You will now read my story. My story will help you and guide you into Cairo. Every time you read my pages, with every word and every phrase
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You will now read my story. My story will help you and guide you into Cairo. Every time you read my pages, with every word and every phrase, you will enter a still deeper layer, open and relaxed and receptive. I shall now count from one to ten. On the count of ten, you will be in Cairo. I say: ONE As you focus your attention entirely on my tale, you will slowly begin to relax. TWO As you consider your role in this tale, your identity as a spy, your body and your mind become warmer, sleepier. THREE The sleepiness becomes a dreaminess. The dreaminess becomes a dream. The dream becomes a story. The story becomes many stories. Are you in these stories? Are you the protagonist? Who is the storyteller? FOUR Who are the characters in this story? Are they spies like you? Are they friends and lovers, are they enemies and conspirators? Their identities are beginning to blur. My stories are beginning to blur. FIVE The blurriness is spreading to the whole of your body, your memories, your reality. What is the waking world and what is the dreaming world? What is this place called Cairo? What is there? On the count of six, I want you to go deeper. I say: SIX You are bleeding now, from your face, from your mind. This is the sleeping sickness, the Arabian Nightmare. Your body is beginning to sink. SEVEN You go deeper and deeper and deeper, you sink into this dream within dreams. Are you lost in this story? EIGHT I am the storyteller and I am dead. Who is telling this story? Perhaps you are now the storyteller. Who are these characters around you? Perhaps they are projections of your own self, splintered and separated. What is this sick dreaming, this dreaming sickness? Perhaps the dream is your reality. With every breath you take, you go deeper into this dream reality, into your sickness. NINE You are dreaming you are awake. You are bleeding your self. You go deeper into these stories, into the Arabian Nightmare. On the mental count of ten, you will be in Cairo. Be there at ten. I say: TEN
if this review were only for the story "A Walk in the Park" then this would be a 4-star, maybe even 5-star review. I loved that story so much, tons ofif this review were only for the story "A Walk in the Park" then this would be a 4-star, maybe even 5-star review. I loved that story so much, tons of fun and cleverness and critique and all the good things. easily one of the best examples of Bizarro I've read since Anderson Prunty's The Sorrow King way back when. the story joyously sends up modern Bro Culture and its obsessions with self-improvement, tech, social media, globetrotting, faux-progressive ideals, new speak, body-worship, and good vibes like nothing else I've ever seen. best of all, the tale ends with our Positivity Bro protagonist saving a dog from dismemberment by extolling the virtues of LinkedIn to a couple of YouTubers who soon see the error of their ways. wonderful work, Isis!
unfortunately, can't say much about the rest of the stories. too facile for me, and I'm a facile kind of guy. although the collection may not be intended to be a part of the Bizarro genre - the publisher Snuggly isn't one of the companies that promotes that term - it squarely fits within that tradition, with satiric absurdism and subversive grotesquerie (thanks Wikipedia) being the model here. and that genre is just not for me. there's something about it that grates: could be that the display of intelligence, creativity, and wit also comes across as smirky, self-satisfied, and shallow, rarely mining genuine emotion, disinterested in examining its fun ideas with any depth or complexity, tossed off.
I'm going to refrain from rating this because the very talented and extremely stylish Justin Isis is one of my Goodreads friends. sorta hope he doesn't read this review?...more
the book is a wall of sound a wall of words it took me over two months to read it, unheard of for me. you open the book you go to a chapter you read the chapter you fall into a black hole it takes forever to read it is a timeless experience you come out of the chapter and you wonder, where has all the time gone? gone... gone... gone... the book is an echo chamber of ideas but each echo comes back louder louder LOUDER and then the idea is discarded. BOOMon to the next one! or maybe not discarded, maybe looked at from another angle all kinds of angles looking look looked let's look at that idea from behind a one-way mirror, the idea doesn't know you're looking at it, keep looking you sneaky horny thing, your breathing gets shallow and rapid, maybe the idea will undress. or maybe the idea will become something different, transformed. transubstantiated? transcendentalized? transmogrified? the ideas are still there, just turned into new ideas, one shape into another, at dizzying speed, the book is dizzying, I'm getting a headache, my vision is blurring and so are the pages, my mind it hurts. the book is layered with ideas like a room stacked full of pillows, some comfy some not, each pillow is an idea, some soft some hard, just throw yourself into the pillow room, into Ratner's Star, have fun with it, it's pain-free after that first time. "Ideas" are like words, their meanings "change" over time, now is as good a time as any, as ever, what is "time" anyway, let's switch things up! I like talking like this so I will, just listen.
