bull

Madelena Gonzales describes post-realist fiction as being “both enchanted and disgusted by their own simulation of the narrative art, searching for the sublime by through the ridiculous, refusing to separate the readerly from the writerly, they teeter on the brink of schizophrenia and psychosis” (126). It is this psychological, or psychoanalytical, or the diverse levels of the psyche that transgressive fiction is able to penetrate, conquer, and hang for public viewing. Will Self uses Bull to represent this. John Bull explores the psychoanalytic realm of attraction (and repulsion), gender, and intimacy. Self capitalizes on the notion of vulnerability as being a key ingredient of sexual desire. John Bull slowly distorts his rough, haggard, and masculine persona to be a shy, innocent, and impossibly pure sex object, not too different from a young teenage girl who is unsure of her emerging sexual power and who is also prone to being betrayed and mislead by predatory men. Indeed, the enticing knee vagina engrosses and astounds reader with its surreal pornographic imagery. Will Self creates a story that strives to resist a culture of “remorseless eradication of any meaningful individuality” (115).  John Bull becomes something unique and unlike any other human: the man with the knee vagina. He struggles to find his identity and place in the world. Feeling total despair and isolation Bull waits “for oblivion to come” (302).  By simply creating a man who has a vagina on the back of his knee, Self simultaneously opens dialogue to many relevant issues in modern society, most noticeably he addresses the difficulty of pinpointing gender and identity in the constantly changing world we live in. Although the extreme scenario of one day waking up and feeling a vagina on the back of our knee is unlikely, Will Self tries to reintroduce the importance of our individuality. This is especially true when “Bull became once again horribly aware of his leg’s radically independent gender; its strange metabolism; its awful vulnerable yearning” (277). Regardless of Bull’s consistent masculine performance displayed “through [his] aggression and violence” (247),  Bull is able to undergo the process of redefining his existence. Will Self’s use of language to describe the fleshy metamorphosis Bull successfully translates the many prevalent themes of gender, identity, and intimacy in his “in-yer-face-ness” and transgressive style.

jovin

James saw Jovin approaching him, arms slightly cocked back, pace steady, head swiveling smoothly from side to side. There wasn’t a hint of hostility in the man. But Jovin floated over to him, he wanted to make amends. Jovin reached James, and his jaw began to open, his words were scratching to get out. His jaw never opened though. James capitalized on this opportunity he was given, he released a swift uppercut to Jovin’s square jaw knocking him slightly upwards off his feet and then backwards. The sucker punch James dealt Jovin left him on his back still trying to piece together how he got there. With no time to recover from the unethical blow, Jovin remained immobile and vulnerable, left there on the floor like a flipped turtle. His helplessness made Jovin look more appetizing, more elementary, and more delightful to James. James, unable to resist, walked over to Jovin and hovered over him like a hornet teasing his target before piercing him with his stinger. I never saw him descend down onto Jovin. One moment he stood menacingly above him, the next moment what I saw was unrelenting, unstoppable fury being rained down onto Jovin’s eyes, nose, ears and mouth. They were quick, lightning quick. You couldn’t see them but you could feel them. Violently pulsating and vibrating air molecules to make you feel every impact as if it passed through your body like bass you hear from the loud speakers in a concert. The punches and jabs rained down of Jovin’s face, James seeming to be getting stronger and seeming to enjoy this, each punch feeding him making every next punch more forceful. The gently flowing streams of red blood amused James as it began to drown him. Unable to see from all the blood splashed in his face, James began to grow weak. The onslaught of terror ceased for a moment and I don’t doubt if Jovin was by this point dead. 

cock review

Will Self’s novel Cock, part I of Cock & Bull, is a bizarre tale that follows the transformation of Carol as she grows a penis. Self takes us into a surreal world of clashing genders. We let Carol take us through the story, at first a quiet and tame young woman who undergoes the subliminal process of becoming a man “to counter the masculine cultural hegemony” (4). Unlike any other narration, in Cock Self plays with the malleability of the human body as he skillfully dives into the murky waters of hermaphroditism with violently shocking results. 

this too

Mary Gaitskill’s “Don’t Cry” is distant, ethereal, and is bizarrely calm. Trying to confound acts of the human soul, heart, and mind with interrelationships and sex, Gaitskill makes the reader feel a part of an intergalactic high school. As if simple body organs had become extensions of sexual organs, Gaitskill blurs the line between them. Consequently, by unusually changing the physical dimension and arena, Gaitskill’s “Don’t Cry” is able to reach out to the reader in ways that wouldn’t have been as effective in a non-transgressive technique. 

slightly unearly

Chuck Palahniuk’s writing in “The Guts” grabs its readers by the balls and doesn’t let go until they’re swollen and bruised. Much like many other British transgressive authors, Palahniuk, to his advantage, lacks the reserve or common decency to censor himself. His thoughts, like a jail break, are freed and run rampantly on paper. With an objective to stun his audience and leave them staggering out of the room from listening to his hyper-descriptive of masturbation experiments gone wrong, Palahniuk takes the medal. His carelessness to conceal sensitive issues is Palahniuk’s advantage, and, like other British transgressive authors, he capitalizes on it, successfully. 

willy self

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14303215

Will Self doesn’t hold the popular or “prevailing” view of the Olympics being held in the UK. In this segment of the interview we can notice multiple characteristics of Self. He is an assertive, rational, proud, intelligent, and dominating voice in this debate. Self’s aggressively straight-forward and to-the-point personality is echoed in his writing. He isn’t afraid to step on toes or make others feel uncomfortable, rather Self is more concerned with elucidating his point or perspective. Unabashedly honest, we hear Self’s loud voice in Cock and Bull, and we hear it quite clearly. The narration lucidly guides the reader like a motion picture camera guides our eyes in a scene. Self illuminates only what we need to see or know. Leaving out the unnecessary, I find my self charmed by Self’s writing. Not really know what’s going to happen next, Self’s tone never lets skip a sentence. It keeps me flawlessly on track, each sentence seducing me to the next one. Without a doubt, Will Self has a way with words. And I’m not too sure what it is, but it has the terrifying ability to pull me in and never let go.

circus morph

Siberia seems more and more like a dream. Literally, sometimes I get confused as if Carter precisely manipulated the shifts in reality like space, time and relationships to get the perfect product of a prolonged dream experience. 

To be honest, “The Spectacle of Her Gluttony” helped me connect this literature to the shadowing themes of feminism, patriarchy, gender roles and how they influence class and economy. Only slightly aware of this theme before reading Nights at the Circus, I failed to recognize how Fevver’s mystical performance, physique, and personality satirized the Woman. Carter’s creation reveals ludicrous elements that makes the reader imagine as if it were indeed reality. The mental process proves difficult however, it feels like trying to fit a square peg through a wooden circular opening. 

Aside from the obvious tones of feminism, it also seems pretty apparent that Carter tries to illuminate the significance of personal liberty. Many characters seems to be prisoners in unique ways. The blatantly imprisoned, such as Countess P.’s inmates and the escapee’s desire to return home, offer easy examples to physical restrictions of the human body. Though Walser and Fevvers illustrate, throughout the novel, the strenuous process of freeing one’s mind from prior conditioning. Walser goes from being a skeptical journalist to a head-injury victim who seeks only to reveal the happiness which beams from his hidden memory of Fevvers. Fevvers, on the other hand, transforms from a self-absorbed and materialistic diva who favors diamonds and spotlights to a normal person curious for the tingling sensation of finding an intimate companion. 

gaze the haze

Carter’s fantastical world isn’t too far from the unreal. Such obvious moments occur, for example, when Walser explores and (exposes) the lower-class section of St. Petersburg:

“Of the most beautiful of cities, Walser, as it turns out, has, in reality, seen only the beastly backside -- a yellow light in a chemist’s window; two noseless women under a streetlamp; a drunk rolled under a doorway in a pool of vomit… In a scummed canal, ice in the pelt of the dead dog floating there.” pg. 104

Carter also uses such imaginative and unreal language to explore common themes seen in an uncommon fashion. For instance, Wasler’s confrontation with the Professor monkey alludes to the half-witted persons we encounter. Dressed intelligently and under the belief that they are indeed intelligent, many ignorant and egoistic people often, unfortunately, hold high positions of authority that govern a given body of individuals. Faced with embarrassment and feeling prideful, the monkey professor shares a profound moment with Wasler: 

“Their eyes met. Walser never forgot this first, intimate exchange with one of these beings whose life ran parallel to his, this inhabitant of the magic circle of difference, unreachable… but not unknowable; this exchange with the speaking eyes of the dumb.” pg. 108

True, stupidity is always close and fairly knowable. That’s a funny paradox Carter brings to life: knowable stupidity.  ot summaries. Think of a possible theme and bring in two copies on Wednesday.

Money 5 (final)

John Self is the "inhuman dog" (347). Or at least, this is how most characters in Money see him. Shadow, Martina’s dog, represents John’s double or shadow. John confesses that he, if were an animal, would be a dog. But John knows there is a better life outside of all his addictions although is ultimately confined to his “nature”(268). The author makes present this factor of a person’s nature, some sort of essence of a being that we are all inherently bounded to by some unknown force (in this case John Self is under the will of Martin Amis). Even after changing by quitting his drinking, smoking, pornography, and any other activity linked to money, John expresses that he feels prosthetic, like a robot, android, cyborg, and skinjob (304). Trying to pry himself away from his self-destructive tendencies, John, like Shadow, yearns to return to his true nature, despite the risks of losing everything he’d ever desire (the “good life”: Martina, money, and even intelligence). The author alludes to this as John, during his “metamorphosis,” catches the runaway Shadow gazing into the dirty and grungy life he had on 23^rd Street before Martina took him in as her own (312). In retrospect, John contemplates

“Maybe money is the great conspiracy, the great fiction. The great addiction too: we’re all addicted and we can’t break the habit now. There’s not even anything very twentieth century about it, except the disposition. You just can’t kick it, that junk, even if you want to. You can’t get the money monkey off your back.” (354)

If we being to think of John in terms of an actor, it would be fitting to think of him as someone unable to break character. Forever self-indulging, John Self is willing to risk the “good life,” the life he’s always dreamed of and speaks of, because he just can’t “kick” his old habits with money. Indeed, in the wide stages of the world, John is just "one of life's actors" (267).

Money 4

Edmondson discusses John Self as Amis’ well created “Postmodern Man.” His definition of the postmodern prose, which Amis “mastered,” is to have multiple layers of fiction and “a deluded narrator imbedded somewhere in the middle” (1). This interpretation serves as a clear introspection into the world of Money. Due to John Self’s alienation from the rest of the world -- his narrow-minded, damaged, and stupid character -- he is “removed from any sense of humanity” (4). By inserting himself into the narrative, Amis reveals the clue that Self’s reality isn’t the most appropriate to understand the world he lives in. That is, Amis reveals to the readers, with subtle clues, that there are many things which are not what John says there are. For instance, John proclaims “I’m in hell somehow, and yet why is it hell? Covered by heaven, with its girls and deceptions and mad-acts, what is the meaning of this white tent” (206)? It is obvious that John isn’t in hell, but it isn’t obvious to John that he is the creator of his own hellish life. Perhaps that wasn’t the best example. However, it is clear through many passages that what John says or thinks isn’t actually true. Edmondson explains, “the contradiction forces the reader into the awkward position of wondering exacelty where Martin Amis is in all this, who is telling what, and what degree of truth is present in what is being related” (2). Although Edmondson is describing Amis’ novel The Rachel Papers here, this concept still remains imbedded into the framework of Money. We, the readers, read on well aware of the various levels of truths, realities, and dimensions of John Self’s world as he travels through time. This idea of time traveling I’ll save for the final post on Money. 

Money 3

“We go to Kreutzer’s. I eat and drink like there’s no tomorrow. We don’t have much to say. Nobody asks sticky questions as they are led on all fours up the stairs. I’m not about to spook her, not me. I’m too worried about earthquakes or nuclear warfare or extraterrestrial invasion or Judgment Day coming between my and my reward. All you’ll get from John Self is smalltalk, flattery, and squealed demands for more drink. After toothache liqueurs I thunder home and abandon the Fiasco in the middle of the street. By now I am a crackling sorcerer of grub and booze, of philtres and sex-spells. Selina walks into the bedroom with her head held low. I give a great hot grunt as I untether my belt.” (143)

