The Book of the Lion 

Before you read this, I would like to point out that The Book of the Lion is a wonderful book, even if some of the characters, in my opinion, are potentially sexist, racist, etc.  I would also like to thank my dad, Tim, for helping me to write this post, and for allowing me to interview him. You can watch the interview here.

The Video

Now I know this is supposed to be on The Book of the Lion, but I thought it would make more sense to have this be more general. 

Is it the characters, book, or author?

 I feel like this can be a complicated distinction, and an important one, too.

The characters

This is where the characters in the story are portrayed to be sexist people. This could mean that the characters have a noticeable bias for or against people based solely on their gender. This could also mean that the character refuses to, say, accept or acknowledge someone else’s choice of pronouns. Now, I think this is largely what happens in The Book of the Lion. For instance, there is a time where there is an ax-man  who, for no reason whatsoever, shoves a woman, with no regard for her safety or pain, onto the ground. After this, he proceeds to repeatedly kick her when she is still lying in the road. 

The Book

One could also argue that the piece of literature itself is sexist. A good argument in favour of this is that the whole book fails the Bechdel test and the Mako Mori test. In the Bechdel test, the piece of art in question must:

1. Have at least two woman in it
2. Two woman must have a conversation 
3. Their conversation must NOT be about a man

Well, that sounds pretty easy, right? So you’d think. Here are a list of movies that don’t make it.

1. Pinnochio
2. Dumbo
3. Jurassic Park
4. Bambi
5. Lady and the Tramp
6. The Sword in the Stone
7. The Jungle Book
8. The Fox and the Hound
9. The Great Mouse Detective
10. Breakfast at Tiffany’s 
11. The Lord of the Rings trilogy 
12. The Avengers

The Author 

One possible explanation is that the author, Michal Cadnum, for whatever reason, has a strong bias for or against woman. Having never talked to him myself, I have no way to judge his treatment or preconceived notions about gender equality, other than his book,The Book of the Lion. 

Consider this:

In the book The Book of the Lion, the word man is used 104 times. The word woman is used 32 times. 

The word male is used 4 times. The word female is used twice. 

The word he is used 224 times… by the end of the first chapter alone. The word she is used 12 times in the first chapter. 

Boy is used 21 times. Girl is used 3 times.

 Now, I think that all of this is pretty irrelevant, but I still find it interesting.

What do you think? Is the book, the author, or the characters sexist? Or something different altogether?

Write your opinion in the comments.