Body to Job

Christopher Zeischegg Body to Job (2018)
I don't know how it's taken me so long to work out that The Magician wasn't actually Christopher Zeischegg's first, but better late than never, I suppose. It's two years since I read The Magician, but Body to Job inhabits similar territory from what I can recall, being grown from the same autobiographical soil without necessarily bringing forth the same fruit. Zeischegg was enough of a name in the porn industry to accrue fan mail, and Body to Job is about that. A few sections are obviously fictional, although there's otherwise no clear line drawn between reality and allegory, presumably on the grounds that certain events are better described as at least partially fictional. Honestly, it's not the sort of subject to which I'm ordinarily drawn, but Zeischegg is one hell of a writer.

I don't really have a problem with porn, my take being that I'm not entirely sure what I think about it, or even whether whatever I may think about it matters. I understand Andrea Dworkin's reasons for wanting it banned but, realistically speaking, I suspect this may be one genie that's never going back in the bottle; so I suppose beyond certain reforms, I simply believe it should be more difficult to access. On the other hand, I distrust sex work replacing older, apparently more offensive terms simply because I distrust grown men dressed as either ponies or little Japanese girls screaming whilst waving sex work is work placards, because I'm disinclined to enable debilitating psychological conditions, and because I don't actually recall anyone ever claiming that sex work wasn't work, one branch of which is reputed to be the world's oldest profession, after all. Anyway, Zeischegg seems attuned to where I'm coming from.

Neoliberal pundits whining about my job to earn ratings and book deals and spouting bullshit advocacy claims for people they'd never met pissed me off. So I decided to take a stance and balance out the conversation.

This is more or less what this book does, being the word of someone who has lived this stuff in detail - as distinct from simply having opinions; and so Body to Job is fascinating in describing territory quite unlike what I guess many of us had assumed was a map. His prose is tight, functional and efficient, delivering meaning without drowning everything in mood, adjectives, or anything surplus to requirements, because nothing described herein requires a melodramatic soundtrack telling you what to feel about what our guy is going through with his doomed porn shoots, gynecological misfires, and that endless line of strangers waiting to have sex, rip him off, or both. It takes skill to write with this level of precision, delivering meaning without dressing it up in bullshit; and it works and is refreshing given that bullshit is traditionally the means by which most porn is communicated, I would argue.

Body to Job isn't porn, although that's what it's about - not even the sort of joy of squalor variant you might expect of transgressive fiction - if we really have to use that term. On the contrary, Zeischegg's testimony borders on cheery, or at least amiable, regardless of what he's going through. The possibility of sunlight is implicit during even the darkest passages, and yet without turning it into just the sort of empowerment bollocks I was grumbling about two paragraphs back. There's even a comic undercurrent felt here and there, just like you have with real life.

'Okay,' she said. 'Carry on.'

'The name of my film is Death and Sports Bras.'

The professor shifted in her seat. 'I still don't understand. What are your characters' motivations in this story? Who is the protagonist?'

'Well, I've been listening to a lot of black metal. And I have this thing for sports bras. Because they look kind of like an androgynous, uh, futuristic uniform. But I guess that doesn't really answer your question.'

About half way through this novel, autobiography, collection, or however you chose to frame it, I realised Christopher Zeischegg doesn't actually remind me of any other writer that I've read, which is kind of a rare thing; and yet his voice is strong and distinctive which seems to make the lack of obvious parallels all the more unusual. It inhabits a world we probably take for granted, the oldest profession, cargo cult enactments of the most fundamental human transactions, the deed upon which most of our jokes are based, and Zeischegg reveals how little we really know, perhaps about anything. Who could have foreseen that something quite so profound could feature so much screwing?

Fantastic Stories of Imagination July 1966

Sol Cohen (editor) Fantastic Stories of Imagination July 1966 (1966)
Here we are with another one of these, and mostly reprints this time for some reason, excepting Chad Oliver's Just Like a Man, which is relatively readable and set on a planet so indistinguishable from Earth as to actually have lions. The point is anthropological, focusing on the absolutely fascinating means by which Oliver's alien lemurs failed to evolve into anything resembling humanity. My use of the term absolutely fascinating in the previous sentence may contain trace elements of sarcasm.