"But when he put quotes around words for commonplace objects, the effect was unsettling. He wasn't simply isolating an object from its name, he seemed to be trying to empty an entire system of meaning."
the boy is a genius he is a boy genius, a wunderkind, a Nobel prize winner, his skills with maths is amazings. he is not a curious boy but he is a horny boy like all boys well I suppose he is curious about things that make him horny so he is not completely not-curious. he is here to solve a mystery the aliens have communicated with earth but what is it they are saying and are they even aliens. the first two-thirds of the book is set above ground on a campus for scientists trying to solve this puzzle there are so many characters all buzzing around the boy it is a beehive he is a drone, a horny barely curious drone with a mystery to solve. in the last third of the book he moves underground he and his mentor and a sexy author and four other characters and suddenly the book feels much smaller but the ideas remain big and flexible and ever-changing and the perspectives suddenly shift, it's not just the boy it's all of them, these underground folk, their perspectives blur into each other fade into each other dissolve into each other, sometimes in the same long paragraph, he thought this and she thought that and the reader is like What? I thought I was reading him? but now I'm reading her? and who is having sex with her, the mentor or the boy? the mentor comes out from underground and then he goes into another hole in the ground, he crawls into a hole that he has dug in that hole in the ground, just like the other mentor. ah the fate of all such mentors to all such boys. also living underground was an Asian scientist specializing in bat guano, a Dr. Wu, I liked this scientist not just because he's Asian but because he thought he was going to die and he didn't, he reminded me of me, I root for bat-loving Asian scientists who think they are going to die but don't. "Words" are like people, both die, but do they really, I mean really for "real" in reality, like if you repeat a word enough times, it loses "meaning" and it dies like a person? I don't like listening to that so I won't, just stop talking.
the author wrote a book about a detective in San Francisco, a dreaming detective who wishes himself away to Babylon, again and again. again and again the author wrote a book about a detective in San Francisco, a dreaming detective who wishes himself away to Babylon, again and again. again and again in Babylon, he misses his stop and his block and his appointments and the baseball and the whole point of the case he's on. he keeps dreaming of Babylon, dream dream dream, all he does is dream, this soft-boiled detective... this author too. is he writing a book for himself only? for his friends only? for his dreams only? is this his dream of a gumshoe and a dame and some shady characters? I wanted to like this book, so I did. sorta. but it was a bit of a chore to read you, book, like listening to someone recount their dream, I'm glad you were a short dream. a dream about a detective, a dame, a body or two, and mysteries that don't get solved because mysteries never get solved in your dreams. kind of a depressing dream but maybe the dreamer didn't realize that, too busy dreaming.
this part made me smile:
"Ohhhhhhh!" the butler moaned up from the floor.
"You didn't believe me," I said to Nana-dirat. "You said that the butler couldn't have done it, but I knew better and now the swine will pay for his crimes."
I gave him a good kick in the stomach. This caused him to stop concentrating on the pain in his arm and start thinking about his stomach.
Not only was I the most famous detective in Babylon but I was also the most hard-boiled just like a rock. I had no use for lawbreakers and could be very brutal with them.
"Darling," Nana-dirat said. "You're so wonderful, but did you have to kick him in the somach?"
"Yes," I said.
Nana-dirat threw her arms around me and pressed her beautiful body up close to mine. Then she looked up into my cold steel eyes and smiled. "Oh, well," she said. "Nobody's perfect, you big lug."
when something tragic and horrible happens to someone you love, something that could have been avoided, if I had only if she had only if they hadn't iwhen something tragic and horrible happens to someone you love, something that could have been avoided, if I had only if she had only if they hadn't if the world wasn't, you can feel a rage not just against the person or people who caused that tragedy, who hurt or killed that loved one, you feel a rage against the entire world, like lightning striking again and again and again, that's what you want, burning everything down, killing everyone in sight, innocent and guilty alike, who's innocent anyway, who needs people anyway, now that the person you love has been taken away from you. just burn it all down, you dream and you rage, as you imagine all the alternate scenarios that could have saved that person you love, all the things you could have done, as you imagine catastrophe striking the world, a catastrophe that parallels what you are feeling inside, and what you are feeling is a need to see everything and everyone burned, everything in ashes like the ashes where your heart used to be.
this story was like the best of Sylvia Plath: full of rage, full of sadness, full of imagining how it all could have been so different, if only.
synopsis: a man, a woman, and a cat have problems that need addressing and mysteries that need solving. are these three enemies or allies?
* Random thosynopsis: a man, a woman, and a cat have problems that need addressing and mysteries that need solving. are these three enemies or allies?
* Random thoughts follow for a novel that often felt random, but slowly reveals itself to be a carefully built and multi-leveled structure <--- italics are what amount to my actual review. *
- SO MANY QUESTIONS! the book is full of them. amazingly, all of those questions are answered. I think?
- themes & questions: what is a personality and how does trauma impact that personality? how does a personal narrative differ from an objective record of events? what structures do we build, internally and externally, to protect ourselves from future traumas?
- Catriona Ward really knows how to get into her characters' heads. I felt a real connection to all of them. such empathy on display by the author! a tricky kind of empathy though.
- I am against trigger warnings because I think people should have some damn resilience. and that said, I'm a hypocrite because I personally get a lot of value when I am warned that a novel will include child and/or animal abuse. but still, not into them as a general rule.
