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cobhlaith's review
3.0
i accidentaly read this instead of The Anatomy of Melancholy but it was alright
shadybanana's review
3.0
I picked up this book out of curiosity and the unexplained tendency of mine to read anything medicine related that sounds slightly less boring, what with me being a medical student and all.
I don’t know what I expected going into it. I didn’t read the ‘plot summary’ or anything like that. I just liked the title. Melancholy is an alluring word in itself.
I somehow dragged myself through the first story with a mix of disgust, weirded-out-ness and curiosity to see what would ensue. The next story was the ‘Sperm’ story. This one, I found funny because it was ridiculous. I even sent the excerpt about deep frying sperms in a group chat as a ‘what the fuck is this? i thought this was hilarious’ excerpt. It didn’t really garner a response except a ‘wtf’. And so by this time I had cultivated this notion that the book was supposed to be an ironic reading. It was lightheaded despite its title and the heavy wording was just fluff. The fetus story was a little unsettling but the introduction of religious elements corroborated my assumption.
However, as I went on, story after story, from Nerve to Cancer to Phlegm, I started reading it in hopes of finding obscure multiple meanings and innuendos in simple writings. I felt very kafkaesque but also pretentious. And I don’t like feeling pretentious.
But then as I got to the final stretch of the book; Hair, Sleep, Blood, Milk, Fat. I came to the conclusion (which I think was timely) that all of these stories are literally just stories, written in beautiful prose. There are metaphors and there are just empty pocket phrases. It’s a wonderful idea and by the time I finished fat, I wished there were more: Spleen, Lung, Bile.
P.S. The ‘Skins’ project by the same author fascinated me so much after I googled her and read about her other works.
I don’t know what I expected going into it. I didn’t read the ‘plot summary’ or anything like that. I just liked the title. Melancholy is an alluring word in itself.
I somehow dragged myself through the first story with a mix of disgust, weirded-out-ness and curiosity to see what would ensue. The next story was the ‘Sperm’ story. This one, I found funny because it was ridiculous. I even sent the excerpt about deep frying sperms in a group chat as a ‘what the fuck is this? i thought this was hilarious’ excerpt. It didn’t really garner a response except a ‘wtf’. And so by this time I had cultivated this notion that the book was supposed to be an ironic reading. It was lightheaded despite its title and the heavy wording was just fluff. The fetus story was a little unsettling but the introduction of religious elements corroborated my assumption.
However, as I went on, story after story, from Nerve to Cancer to Phlegm, I started reading it in hopes of finding obscure multiple meanings and innuendos in simple writings. I felt very kafkaesque but also pretentious. And I don’t like feeling pretentious.
But then as I got to the final stretch of the book; Hair, Sleep, Blood, Milk, Fat. I came to the conclusion (which I think was timely) that all of these stories are literally just stories, written in beautiful prose. There are metaphors and there are just empty pocket phrases. It’s a wonderful idea and by the time I finished fat, I wished there were more: Spleen, Lung, Bile.
P.S. The ‘Skins’ project by the same author fascinated me so much after I googled her and read about her other works.
dirtbagdemimonde's review
This book is definitely for someone, and I thought it would be for me. I love dark, weird, magical realism, and exploration of what a body is. But wow, this made me nauseous, and I can't do that to myself.
susanbrooks's review
3.0
So weird. So imaginative. Short stories/explorations into the mysterious, fabricated lives of eggs, phlegm, blood. "Surely we have all gone for a stroll in a bucolic landscape, sperm far from our minds, and rounded a curve to see a sleek black ovoid crouched menacingly athwart the path. Though ordinarily timid, sperm have a bullish persistence when their tiny minds are fixed on one object." She creates trippy worlds.
chrobin's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
annaotations's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
george_salis's review against another edition
5.0
“Through the pupil’s little peephole, we look for it: the shapeless, the inhuman.”
The astronomy of hearts, the zoology of sperm, the theology of fetuses, the sociology of phlegm, the hydrology of blood, the meteorology of sleep, the omnipresence of hair, and more, all enwrapped in the melancholy of anatomy.
“One reads of a dark, greasy, subterranean sleep, which seeps out of solid rock and hardens into strange fungal forms, and plugs underground rivers with a glassy but flexible mass that can be reliquefied by one blow of a pickax. Miners have staggered out of shafts and told tales of slow-motion tsunamis of sour treacle.”
These are highly imaginative and fairly macabre Calvino-esque tales with at times a veneer of H.P. Lovecraft. Anyone with even a passing interest in the human body (and who wouldn’t be interested?) would be both disgusted and fascinated by these stories. Jackson’s prose is contemplative, sometimes soft-spoken, other times snappy, though always conscious of language’s music and riddled with evocative metaphors. Her lexicon isn’t exactly wild but she’ll occasionally use a word that’s as precise as it is strangely beautiful, such as cicatrix and pinguid and atomy. The stories generally lack a powerful ending, though they make up for that with everything before the end, and although some stories were better than others, this collection is as close to perfection as possible, especially since I prefer novels over stories. This is easily right up there with Ficciones and Patricia Eakins’ The Hungry Girls.
