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prendergast's review against another edition
challenging
dark
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
This past weekend, I stepped inside a library for the first time since 2019, and I beelined straight for this book, which I’ve been eager to check out ever since I saw Verso Books post about it last year on Instagram.
It! was! wild! Hval writes feverishly of teenage misanthropy and black metal blasphemy, of magic and the internet, and of the boundaries (and possibilities) inherent in language and art. I’m familiar with Verso as a publisher of radical nonfiction, and was surprised and intrigued to see a novel pop up on their feed, but this reads less like stream-of-consciousness fiction and more like a brackish, murky stream of images, each flickering out of a forgotten music video, each vibing on the same thudding beat but not strictly tied together through shape or substance. Somehow, despite the insistent, intrepid darkness of the narrator’s worldview, and the depths of gross-out detail throughout, I finished this book feeling inspired. What cosmic, connective worlds can we build, if our artmaking refuses to be limited by form or expectation?
“I don’t desire total freedom, or total misanthropy. Do you get that? I desire magic, the same alchemical reaction that transforms hatred to a new or strange form of love. That might be why I’m writing this to you. I need someone to write to, someone else, someone who isn’t here and who I’m pulled toward. This yearning for you is a yearning for the unknown, the unwritten; the impossible place.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Excrement, and Gore
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