So I started reading the very first ebook I checked out, Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. It is a novel consists of short stories, told by fiction writers, with a poem for each storyteller at the beginning of every story, which sort of reminds me of the use of poetry in And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, with the poem adapted from a nursery rhyme in Mother Goose, because poetry is used in both cases to give rise to suspense. There is a premise or storyline runs through the entire book that connects all the independent stories, which gives readers the setting that a group of fictional authors is arranged on a mission trip to an isolated space, where they are supposed to leave behind their everyday life and let their creativity flow on paper. As they gather together, each writer takes turns to tell stories to the entire group. As time goes by while they are trapped in the isolated "campsite", those stories get weirder and more horrifying. (Yea the premise reminds me of The Demacron by Giovanni Boccaccio, pretty much the same concept.) It is not a thriller, not of that concept, but it is thrilling. It's disgustingly thrilling.
I have only gotten to the first story in the story, but it really blows my mind. It is titled as Guts, told by their tour bus driver. It was gross, to say the least, too frank to read, and seems kind of experimental. The story talks about teenage traumas and deaths. Actually, no, let me describe it this way instead: it is a story about "jacking off" and its potential (unimaginable, horrifying) consequences. (I need to make sure I use quotation marks here because I don't want it to sound like it is a phrase I would use or a topic I would want to talk about.) The poor teenage boy in the story (which appears to be the bus driver himself when he was young) is addicted to "jacking off" in the family swimming pool while sitting on the circulation pump, an action he refers to as "Pearl Diving", which he rationalizes it as "As the French would say: Who doesn't like getting their butt sucked?" (This is totally messed up.) When I saw the word "circulation pump", I knew what was going to happen, and I've read about it in other sources, real or fictional, yet I was still grabbing onto the hope that it wouldn't. I'm gonna save myself from the torture of writing it out because it is just so, so, grueling. I couldn't stop thinking about it since I read it, and it keeps coming back to me even in class. It is bloody and traumatic, but at the same time awkward and embarrassing, inappropriate to be brought to public discourse, not to mention that it is actually included in an officially published commercial book. But I'll include some quotes here from the story FYI.
"A lambskin condom, that's just plain old intestine."
"If I told you how it tasted, you would never, ever, again eat calamari."
"That is my family's invisible carrot"
(Sorry if this grosses you out. )
For a moment I kind of regretted that I even read this book, even though I checked it out because I was attracted by commentaries on this book saying that it is supposed to be gross and inappropriate and I could not figure out on my own how a book can be gross.
But anyway, I still want to read it and will continue reading it (hopefully). Does being attracted to this book make me a creep?
BTW... Although I don't intend to add more to the Dirt, the latest issue of the New Yorker came in my mailbox today, and I flipped it to the back, it is American Dirt!!!! again.
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