David V. Reed first enquired as to Where is Roger Davis? back in 1938, the answer apparently revealing that those swastika toting hordes about to sweep across Europe may have been aided by Martians. It's one of those first person account tales impersonating  private correspondence which opens with I know you're not going to believe this, but the other night as I charged my trusty meerschaum with a goodly plug of tobacco… To be fair, that sentence doesn't appear in the story because I just made it up, but somehow it feels as though it did. Also, the Martian invasion force comprises just three of them, which is probably understandable when you're trying to make a kid's show on the cheap, but—oh never mind.

Simak's The Trouble with Ants is one of those short stories which was eventually included in City, which is approximately a novel; and I know it won a million awards and that it's Simak and I generally love Simak without exception or reservation, but I've always found City a little overrated with its cast of talking dog and their robot pals just a little too silly to work. This one is about how the talking dogs and their robot pals realise that you have to be careful with ants, otherwise they develop technology. I sort of wonder if Cliff was experiencing trouble with his heating that month, because City suggests the influence of certain powerful fumes. I'm told it can get a bit nippy at times up there in Wisconsin.

Almost Human by Tarleton Fiske, who was actually Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, tells of an innocent robot corrupted by the kind of toughs commonly portrayed by James Cagney and who end each statement with a quasi-interrogatory see, see. It's readable, if nothing life-changing, see.

Theodore Sturgeon's The Way Home is short and pleasant but didn't make much sense - or maybe I mean didn't seem to have a point - but never mind because the last two pretty much justify the entrance fee. Henry Kuttner's Satan Sends Flowers is one of those tales where someone has an actual conversation with the devil and is very satisfying; leaving just Isaac Asimov's Satisfaction Guaranteed, which apparently I've read before although I don't remember it. It's one of his Susan Calvin things, but herself is thankfully only a secondary character. Being written by Asimov in 1951, we probably shouldn't be too surprised to meet a housewife who just wants to keep her home clean and her man happy, which I'm sure will have gone down a storm with the usual Goodreads wankers. I sometimes find this sort of thing a bit painful, and true enough, when Asimov falls on his arse, he falls hard; but here the focus on the actual thrust of the story - yet more robot stuff - is of such elegant precision that blaming Asimov for a) the fifties and b) having been born as someone other than Andrea Dworkin seems both unfair and a bit of a waste of time, tantamount to whining about Silas Marner seeming dated.

I'm still not sure why Fantastic went tits up. I guess maybe there were just too many of these things and not enough readers coughing up to a monthly timetable.

So You've Been Publicly Shamed

Jon Ronson So You've Been Publicly Shamed (2016)
It's a coincidence that I read this immediately following something by Andrea Dworkin, herself significantly publicly shamed for being the wrong sort of lesbian, but I suppose this kind of thing has been on my mind of late. Here Ronson unpacks the mechanics of media outrage, both social and tabloid, revealing the whole thing to be more complicated than one might imagine from a quick glance at whoever last described you as worse than Hitler. Indeed, the complexity is such as to seem comparable to Dworkin's arguments in Intercourse in terms of how the subject seems to inform the entire dynamic of our society, and to additionally provide pointers as to much that is wrong with it. It's shocking, mostly depressing, but argued with a lively wit and where Ronson finds anything positive to be had from his investigation, he makes sure we know about it.

As with Intercourse, here we find pointers as to means by which we might actually make the world a less shittier place, but as usual we probably won't take any notice, instead preferring to carry on in the same stupid direction as before, not one lesson learned; but at least Ronson has given it his best shot.

I've never been entirely convinced by this guy, I must admit, having initially taken him for a slightly more weasely Louis Theroux. I liked the Goats book, but disliked that reimagined Frank Sidebottom movie quite profoundly. So You've Been Publicly Shamed on the other hand feels substantial and unusually nourishing given the subject, with none of the slightly prurient taint which I perhaps imagined informed his previous undertakings.

