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Aug 28, 2010

brian rated it:

i burned through 5 dennis coopers in as many days culminating with closer: the first of the 'george miles' 5-novel cycle. had i not just been bowled over by a damn great episode of Mad Men ("I'm not going to fight watching Dick Whitman paint my living room in his shorts") and drunk the required 1/3 bottle of bulleit bourbon, i might've waxed poetic on the book itself... but i'm in no state to do that. so, lemme bring to your attention two exemplary goodreaders i came across as i checke More...

4 comments like (17 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Kevin rated it:

I remember being in a Seattle bookstore when I bought this. Probably around '93. I asked for some William Burroughs and the clerk said I should give this a try. Thank you, clerk! This is one of the most disturbing and visceral books I have ever read. And it lead me to read all the other Cooper books I could get a hold of.

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jason added it

don't read this

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 19, 2008

Dusty rated it:

Closer is Dennis Cooper's first novel in a pentology of novels about George Miles, who in this novel is the beloved figure for half a dozen high school boys, all gay and all pretty much cool with it. George gets involved with a middle-aged French man named Philippe, and through that connection travels down a dark road of dangerous, filthy sex that almost gets him killed in the basement of some suburban home.

In line with the literary fads that I think produced these stories (in many w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 19, 2007

joshua rated it:

at first I'll admit that I didn't quite know what to do with this book. There are approximately 2 sentences before the first characters introduced begin having sex rather unceremoniously and it often talks about pulling the flesh away from the faces and bodies of young men. And other things it's not polite to just jump in and talk about without warning.

When I finished the book I was really impressed with the very open and inconclusive ending which still somehow made me feel as if I'd More...

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May 29, 2009

Eddie rated it:

Gay Fetish Lit. Did I ever think I would read such a thing? Never. Did I even know it existed? Sure, but only vaguely. Did I enjoy it? Definitely. Does this mean that my straight married life is going crooked? Only in the imagination (a far more capacious world than we are generally allowed in workaday life), and as a straight man (with an inner asexual gay man) I'm probably more interested in reading about gay sex anyway.

What is happening to me in my early middle-age? Due to no cris More...

7 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jul 23, 2011

Nate rated it:

This is harsh stuff, the most miserable of highschool desire and isolation and obsession, rendered simply readable through oddly desensitized viewpoints, anesthetized by repeated disappointment, emotional denial, and drugs. This makes the prose, at the start, sort of oddly emptied and minimal, often believably high-school-histrionic even as it's totally detached from the actual horribleness going on. It's part of an awareness of its own content, I guess, a current of post-modern reflection on na More...

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Imogen rated it:

Dennis Cooper is my boyfriend so bad. It's hard to describe why teen angst, gay u/dystopias, and shit obsession are SO APPEALING when he writes about 'em. But they are.

0 comments like

Mar 01, 2009

Djrmel rated it:

Dark, angsty, self-centered, violent and going places few stories that aren't simple hard core porn would risk going, this is the story of George, a young man looking for love and accepting anything in place of it; and the men who move through his life taking advantage of that need. