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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Murder
Moderate: Drug abuse
Minor: Gun violence
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
brian eno reference but at what cost
Riconosco l'intento e solitamente apprezzo libri di questo genere, stavolta però non sono riuscito ad apprezzarlo
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-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
Dennis Cooper is a much better writer and stronger person than I'll ever be because if I wrote down some of the stuff he wrote in this book I think I'd fr kill myself
listen i get what he was trying to do but that might be the first time i ever had to actually skip parts of a book… pretty sure i got this from online recommendations for disturbing literature and this definitely lived up to that expectation. makes most sense as a part of the edgy 90s scene alongside gregg araki (whos much tamer) and bret easton ellis. i like araki because i sense a heart pumping in all his work but ellis and cooper seem so driven by this cold hollow nihilism— perhaps they’re attempting to critique it but there isn’t enough light there for me to latch onto.
I thought this was better than the first book although the material is more disturbing and repellent because the denouement involves a small child.
I thought these answers were interesting insofar as atypical sex writing goes from his Paris Review interview:
When I wrote Frisk, for instance, one of my rules was that I could never get an erection when I was writing about sex—it was absolutely not allowed. If I started writing something and it got me hot, I’d stop, edit, and switch gears. The letter in Frisk, which deliberately mimics the way pornography works, was written without arousal so that it would have a hollow quality and transmit its status as a calculated manipulation to readers who could circumvent its erotic and disturbing surface. Frisk was written very, very carefully because I was pretty sure that novel would end up stigmatizing me as a writer. I wanted to be absolutely certain that when people said, This is just sick, jack-off material, I could say, You’re not paying attention.
And also:
INTERVIEWER
What is the significance for you of the anus, in relation to the penis, the hand, the face?
COOPER
There are a lot of ways I could talk about that—too many. The penis I try to erase from my work as completely as I can without that strategy becoming too apparent or distracting. I do that because I’m interested in removing as many external, real-world associations as possible, so that the sex in my fiction will have only the attributes and motivations brought to it by the characters I’m creating.
Ignoring the penis makes the characters more androgynous. It pushes sex into their heads. The body becomes an instrument for realizing a fantasy. The sex scene concerns two bodies that are physically similar and differentiated only by the fact that one is more beautiful and usually younger, more passive and important, while the other is more aggressive, less attractive, and less valuable to both characters. That particular combination, with its imbalances and symmetries and complicated power structure, is what interests me.
As for why I concentrate on the ass and asshole and the act of rimming in particular, there are many reasons for that, too. I’m very interested in charisma, in trying to simulate the unknowable quality that will make a certain person especially attractive and compelling, and I try to think of my novels as bodies. I want my readers to want to understand the nature of the novel’s appeal more than, say, find out what happens to its characters. I think of a novel’s style and structure and content as interdependent, ideally indistinguishable in the same way that the innate appeal of a charismatic person can’t be reduced to looks or wit or biography or knowledge. In fiction, charisma offers a writer a far more flexible and voluminous device for drawing and holding people’s attention than just relying on plot manipulations or on the appeal of the characters themselves or by causing the real-worldliness of the novel’s context to seem like a beautiful vacation spot. And a charismatic novel gives readers’ imaginations more area and freedom.
To me, rimming is the most charismatic sex act. Something about combining the face, which is the body’s most telling and detailed part, with the ass, which is a similarly compelling body part but for opposite reasons—given its plainness and inexpressiveness, its lowly status as a seat cushion and waste-disposal machine, contrasted with its high status as a sex object and aesthetic high point on the body—fascinates me. The way the face and ass affect each other physically and technically during the act of rimming has an emotional charge and is choreographically interesting. In the moment of exploring someone’s ass, you know things that the recipient can’t know because, due to the way the body is constructed, the ass and asshole are hardly available to their owner. You can handle and finger them, but even to see them properly requires the use of mirrors and awkward poses. When you rim someone, you’re getting to know him intimately in a way he can’t know himself. You can be entirely alone with him, unwatched, his judgment unknown and abstract. You have power over him and, at the same time, the act has subservient associations—“you can kiss my ass,” et cetera—so you’re worshipping him as well.