Intercourse

Andrea Dworkin Intercourse (1987)
Intercourse is the tract wherein Andrea Dworkin famously stated that all men are rapists and that heterosexual sex is rape, just like the joyless dungaree wearing dyke she was. However, bothering to read the book reveals that she never said anything of the sort, and that her argument as set forth herein is not actually unreasonable. That being said, it's no walk in the park either. Dworkin is not an easy read. She's absolutely uncompromising and unwilling to soft soap, prettify or simplify her argument. The reader is expected to shut the fuck up, pay attention, and no fidgeting if they know what's good for them; and actually, it is good for them, certainly potentially educational.

Essentially it's nothing less than the history of sexual politics mapped out in our changing, evolving attitudes, at least for the last five-hundred or so years, as revealed in the fiction of Tolstoy, Lawrence, Hemingway and others. Dworkin pulls apart established models of human intercourse, social and sexual, with surprising deference reflecting her genuine appreciation of at least a few of these authors, but she pulls no punches and is very good at revealing that which has been staring us in the face all along and which suggests we, as the testicular half of a species, might like to think about growing the fuck up.

To be specific, Dworkin doesn't say anything as blunt or stupid as all sex between men and women is rape, but rather that it can't be anything but rape within the context of the patriarchal structures which inform society; and she's unfortunately right. The revelation is just how much is tied in with those structures, in which respect she's also very thorough, extending her analysis to the extremes of the Nazi death camps and how even there we find echoes of the man sticking his thingie in because he believes it to be his due. It's a solid argument, but one of such composition that there's not much point trying to break it down. Intercourse is, by some definition, an academic narrative, but the dialogue by which it sets forth its argument seems partially intuitive and therefore possibly of such complexity as to defeat being broken down into anything bite-sized.

Intercourse is intense but incredibly rewarding, and if you haven't read it, there seems a reasonable chance that it probably isn't what you think it is. If you're not already on board, it may be time to get over whatever has been holding you back and listen to what the woman had to say.

Also - for what it may be worth - I found Dworkin's filleting of Bram Stoker's thoroughly mediocre Dracula highly satisfying because I was beginning to think it was just me.

Junk Mail

Will Self Junk Mail (2006)
I'm still not quite able to process some of the opprobrium levelled at this guy, much of which seemingly amounts to he ain't one of us, he's from a posh school and he uses all those big words to look clever but he ain't. The most coherent version of this argument, at least that I've found, seems to be something about how we've all been conned into buying the idea of Will Self as a dangerous anti-establishment figure when actually he writes for the Observer and once consumed heroin on the Prime Minister's jet; ergo what mugs we are! I suppose it's an argument of sorts, although it prompts the question of just who you do regard as a dangerous anti-establishment figure - Alan Moore? Stewart Home? Doctor Who? Some guy in a fucking band? Do you even know what the fuck you're talking about? One might just as well argue that we've all been conned into buying the idea of Will Self as Batman's nemesis and the scourge of Gotham City for all the sense it makes.

Failure to creep into the Houses of Parliament clutching a large sphere of black metal with a fuse and BOMB printed on the side notwithstanding, Self's writing, even with all of those long, difficult to understand words, is rarely less than astonishing, illuminating whatever subject he's chosen to pick apart with such high definition focus of intent and meaning as to make the journalistic norm appear somewhat impressionist; which is what makes him such a delight to read, almost regardless of subject. It's rare to come across arguments so well defined. Junk Mail assembles journalistic pieces from newspapers, magazines, exhibition catalogues, and even British Airways' slightly ludicrous High Life freebie, but the themes benefit from a similar focus to that which informs Self's fiction, or at least his satire given that it doesn't seem entirely fair to call it fiction considering the escapist connotations of the term. The only major difference is that the writing in Junk Mail is less one layer of allegory compared to My Idea of Fun, How the Dead Live and so on, and here we actually get to meet Traci Emin, Morrissey, Andrea Dworkin and others in person, and get to understand them a little better than we might have done otherwise. He even somehow manages to make Liam Gallagher and Damien Hirst seem marginally less twatty.