John Self’s world is full of dissatisfaction and satisfaction, or as he says, happiness and pain. Amis crafts the self-loathing, self-absorbed character of John which views his world with rather innocent eyes. Despite his public appearance and smalltalk conversations, John is fully capable of digesting any situation objectively and innocently. By giving readers the comedic display of the fat, drunken, and sexually aggressive John, we laugh at him. A person who we probably would be offended to be around for more than a minute, we can’t help but indulge in his entertaining and humorous lifestyle.  His self-directed humor “cheats the expectations of the audience through clever use of language.” His hyper introspections and descriptions of them renders the reader incapable of averting laughter. I think it’s because we don’t expect such brutal honesty from such a narcissistic character. Indeed, John Self never communicates his introspections with anyone, but he does share it with the reader. His confides all of his self-hatred and self-pity with the reader, often speaking directly to us. This unexpected side of John makes us able to like, or at the very least enjoy, all of his crudeness. John builds a relationship with the reader, making us laugh and sharing secrets with us. It becomes difficult to not like him. 

Money 2

John Self crafts his own world within the language he meticulously devises. For example, in any passage you can find him developing his vision of the world through his unorthodox logic. On page 64 John examines how the rising demands of real-estate effect parking availability which in turn creates a shift in social thought:

“You just can’t park round here any more. Even on a Sunday afternoon you just cannot park round here any more. You can doublepark on people: people can doublepark on you. Cars are doubling while houses are halving. Houses divide, into two, into four, into sixteen. If a landlord or developer comes across a decent-sized room he turns it into a labyrinth, a Chinese puzzle. The bell-button grills in the flakey porches look like the dashboards of ancient spaceships. Rooms divide, rooms multiply. Houses split -- houses are tripleparked. People are doubling also, dividing, splitting. In double trouble we split our losses. No wonder we’re bouncing off the walls.”

In a carefully constructed meditation, John raises doubt of the public due to an increase in domestic populations. More interestingly, the lack of parking space is what initiates this thought. Because “you just can’t park round here any more,” or rather, because John can’t conveniently park any more he studies the cause and effect of local real estate. Things are doubling, tripling, dividing, multiplying, and splitting. As his neighborhood increases in population, John describes the consequences which appear to be negative chiefly towards him and him alone. Indeed, his narcissism reveals real truths of the real world. Though this thought was born only as a direct result of John feeling threatened that people can double park on him as he informs us that "people can double park on you" the reader. On the contrary, he persuades us to agree with him as he skillfully covers his own conceitedness. 

Money 1

“Money” features an odd, not too appealing, fat man as the main character, John. Narcissistic and rude, I can’t help but finding myself agreeing with John’s behavior. His off-beat humor relaxes me and, as if I have no choice in the matter, end up liking and enjoying him very much. Reminiscent of Holden Caulfield from Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” cynicism allows the reader to laughingly agree, rationalizing and legitimizing the thoughts and actions of John Self. For instance, when discussing Selina’s style of wardrobe John gives his thoughts, saying

“The men wince and watch, wince and watch. They buckle and half turn away. They shut their eyes and clutch their nuts. And sometimes, when they see me cruise up behind my little friend and slip an arm around her trim and muscular waist, they look at me as if to say -- Do something about it, will you? Don’t let her go about the place looking like that. Come on, it’s your responsibility.” (19)

Oddly, most men wouldn’t imagine the middle-aged men staring down their girlfriend to be disappointed in such a lack of a patriarchy. Though with John, he isn’t concerned of the unwanted attention. No, it’s not about Selina, it’s about him and someway he isn’t meeting his own expectations. A funny and meaningful introspection into the psyche of John Self.

Cronenberg's "Crash"

Cronenberg’s film “Crash” was a slow ride through the many sex lives indulged in violent automobile collisions. It was able, although, to develop each character in depth, giving every person unique and twisted morals custom-fit to their own sexual preferences. Sometimes considered the crux of a story, Cronenberg skillfully established the intricate personalities from J.G. Ballard’s “Crash.” However, Cronenberg failed to maintain focus on Ballard’s obsession of the violent dynamics of body and technology. Mentioning it in dialogue only once, Vaughn attempted to speak of the motivation for a new cult rising sexual era. Unfortunately, Cronenberg seemed to pay more attention to the sex of “Crash” rather than to contemplate, in dialogue or visual poetry, the complex and serious accusations Ballard is throwing at humankind abusive involvement with technologies. Cronenberg turned a brilliant novel into nothing more than a soft-core porn flick. 

