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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Cooper weaves such a rollercoaster of a study on desire, loneliness and a need to be understood. It's violent and unwavering in the brutality of it's content but it left me feeling more saddened than disgusted.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Gore, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Torture
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Definitely the weakest Cooper book so far - less focused, less defined characters, and the hyperfocus on unpleasant scenes seems purposeless and dry - didn't work for me
"He lies naked on a bed with his wrists bound, legs splayed, ankles secured to the corners. Striped sheet, tangled blanket. In the first shot his long, straight black hair's fallen over his face, covering everything but a greasy chin, which juts through the strands. He seems thirteen, fourteen. The genitals look like a weirdly shaped stone. His necktie is made out of a long piece of rope."
Oh, Dennis Cooper, you can never do wrong, even when you're making me read the most depraved, depressing shit I'll ever read in my life, even when you're thrusting upon me a book that is sure to scar me emotionally. I will forever thank you for it, because it's truly an honor to suffer at the hands of your writing. This is a tricky review to write, to say the least. Out of my many experiences with Cooper's writing, this one feels the most shocking and horrendous of them all. The natural first instinct when reading Frisk is to be repelled by its contents, but, Cooper's writing has never been for the weak or fragile. As an author, he's never been a coward, so as readers, we mustn't be either, we must continue on to find the beauty beneath the grime.
It's been said many times over that this book is American Psycho but for the queers, that, to me just feels grossly oversimplified. Yes, like Ellis' novel it's a deeply violent story, and there's really no end to the depravity, but, while both being fantastic pieces of literature, they're vastly different. Something Cooper does extremely beautifully in this novel is how he weaves a disturbingly casual sense of nihilism into his text. I'm forever saying that books should be self-indulgent, that authors should write their obsessions, that, if you're obsessed by nothing then, you're just boring, and Frisk really does highlight that, because, this is the one true book of obsession. This isn't just some extreme horror shock content, this is a graphic, grotesque examination of desire at its most intense.
Oh, Dennis Cooper, you can never do wrong, even when you're making me read the most depraved, depressing shit I'll ever read in my life, even when you're thrusting upon me a book that is sure to scar me emotionally. I will forever thank you for it, because it's truly an honor to suffer at the hands of your writing. This is a tricky review to write, to say the least. Out of my many experiences with Cooper's writing, this one feels the most shocking and horrendous of them all. The natural first instinct when reading Frisk is to be repelled by its contents, but, Cooper's writing has never been for the weak or fragile. As an author, he's never been a coward, so as readers, we mustn't be either, we must continue on to find the beauty beneath the grime.
It's been said many times over that this book is American Psycho but for the queers, that, to me just feels grossly oversimplified. Yes, like Ellis' novel it's a deeply violent story, and there's really no end to the depravity, but, while both being fantastic pieces of literature, they're vastly different. Something Cooper does extremely beautifully in this novel is how he weaves a disturbingly casual sense of nihilism into his text. I'm forever saying that books should be self-indulgent, that authors should write their obsessions, that, if you're obsessed by nothing then, you're just boring, and Frisk really does highlight that, because, this is the one true book of obsession. This isn't just some extreme horror shock content, this is a graphic, grotesque examination of desire at its most intense.
"Part of me wanted to kill and dismember him, which I probably could have done without getting arrested, but most of me gave him a towel and then humored him until he left. Afterward I lay in bed putting Finn through hell in my thoughts. I tore up his body like it was a paper bag and pulled out dripping fistfuls of veins, organs, muscles, tubes. I made his voice as otherworldly as civil defense sirens had sounded to me as a kid. I drank his blood, piss, vomit. I shoved one hand down his throat, one hand up his ass and shook hands with myself in the middle of his body, which sounds funny, but it wasn't."
To his credit, Cooper does a brilliant job with Frisk in showing how one incident in youth can completely alter the way in which someone interacts with the world. Like every Cooper novel before and after it, Frisk is a deeply intimate and troubling thing. There is no other author that makes being alive feel as tragic as Cooper does. Despite how uncomfortable it may be, books like this should be championed, because this is something far beyond simple writing, this is artwork. And, like with every other Cooper novel, the authenticity of this thing is hard to rival. I do appreciate that, page after page of violence, of sickening sexual acts, is going to get an adverse reaction, I do appreciate that it's going to have many asking - what is the point of it all?
But, what's the point of living in a world where all we get is clean, sanitized, cutesy stories anyway? As an ardent fan of Cooper and his writing, I idolize the bravery, the refusal to shy away or to be tucked into a box, and I commend his literary talent, and yet even I must admit, sometimes the point of Frisk is hard to grasp. Maybe it's simply a rumination on our obsession with objectification, perhaps is a commentary on victimization, or maybe it's even discussing where we draw the line with consent. It doesn't even really matter what the point is, what matters is what a wonderful/horrible experience it is, how weirdly sensual, how almost spiritual it feels to read Frisk. Frisk is fucking disgusting, and I loved it.
"The room felt cozy. Or the pills Henry took that afternoon left him cozy, and the room was just there, a movie set. He shut his eyes, tried to restart a favorite porn daydream. "Shi-i-i-it." His history had been reduced to a simplistic blur, like the trails in the air left by people on fire."
dark
tense
medium-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
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This felt more solid than some of his other works, dug more into the “why” of the narrator’s grotesquerie.
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I liked it more than Closer and was significantly more disturbed. While I’m
Not obsessed with it I really admire and am fascinated with what Cooper does with perspective and narration/POV.
Not obsessed with it I really admire and am fascinated with what Cooper does with perspective and narration/POV.