Frisk
by Dennis Cooper, Claro
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 262)
recommends it for:
homophobes
Frisk is the gay American Psycho, and like that horrendous novel it revels in grossly repellant violence, and just like American Psycho, you have to ask yourself what the point is. And it's hard to say. Ellis's novel was supposed to satirise the yuppie greed-is-good 1980s. Okay, it does. But the violence towards women in that book goes on for page after page after page. And after say 15 pages, the reader is justified in saying Okay Brett, I Get The Point Already!! But on and on the violence goes...more
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Read in January, 1998
This is a difficult book to rate. It is a snuff fantasy that is first and foremost intended to provoke. I read this for a college course, and this is probably the only reason I would do so. Inside are depictions of deviance, sexual torture, and evisceration. An example of a choice scene: the murder and dissection of a man, and subsequent filtering of organs and fluids between the fingers, in order to discover his essence. And it gets worse.
But this isn't simply shock fiction. Cooper's...more
But this isn't simply shock fiction. Cooper's...more
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Read in May, 2008
Dennis Cooper - Frisk (1991). Tweede deel uit de “George Miles”-cyclus en ongetwijfeld het goorste boek dat ik ooit onder ogen kreeg. Ik kende Coopers reputatie als boegbeeld van de homo- en undergroundliteratuur, maar had er geen idee van dat hij zo geobsedeerd was door taboes als seks, geweld, de dood, en dan vooral de combinatie ervan. Het leest als een kruising van American Psycho, De 120 dagen van Sodom, de dissidente obsessies van Georges Bataille en Het Grote Handboek Voor De Patholoo...more
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My fourth favorite novel of Cooper's (after Guide, Try, and The Sluts). I wouldn't say that Cooper is an acquired taste; he's a rarefied taste. Not "decadent," though there's something dandyish in Cooper's precise prose, and of course death and decay themes pervade Cooper's novels, as they do "decadent" literature. What distinguishes Cooper's work from "decadent" writing is Cooper's urgent need to work out these (admittedly disturbing) issues of violence and pedophi...more
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I was dating this guy Wayne who ran a gallery in Winnepeg, Manitoba. We had a long distance thing going. I was too young for him. He gave me this book as gift. All I can really remember from it is there's a scene where the protagonists jump on some kids head, and brain guts go flying everywhere. It made me wonder what Wayne was trying to sy to me, and if he really liked me.
P.S. Dennis Cooper's ephebophilia has always struck me as creepy.
P.S. Dennis Cooper's ephebophilia has always struck me as creepy.
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Read in January, 2004
Cooper is not for the easily disturbed. I'm not easily disturbed and his books disturb me beyond words. This one was made into a movie, which was for lack of a better word, disturbing. He covers every wonderful, fulfilling, erotic, perverse, grotesque, criminal, non-p.c. topic relating to sexual relations. If you could take the movie, "Hustler White" and wrap it in latex, with a breathing tube and whip it till the blood comes... you'd have Cooper's mind. He's a modern Marquis de S...more
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Mucha sangre. Escenas fuertes. Lenguaje crudo. Imaginación nacida de un cruce entre Roger Corman y Ed Wood (de este último también parte del tempo narrativo enclenque de 'Glen or Glenda' y un poco también del estilo aleccionador). Es probable que este autor sea un éxito por sus textos explosivos que parecier, insisto pareciera, escurren sangre de sus páginas, sangre, sudor, esperma, esmegma, sesos, cabello, etcétera. Mucha imaginación dañada y apantallante sin un sentido específico. Me...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
not as good as 'closer,' if only for that Cooper shows reluctance, cowardice and a lack of creativity at the end of the book by stopping short of completely immersing his narrative in the kind of nihilistic universe that he likes to pretend at sometimes.
The ending is, once again, perfect, but I didn't like the journey to get there even if there were moments of brilliance (especially the one character's monologue that ends with the line "I would kill you to understand the appeal.") ...more
The ending is, once again, perfect, but I didn't like the journey to get there even if there were moments of brilliance (especially the one character's monologue that ends with the line "I would kill you to understand the appeal.") ...more
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about 50 pages in i thought this was going to be a great book. i thought it was going to really delve into the darker side of a twisted mind. however, it veers off into being art about art. the author thinking about writing as he writes. and telling you about it. i wish you could give half-stars on Goodreads. then this would have been a 2 1/2 star book.
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Read in October, 2008
So bad I couldn't even get past chapter 2. Yuck Yuck Yuck.
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Read in May, 2008
recommended to Wellreadwellfed by:
Kevin P.recommends it for: coprophagists, depraved deviants
This one was much tighter, and a bit more focused, than Closer. It's also far more violent and depraved.
A negative review I read of this somewhere claimed that Frisk was an attempt at a gay(-er) version of American Psycho -- while a pretty bold claim, I don't think it holds up well when one compares the two.
A negative review I read of this somewhere claimed that Frisk was an attempt at a gay(-er) version of American Psycho -- while a pretty bold claim, I don't think it holds up well when one compares the two.
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