Crash, end

Throughout “Crash,” Ballard poetically creates vivid automobile collision sequences. In such visions he attempts to bridge the human body with the violent technology of a swift, chromium death cage: the car. However, consistently Ballard has alluded to the aeroplane, or “glass dragonfly” of the sky (209). This “motionless” machination is not too far different from the automobile. Automobiles claim more lives and carnage than aeroplanes. Ballard could potentially be implying this referring to automobiles always as “chromium” and aeroplanes always as “glass.” Whereas one seems more brittle, the other seems more durable. In this sense, aeroplanes appear as “all or nothing” objects. That is, either they reach their destination safely or they crumble and burn to pieces in some technical mishap often leaving no chance for survivors. Automobiles don’t have this 50/50 gamble. To Ballard, in a collision they are doomed to crash, twist, and warp their rigid bodies yet leave room to deform surviving victims. The conception of a chromium vehicle sounds solid, less likely to collapse under pressure. Nevertheless, when such seemingly indestructible material does eventually subside, it redefines the human anatomy. The aeroplane passenger or roadside pedestrian are irrelevant. It is the person inside the cockpit of the automobile who is the star in Ballard’s vision. It is he who experiences the physical metamorphosis such violent and necessary technology is responsible for. As curious and sexual creatures, Ballard has us adapt to the prevalent scars and woulds on victims’ bodies as we relearn our thirst for something exciting and unknown, similar to a lusty teenager thrusting himself into an uncharted world of sex. Indeed, Ballard’s volatile concoction of contorted chromium and unfiltered sexual fantasy allows him to release the foul stench of technology we have grown to rely on so adamantly. 

Dance (Ballard Imitation Exercise)

Dale held the metallic box gingerly as it’s eye began to blink. The shutter blade snapping back and forth gently vibrated the machine in his hand. They both silently observed Gaines as she danced with her third paranoid eye fixated on his camera. He tenderly leaned and rolled each limb and muscle to accumulate every angle of her warm, radiant orb. Each silver halide crystal meticulously caught the intricacies of her presence like that of a silk web spun from a spider’s spinneret. Gaines twirled on, unaware of how she was liberating the emptiness held within the motion camera’s silver halide salts and gelatin. Embedded in it was now the still unvisible spectrum of shade and tone. She quickly glanced up into the seats where her friends were sitting, letting out a faint smile. Expressionless and concentrated, Dale held the shivering camera statically, recording on, giving Gaines immortality.  Dale wrapped his hand around the aperture and slowly began to twist it clockwise, letting the camera’s vision ease into blindness. 

Crash, ch 11 - 17

As James’ relationship with Vaughn deepens, the readers perception of James shifts in a rather unexpected way. At first, James appears as dark, perverse, spontaneous and carless as Vaughn. It wouldn’t be odd to see them as almost similar personalities. But more and more James is becoming hesitant around Vaughn, appearing timid and nervous, more cautious than we had ever originally imagined. For instance, James questions Vaughn’s detached hostility towards the worn-out Seagrave. Also James refuses to drink wine while driving alongside a prostitute as Vaughn dives in deep with a bottle of wine in one hand, hash cigarette held between his lips, and a prostitutes breast in his other hand in the back seat. 

Additionally, it seems J.G. Ballard’s world within “Crash” contains only the perverse and the overly-sexually driven. Affairs appear casual and are accepted among marriages, recent widowers, etc.. However, it becomes apparent that the characters in this world, all of them, have a suppressed or not-yet-discovered sexual urge involving the new physical limits brought to them via twisted and warped chromium cars. After a crowd gathered to spectate the gruesome scene of a multiple car pile-up James notices two couple engaging in gentle foreplay on the way to their cars, presumably enticed by the violent automobile performance. Catherine is also affected by this. Despite never being in an automobile accident herself, she too becomes enthralled by the coupling of flesh and chromium. James realizes this, “the multiple car-crash we had seen had sprung the same traps in her mind as in mine” (159).

One other small yet significant detail is that of pedestrians. “Vaughn isn’t interested in pedestrians” (150). Why? It seems that human can still become violently meshed with technology. However, to J.G. Ballard, it is more important that death occurs within the automobile. For death to occur outside of an automobile may be something entirely different in what Ballard is focusing his issue with technology on.

