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Ah, my first thread and what a rum topic. Transgressive literature; the children of Burroughs, De Sade, Artaud and the Dadaists running wild, publishing nicely bound books full of desecration, madness, psycho-fecal lunacy and other sunday afternoon treats.
Actually defining what constitutes 'transgressive' literature seems to be a bit easier than I thought it would be, everyone who contributed to the Sotos thread seemed to get the point, but maybe a brief recap is called for.
Transgressive literature is a, mostly, 20th century phenomenon and seemed to spring up during the post-punk period. A lot of it seems like a hangover from the industrial scene of the early 80's with similar themes tackled (alienation, weird sex, the occult, destruction as creativity etc) although the way the different writers deal with these themes can be wildly different.
It is often experimental in form taking inspiration from the Burroughs/Gysin cut-up technique, and artaud's haunted rantings. As a 'scene' it is also hugely incenstuous; collaborations abound and a few publishing companies, which dedicate themselves to this sort of stuff, share the same writers (just check out how many small press publications feature articles on/writing by Stewart Home and you'll see my point).
A lot of people do see this stuff as juvenile and you can see their point with some of it, (although a lot of the more juvenile stuff is actually very enjoyable on it's own terms; I'm thinking in particular of people like James Havoc), however the more you get into this dark form of writing the more truly exceptional work you find.
Some recent discoveries of mine have included David Britton, who writes for Manchester's notorious Savoy Books, whose 'Motherfuckers' is one of the best responses to the holocaust I have ever read, scary, surreal and above all honest.
Kenji Siratori's 'Blood Electric' is a must for all fans of lethal, experimental prose, a delerious headfuck from page one.
Also worth a mention are Suehiro Maruo, Peter Sotos and, oddly enough, Jake Chapman, whose 'Meatphysics' is flawed but still worth a look.
To get more of an idea check out the Creation books website.
So there it is, do you have any experience of this stuff? Did you like it? hate it? think it's appeal is restricted to men who masturbate over Holocaust documentaries? I'd like to know your opinions... |
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