Not so much a novel as a mood piece.
The book is a series of short pieces which all follow similar themes (think: rot, bloating, pustulence).
If the author had been in one of my creative writing seminars in college, and this work was what he presented in class, I would have thought it very promising. However, I would not have thought it was ready for a publisher. It has a very unedited feel. The author likes to use words in unusual ways. Sometimes, it works, and gives a poetic touch to the prose. At other times (frequently), I found myself jarred out of the flow, asking "Does he know the definition of the word?" or, "That's not actually an adjective, you know?"
At the end, I was left feeling somewhat unsatisfied - I didn't really feel like the work went anywhere, or had anything definite to say. There're some issues running through it - problems with family relationships and pregnancy are the big ones - but I suspect that the gross-out factor was the book's raison d'etre, rather than being a tool used in service to a concept.
The visual presentation was nice, however. I liked that all the pages were different, and that the design of the pages matches the content.
I'd recommend this to fans of David Lynch's 'Eraserhead.'
The book is a series of short pieces which all follow similar themes (think: rot, bloating, pustulence).
If the author had been in one of my creative writing seminars in college, and this work was what he presented in class, I would have thought it very promising. However, I would not have thought it was ready for a publisher. It has a very unedited feel. The author likes to use words in unusual ways. Sometimes, it works, and gives a poetic touch to the prose. At other times (frequently), I found myself jarred out of the flow, asking "Does he know the definition of the word?" or, "That's not actually an adjective, you know?"
At the end, I was left feeling somewhat unsatisfied - I didn't really feel like the work went anywhere, or had anything definite to say. There're some issues running through it - problems with family relationships and pregnancy are the big ones - but I suspect that the gross-out factor was the book's raison d'etre, rather than being a tool used in service to a concept.
The visual presentation was nice, however. I liked that all the pages were different, and that the design of the pages matches the content.
I'd recommend this to fans of David Lynch's 'Eraserhead.'