Also, for all the charisma that rimming has, as an idea and from a third-party perspective, it’s quite a simple act in practice. There’s only so much a face can do to an ass and asshole, so it’s an act that happens largely in both parties’ imaginations, and that makes it very interesting and challenging to write about.
I thought these answers were interesting insofar as atypical sex writing goes from his Paris Review interview:
When I wrote Frisk, for instance, one of my rules was that I could never get an erection when I was writing about sex—it was absolutely not allowed. If I started writing something and it got me hot, I’d stop, edit, and switch gears. The letter in Frisk, which deliberately mimics the way pornography works, was written without arousal so that it would have a hollow quality and transmit its status as a calculated manipulation to readers who could circumvent its erotic and disturbing surface. Frisk was written very, very carefully because I was pretty sure that novel would end up stigmatizing me as a writer. I wanted to be absolutely certain that when people said, This is just sick, jack-off material, I could say, You’re not paying attention.
And also:
INTERVIEWER
What is the significance for you of the anus, in relation to the penis, the hand, the face?
COOPER
There are a lot of ways I could talk about that—too many. The penis I try to erase from my work as completely as I can without that strategy becoming too apparent or distracting. I do that because I’m interested in removing as many external, real-world associations as possible, so that the sex in my fiction will have only the attributes and motivations brought to it by the characters I’m creating.
Ignoring the penis makes the characters more androgynous. It pushes sex into their heads. The body becomes an instrument for realizing a fantasy. The sex scene concerns two bodies that are physically similar and differentiated only by the fact that one is more beautiful and usually younger, more passive and important, while the other is more aggressive, less attractive, and less valuable to both characters. That particular combination, with its imbalances and symmetries and complicated power structure, is what interests me.
As for why I concentrate on the ass and asshole and the act of rimming in particular, there are many reasons for that, too. I’m very interested in charisma, in trying to simulate the unknowable quality that will make a certain person especially attractive and compelling, and I try to think of my novels as bodies. I want my readers to want to understand the nature of the novel’s appeal more than, say, find out what happens to its characters. I think of a novel’s style and structure and content as interdependent, ideally indistinguishable in the same way that the innate appeal of a charismatic person can’t be reduced to looks or wit or biography or knowledge. In fiction, charisma offers a writer a far more flexible and voluminous device for drawing and holding people’s attention than just relying on plot manipulations or on the appeal of the characters themselves or by causing the real-worldliness of the novel’s context to seem like a beautiful vacation spot. And a charismatic novel gives readers’ imaginations more area and freedom.
To me, rimming is the most charismatic sex act. Something about combining the face, which is the body’s most telling and detailed part, with the ass, which is a similarly compelling body part but for opposite reasons—given its plainness and inexpressiveness, its lowly status as a seat cushion and waste-disposal machine, contrasted with its high status as a sex object and aesthetic high point on the body—fascinates me. The way the face and ass affect each other physically and technically during the act of rimming has an emotional charge and is choreographically interesting. In the moment of exploring someone’s ass, you know things that the recipient can’t know because, due to the way the body is constructed, the ass and asshole are hardly available to their owner. You can handle and finger them, but even to see them properly requires the use of mirrors and awkward poses. When you rim someone, you’re getting to know him intimately in a way he can’t know himself. You can be entirely alone with him, unwatched, his judgment unknown and abstract. You have power over him and, at the same time, the act has subservient associations—“you can kiss my ass,” et cetera—so you’re worshipping him as well.
Also, for all the charisma that rimming has, as an idea and from a third-party perspective, it’s quite a simple act in practice. There’s only so much a face can do to an ass and asshole, so it’s an act that happens largely in both parties’ imaginations, and that makes it very interesting and challenging to write about.
Lo bueno que tiene haber empezado a Cooper por “The sluts” es que es un libro increíble. Lo malo es que después, todo lo demás suena a borrador de ese libro.
(Leído en un tren que me llevaba de Beijing a Xi’an con un adolescente que no conocía dormido sobre mi hombro, muy alineado con el tema).
(Leído en un tren que me llevaba de Beijing a Xi’an con un adolescente que no conocía dormido sobre mi hombro, muy alineado con el tema).
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Murder