“Sperm are ancient creatures, single-minded as coelacanths. They are drawn to the sun, the moon, and dots and disks of all descriptions, including periods, stop signs, and stars. They worship nail heads, doorknobs and tennis balls. More than one life has been saved by a penny tossed in the air.”
“Fœtus” reminded me a bit of the video game Death Stranding and an unpublished story of mine titled “The Infant King,” and in short it was both disturbing and hilarious, and probably one of the best stories I've read period.
“The fœtus floats outside your window while you are having sex. It wants to know how many beads of sweat collect between your breasts and at what point, exactly, they begin their journey south, it wants to know if your eyes open wide or close at orgasm, if at that time your partner is holding your hand with his hand or your gaze with her gaze. […] …it wants to stay informed, your love is its business.”
I was put off from reading this collection sooner because of a review that suggested a repetitiveness across the stories, which turned out to be far from true for me. In fact, there was enough polyphony to keep me consistently engaged. The Borgesian academia and Rabelaisian humor of “Dildo,” the Saunders (which is to say DFW lite) quirkiness of “Phlegm,” the British folk-speak and slight interview frame of “Blood,” some postmodern tics like the writer’s guide excerpts in “Milk,” etc. There are two types of story collections: those that are wildly eclectic and those that are connected by recurring themes. The Melancholy of Anatomy is the latter yet avoids any damning redundancy, and to complain about thematic repetition is akin to complaining that Calvino’s Invisible Cities has too much architecture in it.
“Be careful when you say the words mildew, Bilbao, bibelot, billet-doux, or even peccadillo, that you do not accidentally summon a dildo, for truly, you do not know what will answer your call.”
Jackson is a kindred spirit and even my wife said that these stories sound like the fiction I would write, which is a great compliment, that’s for sure. Read it and make it a part of your anatomy.
“The hair is a subtle spirit, and noose to our passions.”
The astronomy of hearts, the zoology of sperm, the theology of fetuses, the sociology of phlegm, the hydrology of blood, the meteorology of sleep, the omnipresence of hair, and more, all enwrapped in the melancholy of anatomy.
“One reads of a dark, greasy, subterranean sleep, which seeps out of solid rock and hardens into strange fungal forms, and plugs underground rivers with a glassy but flexible mass that can be reliquefied by one blow of a pickax. Miners have staggered out of shafts and told tales of slow-motion tsunamis of sour treacle.”
These are highly imaginative and fairly macabre Calvino-esque tales with at times a veneer of H.P. Lovecraft. Anyone with even a passing interest in the human body (and who wouldn’t be interested?) would be both disgusted and fascinated by these stories. Jackson’s prose is contemplative, sometimes soft-spoken, other times snappy, though always conscious of language’s music and riddled with evocative metaphors. Her lexicon isn’t exactly wild but she’ll occasionally use a word that’s as precise as it is strangely beautiful, such as cicatrix and pinguid and atomy. The stories generally lack a powerful ending, though they make up for that with everything before the end, and although some stories were better than others, this collection is as close to perfection as possible, especially since I prefer novels over stories. This is easily right up there with Ficciones and Patricia Eakins’ The Hungry Girls.
“Sperm are ancient creatures, single-minded as coelacanths. They are drawn to the sun, the moon, and dots and disks of all descriptions, including periods, stop signs, and stars. They worship nail heads, doorknobs and tennis balls. More than one life has been saved by a penny tossed in the air.”
“Fœtus” reminded me a bit of the video game Death Stranding and an unpublished story of mine titled “The Infant King,” and in short it was both disturbing and hilarious, and probably one of the best stories I've read period.
“The fœtus floats outside your window while you are having sex. It wants to know how many beads of sweat collect between your breasts and at what point, exactly, they begin their journey south, it wants to know if your eyes open wide or close at orgasm, if at that time your partner is holding your hand with his hand or your gaze with her gaze. […] …it wants to stay informed, your love is its business.”
I was put off from reading this collection sooner because of a review that suggested a repetitiveness across the stories, which turned out to be far from true for me. In fact, there was enough polyphony to keep me consistently engaged. The Borgesian academia and Rabelaisian humor of “Dildo,” the Saunders (which is to say DFW lite) quirkiness of “Phlegm,” the British folk-speak and slight interview frame of “Blood,” some postmodern tics like the writer’s guide excerpts in “Milk,” etc. There are two types of story collections: those that are wildly eclectic and those that are connected by recurring themes. The Melancholy of Anatomy is the latter yet avoids any damning redundancy, and to complain about thematic repetition is akin to complaining that Calvino’s Invisible Cities has too much architecture in it.
“Be careful when you say the words mildew, Bilbao, bibelot, billet-doux, or even peccadillo, that you do not accidentally summon a dildo, for truly, you do not know what will answer your call.”
Jackson is a kindred spirit and even my wife said that these stories sound like the fiction I would write, which is a great compliment, that’s for sure. Read it and make it a part of your anatomy.
“The hair is a subtle spirit, and noose to our passions.”