THIS BOOK FUCKING TRIGGERED ME. hypocrisy-flavored lol? I was so triggered that my fragile self instantly closed the book, resenting the damn book, yet still very intrigued by the intriguing book. I didn't want to return to the story but it was so well-done, so well-written, that I did the unthinkable and just went to Wikipedia to find out what happened in the end. so ashamed at my actions, because reading the synopsis compelled me to get right back into the book, and I would have been better off trusting the author and not spoiling myself.
and that said, this book was still very enjoyable, a fulfilling kind of enjoyable, despite knowing what it all was about thanks to self-spoiling. SPOILER AHEAD IN THE NEXT PHRASE: that ending, and that friendship, was really heartwarming and came out of leftfield. some tears may have been shed.
- how in the world is this going to be adapted? I just read that it's being turned into a film. how??
- I loved the cat's perspective. cats are of course the best (tied with dogs). that cat really reminded me of my cat Digsy, although my cat was less religious, she came across as pretty agnostic. I miss you Digsy! you were such an important part of my life and such an important part of me....more
The man is a construct of materials and memories, his physical signifiers and the intangibles that are signified; what shall happen if thos
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The man is a construct of materials and memories, his physical signifiers and the intangibles that are signified; what shall happen if those mundane wonders, those conceptual signs... slowly... disappear?
The man is materials and memories, signifiers and signified; what if those mundane signs disappear?
The man is memories signified; what if those signs disappear?
synopsis: the man is two men in one man and he lives with himself, by himself. these men overlap and they talk the same way and they talk to, at, and synopsis: the man is two men in one man and he lives with himself, by himself. these men overlap and they talk the same way and they talk to, at, and across each other. they watch each other carefully because they are enemies, or at least antagonistic roommates. headmates?
précis: the man has a bird and the bird is the man and the man loves the bird and the man wants to kill the bird who is himself. the bird talks too much, knows too much. there is a history of murders, or accidents; a car tampered with, a wife fell down a well. these are the man's memories. there is a bad smell in the house, something is rotting. is it a memory? that neighbor downstairs better watch herself, else she become another of the man's memories.
summary: the man watches the street and sees them: the interlopers. he catalogues them. are they coming to get him? the reader is an interloper as well, sorting through the man and his memories, by turns confused, dismayed, amused, intrigued, annoyed, appreciative. at least this reader, this interloper felt this way, thought this way, eager to create both connection and distance between himself and the man in the book who is two men and a bird, much like the reader is also two men but with a cat but no longer. I miss that cat.
abstract: the writer is T.M. Wright and after leaving pulp horror behind, paperbacks from hell full of strange ambiguity and shifting identities, he wrote 4 experimental novels, at the twilight of his life, experimental novels full of strange ambiguity and shifting identities. these narratives aren't stable. but they have their patterns, a logic model. I wish T.M. Wright were still around, creating unstable narratives and strange identities. I miss that T.M. Wright....more
Superheroes and the multiple deaths and rebirths of the American Dream. Superheroes brought to you by the cut-up techniques of Burroughs and Acker andSuperheroes and the multiple deaths and rebirths of the American Dream. Superheroes brought to you by the cut-up techniques of Burroughs and Acker and Dos Passos and New Wave science fiction, especially Stand On Zanzibar. Superheroes, mass slaughter, and cities destroyed. 51 super-powered Statesmen, one for each of the 51 states; the 51st state is of course the UK, the suck-ups. A deplorable militarized right-wing religious movement marches on California from Arizona, targeting decadent gays and hippie drop-outs and Los Angelenes and the city of San Francisco itself, killing everything left-wing in its path. A multi-ethnic group of superheroes that once sorta accidentally slaughtered over 800 people are our clandestine so-called heroes, sifting through conspiracy theories & unearthing mysteries & murdering people; all of their efforts stop nothing because their own corruption, incompetence, and soul-searching angst gets in the way. The hero Burbank takes a break from his luxurious mansion lifestyle to save the day, and is eliminated in one panel. The villain Phoenix is a huckster televangelist, head of a multinational corporation and a movement of fundamentalists; he may eventually get burned alive, but he'll still have his day in court. This was written in 1988 not yesterday, joke's on us! The narrative is dense and choppy and berserk, completely confusing, full of random asides and eccentric pointless inserts from fan zines and pop culture magazines, starting when it is all over and everything is in ashes, ending when the end is just about to begin. The art by Baike & Fegredo & Phillips is jarringly vivid and hallucinogenic, and only adds to the confusion. An idiot told me the other day that socio-political progress was like a boulder, you can either help push it, stand aside, or be flattened by it when it comes barrelling down your way. This story is like that boulder except it is barrelling down backwards towards its pushers, a boulder that is the last convulsion of the American Dream™ as it runs out of control, smashing all of its practitioners into paste. This was written by John Smith, a young Englishman. It's clear he had a great time slagging off the U.S. of A. while having a go at the superhero genre itself, serving his nihilism up bright and noisy. The clever lad....more
such pretty nightmares. oh the monstrous architecture, the pastel-hued romance, the flora the fauna the statuary, the opaque surrealism of it all. I wsuch pretty nightmares. oh the monstrous architecture, the pastel-hued romance, the flora the fauna the statuary, the opaque surrealism of it all. I was particularly surprised by the idea of the Green-Light District: a bordello, of sorts, where unwilling sisters provide a nighttime pastime for melancholy spirits. shudder/swoon. such pretty nightmares, although that last chapter was quite disgusting.