Crash, ch 5-11

James begins to discover and indulge in his new found eroticism. He imagines a future beach, made up of broken glass grains instead of sand. He speaks of this time as “the age of the automobile accident” (57), but it seems that time may have already approached.

Most noticeable in these chapters, James begins to become curious and interested in Vaughn. On the multi-storey car-park James takes in Vaughn’s facial scarring from a serious motorcycle accident. It seems all too obvious that, this too, had catapulted Vaughn into this new form of “excitement and eroticism, punishment and desire” (147). 

However, I remain confused in deciphering the cryptic relationship between James and Helen Remington. James concluded that “by a terrifying paradox, a sexual act between us would be a way of taking her revenge on me” (72). Having sex with the man that murdered her husband seems like an odd way to exact revenge. Perhaps it is in this perverse world J.G. Ballard crafts which enables constant sex drive into the minds of characters, controlling every move from the basis of sexual encounters.

Menippean Satire

The apophaticism in Ballard’s “Crash” is essential. By “providing a warped view of conventional literary forms and societal beliefs” (18) we can truly begin to destructuralize our own psyches in a Descartes-like fashion. Transgressive authors carry the ability to rub our norms raw to the bone. In this psychic reverse we are forced to endure we are granted the privilege to rebuild our societal expectations through close examination. It is this mental scrutiny which can allow readers to absorb the full meaning behind a transgressive piece. Lastly, the apophatic writer leaves wounds on the reader’s mind, ensuring long-term memories and emphasizing the severity of the points they subliminally craft. 

Though am I unsure of how this is “negative theology”; if it is the same thing, or something different.

Crash, ch1-4

Though the automobile accident eroticism is strange, Ballard makes clear that it isn’t purely just the accident which causes this new form of sexual arousal. In the first few chapters, Ballard goes through quite a length of descriptions describing the dynamic between the automobile and the persons involved with the accident. Indeed, this dynamic is essential to the arousal of flesh meshed with chromium. Ballard does a great job of making sure no reader could live a life boring enough to perhaps be excluded in the thoughts of Vaughn’s imaginative mind. Each victim’s life and background, no matter the circumstances, can only produce euphoric sexual results. I think that this tactic employed by Ballard surely makes its difficult for each reader to not imagine a Vaughn or James Ballard also driving menacingly down their local streets and highways. 

Aside from that psychological aspect that leaves readers fearful hoping not to ever meet these characters in a collision, I enjoy Ballard’s use of the word “rainbow.” He uses this word to describe any visual transition of colors. Regardless if these transitions hold several colors or not, they are still rainbows in the eyes of our narrator James. Perhaps this ability for James to see and think things above and around most individuals is an important detail that would help him eventually delve into the mysterious sexualities of violent car accidents. Perhaps, too, this is what Martin Amis alluded to in reference to Ballard’s bold new sexual fetish. It seems unimaginable to indulge it such an act, however, it also seems all too possible. 

Natasha

“Natasha” is a piece that allows us to gaze into the black hole of subjectivity. The experiences Natasha and Baron Wolfe experience, both individually and collectively, touches on a sensitive part of the human condition. That is, our personalized definitions of reality are inherently unique and unalike from all others. Indeed, it proves difficult to convince one’s self of reality, however, for one to recognize two colliding realities (their self and one other), even if it’s for a moment, is effortless. As Simon Dentith mentions, “just as the idividual cannot be the source of a language, for the utterence always occurs between people, so the individual consciousness is equally intersubjective.” As both Natasha and Baron Wolfe’s realities collide, their false memories of past “ecstasies” become solidified truth. Baron Wolfe’s lies existed only because he accepted that they were lies. The moment Natasha gave her approval of each other’s lies, they became truth and, in turn, their reality. The story of “Natasha” speaks of dramatically bottomless subjective pits of psychological despair. To each one, reality exists differently. I’m perfectly content with resting there.

Drumming dud

glossy syntax

sloppy mishap

grown Rectitude;; want editorialize

maggoty shelf fear

Criminal Amateur discretion, voting

raring circulation, bioengineering 

sheen church

ripple relation hallelujah

side vet test

bungalows:::

Jute flows.

waning floor

druming thud

remaining Dud