviously still in aristocracy in Britain so the issue of class

00:16:16: totally bound up in the idea of anti capitalism spectrum glass spectrum

00:16:28: she talks about that she mentioned her in the book but I couldn't find it.

00:16:35: Starting point

00:16:42: kind of laugh as a punk and the reason why lot and it's cruel and I don't know.

00:16:54: BeFunky can't both public school boys have been starting what bands are on today actually,

00:17:07: stop the Feeling from Wells to having a punk attitude so I did nothing that's different but she doesn't she comes from a working class background.

00:17:17: But that isn't completed but it's not an explicit message that quite interesting,

00:17:24: rather than fucking something that's what influenced.

00:17:28: In a piece of writing I never do that could happen.

00:17:37: Class how does it benefit in the book she goes to the darkplaces she's from there from the dust

00:17:44: the readership is the bubble like as she talks about,

00:17:49: class and all the problems that she's talking about you always related to two classes and where she says like if you would like the USA and you get raped when are you talking about

00:18:02: Richmond try to protect a little girl

00:18:05: talks about it touches the money I would have wished to have a little bit more of mirror of you also as a right time

00:18:15: she comes from from a working class but then.

00:18:20: How was she able to kind of crawl out of this as a person

00:18:25: a reading a lot also I'm quite well I would have wished to have known something about her way of getting and books and writing and my crew Raj kind of Crows album

00:18:36: just being sitting there in this working because from me I I I come from a family that also I did not

00:18:44: read books at home like my life don't come from academic family and I always wondered like how people know about all this book and read about all these politics all that stuff so I think she could.

00:18:58: Maybe explain a little bit more how she is trying also to make ring out of

00:19:04: class problems together as she doesn't with the wife and the Holy know she could have also done it with both rosea

00:19:12: my generation it was Douglas Coupland she's a brilliant that makes it really difficult

00:19:24: undercurrents of other things going on which is what I guess the difference Italian,

00:19:30: her writing is very common at the beginning it's no gaps in it it's very I'm in the writing and the thinking when you're reading it is just like you

00:19:41: there are many many underwater places that you can be in at the and I think that's a big difference.

00:19:51: Is something clearly above your position of sex and sexuality through the one of men and was wondering about the figure of King Kong you don't know if it's male or female

00:20:04: and the limits between human and animal and adult and child and

00:20:10: the first reference to it exactly where it ended the text where I'm working come and take my very strong lining and you wait until,

00:20:20: much later on in the book where you get to the King come in

00:20:26: Helen said find out what what she defined as King Kong and as you said this non-binary be really Beauty and the Beast.

00:20:37: It was against polarisation between very heteronormative Society.

00:20:44: With binary colour is it something that particular makes you think as an architect.

00:20:51: Made in Italy fashion makes me think of what is the what is male public where are the polarizations of.

00:21:01: I think even at some point she makes reference to the fact that feminism has failed to occupy public space.

00:21:07: Quiet in her hope fashion where the kindergarten when.

00:21:17: I think of what would actually just to entertain the but what is Prime power indirect with actually I can take in the garden,

00:21:26: man in a suit going going to work why not just to entertain the thought.

00:21:34: Yeah I feel like in the eldest was like at the screaming up this building as as King Kong I feel like it.

00:21:42: Is there a selection of her ways to try to get.

00:21:47: The world does opening the question of maybe what figure you know of his maybe you're your mirror like your reflection in the mirror like where do you see yourself in,

00:21:58: I think it's up to you.

00:22:06: Women writers I mean.

00:22:15: Well maybe she's kind of living with the land

00:22:26: powerful person who will deliver friends finding life and you know that

00:22:37: she's a very compelling person that you could encounter in the book really really interesting.

00:22:44: I think that's her most natural place if kind of lighting within the genre of science fiction

00:22:53: despite its I poetry slam type identity it also tries to set out in intellectual,

00:23:00: Primark for itself with references to Virginia Woolf in human human consciousness area quite a long way from Nutfield

00:23:14: because different contact

00:23:19: feels uncomfortable and you talking about.

00:23:26: But what she learnt to learn to herself and is centre discomforting she's trying to reach this point but

00:23:39: making the lonely.

00:23:49: You know you know

00:23:54: I don't know I don't know what's happening but I wouldn't dream of getting what they were.

00:24:05: Music.