synopsis: an alchemist covets his niece's jewelry, and more....more
It feels strange giving 2 stars to an author with so much undeniable talent. Even more, one whose interests align with my own interests. Machado writeIt feels strange giving 2 stars to an author with so much undeniable talent. Even more, one whose interests align with my own interests. Machado writes stories where her stylistic skills are front and center - her prose impresses with its elegant craftsmanship, its playfulness, its willingness to tell stories in different ways, its centralization of language itself and the way an author can bend and shape how words are pieced together so that the message package becomes as important as the message itself. I love that! Machado's stories connect with a range of genres, from horror to science fiction to much else, while pushing beyond genre boundaries into a space where genre itself is but another tool in the toolbox of telling stories. I love that! Machado loves ambiguity, and I love that too. And Machado is a feminist author in her evaluation and critique of how women are compartmentalized by society (and by themselves) and in her promotion of atypical roles for her female characters, while for the most part not using a heavy hand that is telling the reader I Am Making A Point Now. I love that too.
But here's what I don't love, and thus the 2 stars: most of these stories felt half-baked to me. The ideas are there, and the writing itself is strong. But her stories often didn't work for me because it felt like they existed solely on the level of idea - and to showcase the prose skills of the author. I love challenging fiction but I also love a narrative that is telling me something in a way that makes sense and that resonates and that doesn't feel like its author had the beginning of a good idea and that's all. And that the strength of their writing ability would have to carry the story, rather than the idea behind the story itself. A lot of these stories are like pies with an excellent crust but a filling that is all whipped cream. The worst of these is "Especially Heinous" which has an ingenious idea at its heart but becomes so bloated and self-indulgent that the idea itself is utterly lost in all of that whipped cream. It started out as an energizing experience and ended up being an enervating one.
All that said, there were a couple stories that really landed for me. "The Husband Stitch" has all of the delicious prose, flirtation with horror, weird ambiguity, and subtle feminism that I could want in a story. I love how I am unable to describe this disturbing tale in one easy phrase, so I won't even try. "Inventory" mashes up contagion and post-apocalyptic narratives into a slowly deepening story about loss and love and connection - a tale that increases in power with each of its journal entries. Unfortunately these were the first stories in the collection; expectations of further excellence were created but only frustration and disappointment followed. Alas!...more
synopsis: a man in the midst of a meltdown. his broken mind encounters two paths: a subway to death and a tunnel of love. which will he choose? are bosynopsis: a man in the midst of a meltdown. his broken mind encounters two paths: a subway to death and a tunnel of love. which will he choose? are both paths the same?
poor Diddy! the man has led a hollow life. following a divorce and the recognition of said hollowness comes a suicide attempt. and then comes murder and passion. and then comes... what exactly? the answers are all there, sadly.
Sontag is sad herself, writing about this sad man. sad about the holes people dig for themselves, for the glossy veneers and brittle surfaces that pretend to be identities, purposes. but a sadness of the sort that a doctor can display. a clinical, professional sort of sadness. an understanding but removed sort of sad. but sad nonetheless! Sontag's sorrow is there, invisible footnotes within this assessment of what has made and continues to make Diddy and his so-called life so sad.
the author is of course famous for being the preeminent intellectual of her day. not admired for her fiction but adulated for her nonfiction essays. this feels unfair to me. Sontag is a writer of the first order and this book is brilliantly written. there are some set pieces in Death Kit that rank among the best I've read in any book: Diddy pretending to be an insurance investigator while visiting the crass widow of a man he thinks he's murdered; a meeting slash dick-measuring contest between corporate honchos and their yes-men; a sweet and real encounter between Diddy and a prostitute he picks up; the many scenes of Diddy and his new love, a preturnaturally self-assured blind woman; and my favorite of all, an exceedingly strange yet endearing dream that Diddy recounts (based on a novel he wrote and lost), all about the life story of a poor lonely outcast werewolf. a story about all humans.
as noted above, this is a clinical book and so it is with the prose. the writing has an emotionless and very dry quality to it, despite its brilliance. and yet, somehow, this quality only made the book more fascinating to read. this is a mesmerizing book. its hypnotic quality comes directly from the cold, purely interior way that the visceral narrative is presented. the prose does not parallel the often heated, often surreal sequences. (as I mention in the comments below,) I was reminded of the callous quality of Duras writing on love and emptiness and even more of Cronenberg's icy style in his films portraying various extremes of feeling and action, or non-action. there's just something about a distanced, weirdly "objective" voice describing scenes of intense emotion and/or bizarre hallucination that I respond to. and so I was fascinated from beginning to end.