Anyway, while it's debatable whether or not Self cuts a dangerous anti-establishment figure - pretending for the sake of argument that it's even a meaningful term - he nevertheless succeeds in seeing through the bullshit of modern existence, and communicating what he's seen in a form which reaches a wide audience, even if it's maybe not quite so wide an audience as dangerous anti-establishment rebel leader Luke Skywalker in all those Star Wars samizdat movies. Even if you have to look up a few long-haired words here and there, Self's writing will always reward anyone making the effort, and for something vaguely amounting to cuttings swept up from the studio floor, this may even be one of his best. Additionally there's the bewildering accusation of arrogance, presumably once again founded on the use of words we might have to look up in a dictionary; and it's bewildering because Junk Mail is nothing if not self-effacing - literally, come to think of it - and the fact of the man's writing having personality is never allowed to obscure whatever he's writing about. Even where dark and harrowing, the clarity of this man's testimony is, as always, a joy to read.

Story of O

Pauline Réage Story of O (1958)
I'd heard of this one mainly as something contentious customarily mentioned as a novel which should have been banned in the same sentence as Naked Lunch and Lady Chatterley's Lover, so naturally I was curious as to what it was and why. Story of O, so it turns out, is a mucky book, specifically a mucky book of obvious appeal to patrons of sex dungeons. I'd say it's in the tradition of de Sade except I haven't read enough de Sade to make such a statement with any sort of authority, particularly as I get the impression de Sade's writing had some philosophical dimension and I'm not convinced that the same can be said of O. The novel was originally written as a series of letters from Anne Desclos to her lover, Jean Paulhan, publisher and something of a big cheese in French literary circles. Paulhan, an admirer of de Sade, had apparently suggested that de Sade's work could only have been written by a man, so the Story of O seems to have been an attempt to refute his claim.

The story, such as it is, relates the progress of a woman identified only as O as she is sexually enslaved and dominated by her partner, then by others to whom her partner gives her as a gift. O is repeatedly humiliated, whipped, bound, tortured, pierced, and branded, reacting to each new imposition with a combination of fear and gratitude, until the tale ends with the suggestion of a final, seemingly unpublished chapter in which she asks to be killed. It's extremely well written, and initially erotic, but I suspect you probably have to be really into this stuff to get something out of it; which I'm not, so after a while I began to find it dull and repetitive; then again, I've tended to find fetishists of most persuasions dull and repetitive, just as I find anyone who assumes that you're as fascinated by their thing as they are, a massive bore.

The introduction hints at the possibility of Story of O being read as a spiritual discourse, likening all the whippings and negation of O's self to religiously inspired mortification of the flesh or asceticism, but I don't really buy it any more than I buy there being much common ground which The Castle of Otranto shares with the music of Alien Sex Fiend. This leaves us with mostly just the flogging, the coercion, and the reduction of the main character to a series of three holes into which men thrust their mighty choppers. This, according to Jean Paulhan's introduction, perfectly captures the true nature of woman, the thing she most desires, which is clearly bollocks as Andrea Dworkin is my witness.

Whilst we can police sexual deeds in the hope of limiting incidences of, for one example, those who shag kids, it's probably a waste of time policing - or even frowning upon - whatever happens to turn other people on. Nevertheless, I find the Story of O a little too lacking in flavour for my own tastes, not specifically in terms of what it does, but what it does in combination with apparent literary aspirations, when it's really just Fifty Shades of Grey intercut with scenes of Dakota Johnson considering herself spoilt by the Ferrero Rocher passed around at the ambassador's reception. Story of O is a two-hundred page letter to Fiesta, but without the honesty, enthusiastic squelching, caravan holiday in the Lake district, or anyone asking us to imagine their surprise; but worse than that, it's just very boring.