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novabird's review
1.0
Yes, the world is a filthy place. Confined places breed like with like until they mutate into new diseases that masquerade as "happy masks of everybody is doing it so why shouldn't I?" This new disease was the emergence of Narcissistic Personality Disorder but Henry has this AND comorbid sex addiction blended alongside a dominant feature of soft (lol) nihilism.
After investing two precious hours of mine reading this (coincidentally while I battled a stomach bug and made a few trips to vacate my internal poisons), and really trying to find something worthy, "It was (still) something to make me puke."
This is a book of a dark and nasty, noxious, contagious airborne cancerous spray.
Whereas women blend the sex and death instincts to breathe life and beauty back into their core being, perhaps men battle this impulse differently and they herald ugliness? Does this idea bear possible future development? This was my silver lining takeaway - do or have women experience(d) life like this? Maybe men's version of death driven chaos is cancerous whereas women's version of death driven chaos is the void?
This book celebrates singleminded indulgence on a world stage. This reminds me of an unattractive man I saw stroking his cock while behind the wheel of his car and lasciviously looking at me while saying to me, "Come closer." His self-love was seductive but I balked because his cock was a barely controlled separate viral animal - a thing to be released like an itchy boil - THAT'S ONE ITCH YOU DON'T WANT TO SCRATCH - as it spreads, the itch worsens.
I don't wish to approach any closer than what I can objectively keep at a distance.
My antibodies scream at me, "Stay away from that shit on air imbued confined space; that stink you smell roiling out the door really is a dangerously vile virus."
Don't turn the fan on. Just close the door and let this die a solitary confinement/quarantine death. Alone as it gloried and hallowed and desired and wanted to be.
Kill it with the mercy of what it wanted and exactly how it wanted its life snuffed.
Fulfill its "Living Will," then abandon this life forsaken ship.
After investing two precious hours of mine reading this (coincidentally while I battled a stomach bug and made a few trips to vacate my internal poisons), and really trying to find something worthy, "It was (still) something to make me puke."
This is a book of a dark and nasty, noxious, contagious airborne cancerous spray.
Whereas women blend the sex and death instincts to breathe life and beauty back into their core being, perhaps men battle this impulse differently and they herald ugliness? Does this idea bear possible future development? This was my silver lining takeaway - do or have women experience(d) life like this? Maybe men's version of death driven chaos is cancerous whereas women's version of death driven chaos is the void?
This book celebrates singleminded indulgence on a world stage. This reminds me of an unattractive man I saw stroking his cock while behind the wheel of his car and lasciviously looking at me while saying to me, "Come closer." His self-love was seductive but I balked because his cock was a barely controlled separate viral animal - a thing to be released like an itchy boil - THAT'S ONE ITCH YOU DON'T WANT TO SCRATCH - as it spreads, the itch worsens.
I don't wish to approach any closer than what I can objectively keep at a distance.
My antibodies scream at me, "Stay away from that shit on air imbued confined space; that stink you smell roiling out the door really is a dangerously vile virus."
Don't turn the fan on. Just close the door and let this die a solitary confinement/quarantine death. Alone as it gloried and hallowed and desired and wanted to be.
Kill it with the mercy of what it wanted and exactly how it wanted its life snuffed.
Fulfill its "Living Will," then abandon this life forsaken ship.
isnotnull's review
adventurous
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
btfoster4545's review
challenging
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
laurapk's review
2.0
One has to waddle through so much muck for a few pebbles of gold!
I don't know if I should burn this book, or frame some of its pages. It ranges from remarkable insight about modern society, to disgusting verbal (which was probably proceeded by physical) abuse against non-white, non-male, and disabled people.
Let's just say that I understand Miller's fascination for the ugly - I too have felt it and it's hard to understand it's roots. "In every object there was a minute particle which particularly claimed my attention. I have a microscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted the soul of beauty of the object. Whatever set the object apart, or made it unserviceable, or gave it a date, attracted and endeared it to me. If this was perverse, it was also healthy …” . And it's impressing to read/hear beautiful prose about something ugly and watch the boil turn into something interesting, something you want to know more about, something so remarkably human you can't tell a story without shining a bright light upon it.
But then... Miller also delivers some of the ugliest writing about physical intimacy. I'm not the one to shy away from sex scenes. I enjoy them. A lot. There isn't a single sex scene in this book however (or the Tropic of Cancer) that has anything enjoyable in it. Sex in Miller's world is absolutely disgusting. His portrail of women is horrible, and yes, Miller and his friends describe sexual encounters that fall without doubt in the realm of rape. If that weren't bad enough, his description of 'primitives' oozes even more rotten morality. And just when you thought that he can't possibly top his insults on women and non-whites, he decides to talk about his sister, whose mental disability is called noble only after she's called a savage, a primitive, a waste? I had to skip entire chapters because I couldn't take this anymore! I understand that he wants to desecrate in his book, but he's only heaping more shit on people already not considered sacred, so is this really innovative writing? Or is it more of the same with bonus sex scenes?