in sum, the writing is as alienated from the subject as the subject is alienated from himself. soulfulness does come through, much to my relief. but parsed out, between the lines, implicit, almost hidden from view. in the end, Sontag does Sontag: she evaluates, she analyzes, she posits a thesis....more
synopsis: the novel Sugar Bush is published to instant acclaim, capturing the zeitgeist. the author Kingsley clutches his teddy bear and his niece Jessynopsis: the novel Sugar Bush is published to instant acclaim, capturing the zeitgeist. the author Kingsley clutches his teddy bear and his niece Jessica plots his demise. there is suicide, there is murder; there is the peeling back of layers and there is a reckoning.
materials that form the model: pages from a book, blood and water, thoughts and desires from the minds and dicks of men. the model is of a woman; the woman is a model.
the book is slim and sharp, an arrow launched at the male gaze. the humor is dry, cold, and evil but is only a brittle veneer, a cover for the anger and empathy beneath. the meta is deployed like a weapon turned upon its shooter: Potter acknowledges he is a man writing about women, an author representing the representation of women, the irony there. the postmodern "narrative" is mirror facing mirror, shingles of plot overlapping, and yet a clear and merciless trajectory is followed. this is a tale of revenge.
Dennis Potter was a fascinating man. I love him for writing the films Pennies from Heaven, a bleak and ruthless musical, and Brimstone & Treacle, a dark and nauseating family drama. Two favorites of mine back when I was a clearly sick in the head kid. I can't believe I've had Blackeyes for a couple decades and just recently got around to it.
SIDEBAR: what a relief to read a pointedly feminist novel that was actually written by a man! genuine relief. after reading Updike's wannabe-feminist Witches of Eastwick, I started wondering if such a thing were even possible.
SECOND SIDEBAR: still hard to believe that in 2019 some people are proud to claim they aren't feminists. is it stupidity, a knee-jerk, a misunderstanding of the word, or are they actually against gender equality? who knows....more
(1) This is a story about a man, his two daughters, his drive on an interstate freeway, and a random drive-by shooting that leaves his youngest daught(1) This is a story about a man, his two daughters, his drive on an interstate freeway, and a random drive-by shooting that leaves his youngest daughter dead. Maybe.
(2) This story is told in eight versions. In most of the versions, the youngest daughter is slain. In one version, it is the older daughter. In another, both live.
(3) Stephen Dixon channels the modernist tradition in this work. Each chapter is a plunge into the deep streams of consciousness of the narrator, the father. The prose can be extremely challenging. This is not a book that relaxes; the reader must be fully engaged and must be able to absorb a lot of information and must be very patient. Or at least be able to adjust to the flow, to swim in its fast currents. This intense writing can be very exciting. It can also be incredibly tedious.
(4) The first story is phenomenal. Incredibly moving and incredibly sorrowful. The prose entranced me, so much that I dismissed any issues I may have had as minor and trifling. I was in awe at what Dixon accomplished. The realism of the emotional palette on display. The terror then alienation then rage of the father. The horror at such a meaningless death. The sadness of a life - the father's - that itself becomes meaningless due to the rash decisions he makes and the lack of caring eventually shown to him by his adult daughter; the sad reality illustrated of how people cut other people out of their lives. I cried at the end over the awful loneliness of the man, at his neediness that goes ignored.
(5) The so-called reality of this review is that I am writing it in-between working on work emails, emails where I have to use a more formal style depending on who I'm writing to, or emails with at times excruciatingly finite details that feel meaningless but are important to the person I'm emailing, ugh, and I just finished an email to a person who is now at a very high level of government and I have to sort of kiss his ass because I want him to speak to a council that I represent and I can't help but remember that the last time we met, when he was in another position, years ago, he literally lied to my face, but I will try to forget about that, but what I can't forget is that one of my favorite staff led sort of an insurrection of community providers against this guy's decision, Karl was the name of my staff, I really enjoyed that guy, I personally hired him, and then I changed positions and then the bitch who replaced me demoted him, actually put someone that Karl hired in a position to be Karl's supervisor, and then Karl of course left my agency because no one should be treated like that, he left and we tried to stay in touch, we tried we really tried, I would think of books and tv shows and actors he liked and I'd remember Oh Karl! I'm going to call him now! but I rarely did, and then he went and died, all alone in his apartment, the police had to break in his door after this agency reported that he hadn't appeared for a couple days, and there he was dead, alone, and why was he alone and why did it take two days and why didn't I stay in better contact with him, he was my friend and I loved him, why did the end have to happen that way and why did he have to be alone that way and why does anyone have to die alone and why and why and why and I'm crying and I don't know why.
