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A review by michelempls
Consumed by David Cronenberg
5.0
As a review said elsewhere:
"Of course, one person's contagion is another person's inspiration.
This book is not for everyone, perhaps, but it is most *definitely for me.
It will take awhile for me to come down from reading "Consumed" - the book was that intense and engrossing. I really can't review it myself, right now. Note - I read the audiobook version of Consumed, narrated by William Hurt, who was the *perfect choice for this challenging novel.
Here's a review from Neuromancer on Amazon - sums up where I'm at right now.
"After reading several high profile reviews of "Consumed", I noted that they all seemed to be mimicking some altered, mutated aesthetic, as though the critic's individual ego had been cannibalized by a ravenous, trans-personal, subconscious entity. Was there a newly evolved psychic cancer that colonized the host and left him stuttering and subsumed within the towering shadow of an incarnate, alien force field? This stimulated my curiosity, along with my existential dread. Having now read the book, I find myself displaying similar symptoms: mental distortions, magnified perceptions, and the perplexing agitation of feelings and ideas that erupt psychogenically with the sudden, itching pulse of a rash. This is a disturbance, and the course of this "disease" is Cronenbergian, so therefore spreads rapidly and is highly contagious - the prognosis, for some, terminal. Of course, one person's contagion is another person's inspiration.
David Cronenberg gave me his disease, and now I'm totally "Consumed". The novel is brilliant, often hilarious, challenging and viscerally disturbing, but in the most imaginative, delightful way. If I had read this book without knowing the author, I would have been transfixed and would have nothing but praise, except with the single observation that the writer appeared to be rather influenced by the films of David Cronenberg (all periods - early, middle and contemporary). Since the Toronto Master is himself the purveyor of this almost three dimensional prose, my enthusiasm is complete. This book is from the same mind that gave us "Dead Ringers" and "eXistenz", but now, with uncanny skill and precision, infecting the world of literature - it's a probing and an original mind that evokes the creative and the destructive in us all. "Consumed" depicts a new world where, within the rapidly evolving digital environment, humans are adapting and mutating, like the first amphibians crawling on land, gulping for air, disoriented, struggling to survive as they transmogrify. The new reality is dangerous and thrilling and we'll never be the same again. Did I mention there's also lots of sex - of the exotic variety..."
"Of course, one person's contagion is another person's inspiration.
This book is not for everyone, perhaps, but it is most *definitely for me.
It will take awhile for me to come down from reading "Consumed" - the book was that intense and engrossing. I really can't review it myself, right now. Note - I read the audiobook version of Consumed, narrated by William Hurt, who was the *perfect choice for this challenging novel.
Here's a review from Neuromancer on Amazon - sums up where I'm at right now.
"After reading several high profile reviews of "Consumed", I noted that they all seemed to be mimicking some altered, mutated aesthetic, as though the critic's individual ego had been cannibalized by a ravenous, trans-personal, subconscious entity. Was there a newly evolved psychic cancer that colonized the host and left him stuttering and subsumed within the towering shadow of an incarnate, alien force field? This stimulated my curiosity, along with my existential dread. Having now read the book, I find myself displaying similar symptoms: mental distortions, magnified perceptions, and the perplexing agitation of feelings and ideas that erupt psychogenically with the sudden, itching pulse of a rash. This is a disturbance, and the course of this "disease" is Cronenbergian, so therefore spreads rapidly and is highly contagious - the prognosis, for some, terminal. Of course, one person's contagion is another person's inspiration.
David Cronenberg gave me his disease, and now I'm totally "Consumed". The novel is brilliant, often hilarious, challenging and viscerally disturbing, but in the most imaginative, delightful way. If I had read this book without knowing the author, I would have been transfixed and would have nothing but praise, except with the single observation that the writer appeared to be rather influenced by the films of David Cronenberg (all periods - early, middle and contemporary). Since the Toronto Master is himself the purveyor of this almost three dimensional prose, my enthusiasm is complete. This book is from the same mind that gave us "Dead Ringers" and "eXistenz", but now, with uncanny skill and precision, infecting the world of literature - it's a probing and an original mind that evokes the creative and the destructive in us all. "Consumed" depicts a new world where, within the rapidly evolving digital environment, humans are adapting and mutating, like the first amphibians crawling on land, gulping for air, disoriented, struggling to survive as they transmogrify. The new reality is dangerous and thrilling and we'll never be the same again. Did I mention there's also lots of sex - of the exotic variety..."