And then the ending turned around and delivered more beauty. I don't know what to do with this man. Probably not read him anymore, but I'm so angry. Angry that a person with so much insight could be so blinded by his ego, by his desires. And then he sees so clearly! What?! On?! Earth?!
Examples of just brilliant writing in this book include:
Miller's comments on the corruption of mind and soul by education:
"The learning we received only tended to obscure our vision.” “From the time we went to school, we learned nothing. On the contrary, we were made obtuse, we were wrapped in a fog of words and abstractions.” “With the sour rye, the world was what it is essentially - a primitive world, ruled by magic.”“From the moment when one is put in school, one is lost . One has the feeling of having a halter put around his neck. The taste goes out of the bread, goes out of life. Getting the bread becomes more important than the eating of it. Everything is calculated and everything has a price upon it. We are eating to feel our belly and our hearts are cold and empty.”
Or, Miller's wonderful comments on the importance of the artist: “Life becomes a spectacle. And if you happen to be an artist, you recorded the passing show. Loneliness is abolished because all values, your own included, are destroyed.” His comments on reading a book, how he experienced the act of reading as the real life, not an interruption, whereas the real life punctuating his reading was the real interruption, literally made me swoon. I've been there!
These gems are interspersed with absolute garbage masquerading as poetry: "“. . . deeper and deeper in sleep sleeping, the sleep of the deep in deepest sleep, at the nethermost depth full slept, the deepest and sleepest sleep of sleep’s sweet sleep”.
So, I don't know. I'm glad Miller and others paved the way for honest writing, even perverse.
The problem is, he's also a prick.
I don't know if I should burn this book, or frame some of its pages. It ranges from remarkable insight about modern society, to disgusting verbal (which was probably proceeded by physical) abuse against non-white, non-male, and disabled people.
Let's just say that I understand Miller's fascination for the ugly - I too have felt it and it's hard to understand it's roots. "In every object there was a minute particle which particularly claimed my attention. I have a microscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted the soul of beauty of the object. Whatever set the object apart, or made it unserviceable, or gave it a date, attracted and endeared it to me. If this was perverse, it was also healthy …” . And it's impressing to read/hear beautiful prose about something ugly and watch the boil turn into something interesting, something you want to know more about, something so remarkably human you can't tell a story without shining a bright light upon it.
But then... Miller also delivers some of the ugliest writing about physical intimacy. I'm not the one to shy away from sex scenes. I enjoy them. A lot. There isn't a single sex scene in this book however (or the Tropic of Cancer) that has anything enjoyable in it. Sex in Miller's world is absolutely disgusting. His portrail of women is horrible, and yes, Miller and his friends describe sexual encounters that fall without doubt in the realm of rape. If that weren't bad enough, his description of 'primitives' oozes even more rotten morality. And just when you thought that he can't possibly top his insults on women and non-whites, he decides to talk about his sister, whose mental disability is called noble only after she's called a savage, a primitive, a waste? I had to skip entire chapters because I couldn't take this anymore! I understand that he wants to desecrate in his book, but he's only heaping more shit on people already not considered sacred, so is this really innovative writing? Or is it more of the same with bonus sex scenes?
And then the ending turned around and delivered more beauty. I don't know what to do with this man. Probably not read him anymore, but I'm so angry. Angry that a person with so much insight could be so blinded by his ego, by his desires. And then he sees so clearly! What?! On?! Earth?!
Examples of just brilliant writing in this book include:
Miller's comments on the corruption of mind and soul by education:
"The learning we received only tended to obscure our vision.” “From the time we went to school, we learned nothing. On the contrary, we were made obtuse, we were wrapped in a fog of words and abstractions.” “With the sour rye, the world was what it is essentially - a primitive world, ruled by magic.”“From the moment when one is put in school, one is lost . One has the feeling of having a halter put around his neck. The taste goes out of the bread, goes out of life. Getting the bread becomes more important than the eating of it. Everything is calculated and everything has a price upon it. We are eating to feel our belly and our hearts are cold and empty.”
Or, Miller's wonderful comments on the importance of the artist: “Life becomes a spectacle. And if you happen to be an artist, you recorded the passing show. Loneliness is abolished because all values, your own included, are destroyed.” His comments on reading a book, how he experienced the act of reading as the real life, not an interruption, whereas the real life punctuating his reading was the real interruption, literally made me swoon. I've been there!
These gems are interspersed with absolute garbage masquerading as poetry: "“. . . deeper and deeper in sleep sleeping, the sleep of the deep in deepest sleep, at the nethermost depth full slept, the deepest and sleepest sleep of sleep’s sweet sleep”.
So, I don't know. I'm glad Miller and others paved the way for honest writing, even perverse.
The problem is, he's also a prick.
laralaske's review against another edition
Non vedo molto il senso di finire un libro che e` tutto uguale