(6) Unfortunately those issues that I had dismissed in the first story came to dominate my experience of all the subsequent stories. Namely: the stream of consciousness began to feel too stylized. Perhaps even stilted. I began to think to myself: but people don't actually think this way, do they? Of course that is a very subjective, perhaps myopic perspective. But I began to be annoyed. That annoyance became distancing. I began to dread reading the book. Inevitably, not only did the thought process of the narrator begin to sound irritatingly artificial, but the way the children talked as well. Kids don't talk like that was a constant thought. And then: police don't talk like that, doctors don't talk like that... people don't talk like that. Etc. I don't yearn for realism in my fiction, but the artificiality began to get in the way of my empathizing with the narrator and was a block in my connecting to the book's themes. Interstate began to lose resonance for me; by the end of the novel, I was relieved that the experience was finally over.
(7) That said, there was still parts that I found fascinating to contemplate in stories 2 through 8. Particularly within the last two stories. A treatise on the evolution of violence, on a personal level, from the shove or smack of a father to a daughter, to road rage, to the simple randomness of violence occurring anywhere, everywhere. A portrait of the depth of love a father can have for his children. The basic stream of consciousness inherent in living your life, filled with small moments and memories, love and sex and chores and food and fantasies and idle thoughts and thinking of what happened then while ignoring what is happening now.
(8) Story 1: a qualified 5 stars Stories 2-6: 1-2 stars Stories 7 & 8: 3 stars...more
The late 80s through mid-90s was a fertile time for experimental queer writers. (It was an exciting time for me as well, as a queer Creative Writing sThe late 80s through mid-90s was a fertile time for experimental queer writers. (It was an exciting time for me as well, as a queer Creative Writing student during that period.) From fiery Kathy Acker to quirky Kevin Killian to angry David Wojnarowicz to loving Joan Nestle to ice cold Dennis Cooper, the sheer range of mood and purpose of this group of fresh voices made reading them an exhilerating crap shoot. Would I be enlightened, as I was with Acker, moved and angered, as with Wojnarowicz? Or would I be disgusted, as I was with Cooper? And how would I use what I read in my own writing? The unifying factor across these diverse voices was the idea that our own stories, our personal narratives, could be centralized in works of so-called fiction. Genre boundaries were blurred, as were the boundaries between fiction and fact, love and sex, overt activism and internal exploration. I loved reading (and writing) these sorts of stories - the kinds of stories where the storyteller's own personal story is just as important as the story they are telling.
Unfortunately, Margery Kempe is a huge failure in my book, despite it doing exactly what I described above. I wonder why I even wrote all of that as an intro. I suppose to justify to myself why I still admire these sorts of books, these kinds of experiments with structure, theme, perception, reality.
Anyway, Glück constructs two stories that are supposed to comment on one another: Margery Kempe's love for Jesus and the author's own love for some babe. I started off annoyed and then moved into dismayed and ended with an irritated sort of bored. One can't criticize the writing itself, which is often beautiful and challenging and beautifully challenging - despite an intense focus on extremely explicit, un-romanticized sex. Or perhaps because of it? We all have our muses, and for many writers of that era, sex itself was a muse - especially since queer sex often automatically gave its practitioners a sort of outlaw status.
But here's the thing: this is a book about a woman who loved God, written by an atheist (probably). It's utterly bizarre that the author decided that his obsession with some cute young thing would even equate with Margery Kempe's love of Jesus. Reducing Kempe's intensely spiritual connection to God to the ravings of some demented woman who is hungry for Jesus' dick is not just, well, reductive, it is genuinely diminishing. Diminishing in that particularly easy and ugly way that men diminish women all the time. In the modern parlance, Glück tries to mansplain Margery's complicated feelings as pure lust - albeit lust of a higher form, I guess. Lust to the/a higher power? LOL? But Margery Kempe - author of the first recorded autobiography and obviously a real person - was defined by her faith and her spirituality. She was not defined by her lusts! Love of the physical body is not the same as a spiritual connection, and sorry to anyone who still suffers under that delusion. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm saying that one is an apple and the other is an orange and that the author is a nitwit for pretending that they are the same fruit. Sorry, author.
I'd like to say that at least the "personal narrative" portions of the book were interesting, but I can't. They are real at least, or were once real for the author. Sadly, the obsessive longings of an older gent for a younger lad are completely uninteresting to me. The genders could have been switched out and I would have been equally bored....more
Lombroso and Ferrero had argued that degeneration was built into 'the very nature of woman' and that it induced them 'to seek relief in evil deeds.
Lombroso and Ferrero had argued that degeneration was built into 'the very nature of woman' and that it induced them 'to seek relief in evil deeds.' When maternal sentiment was found wanting and was replaced by 'strong passions and intensely erotic tendencies' then 'the innocuous semi-criminal present in the normal woman must be transformed into a born criminal more terrible than any man.'
A dense and dizzying "article" on a worldwide epidemic: female sexuality unleashed. Cheeky Calder imagines an alternate history that is part De Sade, part Foucault, part Story of O, and part Japanese cosplay. Philosopher-artist-psychoanalyst Reinhardt diagnoses the problem; society responds by unleashing a pogrom against all sexualized young women. Features the noted fellatrix, catgirl, and revolutionary idealogue Monica Lewinsky, and her subsequent execution.
The eroticization of death, he argued, was the best, and indeed only consolation human beings might expect of life in an impersonal and savage universe.
I was staying at the aptly-named Gaylord Hotel for a week-long conference in freezing mid-December. What a nightmare! This hotel is likYULETIDE ORDEAL
I was staying at the aptly-named Gaylord Hotel for a week-long conference in freezing mid-December. What a nightmare! This hotel is like a small city; indeed, in the center of it is a mock village. 'Twas the season, and so this lil' village within a hotel was also done up in holiday fanfare. In front of the village was a stage set for the regularly recurring Cirque du Christmas spectacular. Above the village was a similarly recurring light and sound show illustrating a timeless Xmas tale of a little boy and his grandfather and all the wishes of the world, in a display of terrifying color and thundering voices. Across and above the village was my indoor balcony, where I witnessed these atrocious Xmas events, agog and aghast. I was feeling quite put out, as I had had a restless night of sleep, was rudely woken at 7 am by cleaning staff who had ignored my Do Not Disturb and had to be shouted away, and then woken again at 8 by an emergency alert to leave the building, which I ignored grouchily. No doubt some simpleton had attempted to smoke in their room and so triggered a fire alarm. Amateurs.
I realized I had two hours until my dinner plans; time for a much needed nap.
Barely into my rest, I heard the tell-tale sounds of my door being opened and some sort of cart being wheeled in. Then a voice:
"Pardon me sir, but I would really like to clean your room. It is very important! I missed this morning, and yesterday."
Groggy and feeling helpless, I mumbled that that was fine but it was imperative that I continue sleeping. And so the cleaning commenced, around me.
After a fitful hour or so of unrelaxed rest, I finally woke. The woman who had entered was still present, dusting. Fortunately I had collapsed fully dressed; from my bed I rose, attempting a voice full of regret.
"My apologies for being here all the while, but I was exhausted. Thank you for tidying up. No need to worry about the bedding."
She smiled back. "You are so polite, sir; I am grateful! You seem like an understanding sort. And very open-minded. I would like to share a secret with you. A valuable secret!"
I smiled weakly. "But of course, share away."
"It is a trifle... shall we say... risqué..."
"All the better!"
With a sphinx-like expression, she beckoned me towards the bathroom. I followed, rather nervously. What in the world could this secret be? A secret lotion drawer, perhaps? Special towels? The latter would certainly be welcome as I looked upon the current towels with much disfavor, due to their cheap roughness - quite inappropriate for a hotel of this caliber, not to mention supposed gayness. And so I was intrigued yet strangely fearful.
At the toilet, she reached to the wall and flipped a small switch that I had not noticed previously. I heard a rush of liquid. She beckoned me again. I approached slowly. Smiling, she nodded towards the toilet bowl. Pouring within that bowl from its sides were thick streams of brown sludge. Sewage was filling the bowl! I stood stunned and amazed.
Still smiling, she reached in and began washing her hands in the foulness.
She announced merrily: "It is very good for the skin!"
I stood gaping. She lifted one leg and with a casual movement, tossed off a slipper she had been wearing and flirtatiously waggled a foot at me.
"And it is very good for the callouses of the feet as well!"
My mind broke and my body rebelled: gasping and making inarticulate noises in horror and terror, I lurched out of the bathroom and ran blindly to my bed, flinging myself upon it. Surely I must still be sleeping! Such nightmares couldn't be real! First the 7 am intrusion, and now this atrocity! I mumbled mindlessly to myself, head deep in pillow. This must be a dream.
Suddenly a sweetly sinister and babyish little boy's voice echoed around me, "How many wishes are there, Grandpapa?"
An elderly but frightfully hearty voice boomed in response: "AS MANY WISHES AS THERE ARE STARS IN THE SKY!"
I shuddered into my pillow. Could this be some sort of dreadful Christmas miracle? Whose wish was it that I be so horribly tortured? I moaned, a weak and exhausted victim to malevolent holiday magic.
If you enjoyed the above dream that occurred during the early evening of Tuesday, December 11th 2018 at the Marriott Gaylord in Maryland, I suggest you read this book! It is full of dreams.
Happily, the dreams that Lars describes are not so...
Synopsis: Smug, know-it-all little boy meets smug, know-it-all Investigator Dog. "Adventures" ensue.
What an odd, surreal, sometimes sorrowful, sometimSynopsis: Smug, know-it-all little boy meets smug, know-it-all Investigator Dog. "Adventures" ensue.
What an odd, surreal, sometimes sorrowful, sometimes farcical lark this turned out to be.
Tadeusz Konwicki was a lauded Polish writer and film director who was active from the 1950s through the 90s. Sadly, I'm unfamiliar with his work. If his films are anything like this book, they are suffused with absurdity, melancholy, and strangeness.
What is this so-called "Anthropos-Spectre-Beast"?
Well,
The Anthropos-Spectre-Beast is everywhere about us throughout all our life. He is everything that is not understood in nature and mankind. He is the Unknown itself.
Young Peter is aware of this Beast that haunts humanity but barely pays it any attention. (Much like most of us.) He has other things on his mind: his father has lost his job which causes much stress for the family, his secret peeks at his sister's diary has shown him an entirely different side to her, he's in love with the haughty girl down the block, he's acting in an experimental film about space travel in order to bring in some cash, and Investigator Dog keeps insisting that he travel to an alternate dimension in order to rescue a sick little girl and repeatedly confront his nemesis, a cruel lad named Retep - which of course is simply "Peter" spelled backwards. Oh, and an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth and it promises total annihilation - much to disillusioned, nihilistic Peter's delight.
So that's a lot for one little boy to hold, and a lot for a little book to hold as well.
Fortunately, Konwicki has a light touch and a sure hand, and he invests the proceedings with a careful attention to detail, a lot of flair, and a sense of humor that keeps things fun while still hinting at hidden depths all the while. Retep is an infernal nemesis, a Jungian shadow-self for our protagonist, and Peter's best friend - but only in his dreams. Peter's family are instantly recognizable types, but they have their own very human secret sides; Peter may dismiss them at first, but the reader soon sees how deeply he loves them all. Investigator Dog may be a guide to uncertain adventure but he is also a sad fellow with his own complicated agenda - just the sort of dog that Peter realizes he'd like as a friend. And Peter himself is a singular creation, full of a kind of mordant anti-life, sardonic and pretentious, addressing the reader in a most condescending fashion while revealing all of his understandable insecurities and hopes. This book is bizarre, smart, and overall a delight.
Except for the very ending! (view spoiler)[I entirely resented how the strangeness of the novel was explained away by the most depressing of reasons. Ugh. I much prefer the preceding endings, which functioned as a Choose Your Own Adventure of Happy Wish Fulfillment Ending versus Sad Realistic Ending. I choose the former! (hide spoiler)]
Is the book for children? I think this is the sort of book that most kids would understand a lot better than most adults. So... a tentative yes? Depends on the child, I suppose.
"You see," said the director, "even a child knows what's wanted."
"The reverse is true," said the script-writer. "The child understands that scientific accuracy would kill the poetry."
"That's just the trouble!" The director got annoyed again. "Poetry! In my job you can't just film things like naïve scientific fantasies, hackneyed psychological drama, or moral tales from the provinces. The story should be in the form of a fairy-tale or a philosophical tale, a metaphor for today's world, some new generalization."
Indeed!
My favorite part: after realizing that the girl down the block will probably never love him, Peter declares his love for an acacia tree across the street. A few days later, Peter realizes that he's totally over this acacia tree and in fact finds it distinctly annoying. That's so Peter....more
Synopsis: in fin de siècle England, a strange murder occurs and an investigator is strangely fooled.
an ingenious book! I'm so pleased that the combinaSynopsis: in fin de siècle England, a strange murder occurs and an investigator is strangely fooled.
an ingenious book! I'm so pleased that the combination of Ben and Benjamin's reviews, along with my enjoyment of the author's The Friendly Examiner, led me to search out and splurge on this hard to acquire gem. as with most treasures, the difficulty of finding it was certainly a part of its appeal. but such a small part. this is one of those books that, despite the gorgeousness of its small press production and the strangeness of its story, really shouldn't be such a niche item. Marvick's writing is as humorous and charming as it is stylized and ambiguous. his characters perplex and amuse and fascinate. his dark themes and his narrative playfulness are the sorts of themes and narratives that have been explored in a range of infinitely more popular and critically lauded books, from Night Film to The Raw Shark Texts to Hawksmoor to the stories of Borges and the films of Raoul Ruiz. and yet the book is niche, to its credit. there is something so private about its mordant humor. it's a secretive friend who half-smilingly tells you a complicated story that he expects you'll only half-understand, but he's having such a fun time recounting it that it doesn't really matter to him if you fully get the humor or the point of his story. but he hopes that you'll at least enjoy its telling.
and I did! I also understood the story. at least I think I did. or did I? well, that's sort of what the novel is all about. the power and potential of storytelling, the instability of narratives. personas put on and taken off and shifted and transformed, characters doubling and becoming different versions of themselves. signified and signifier, shallow depths and deep surfaces. the plot is a trick but the author plays fairly: clues are strewn everywhere, from the first page to the last. is the story really about the strange carpet called The Star 'Ushak', one that drinks the blood of its victims while slowly turning into a portal to somewhere terrible and bloody, a vehicle for Tamburlaine the Great's bloody return? is it really about a protagonist slowly hypnotized and undone by magicians, some playful and others monstrous, all concerned with transforming the world into their own ideal story? who can say. Marvick is playing his own game and while he wants you to enjoy that game, your understanding of the game's rules is not necessarily necessary.
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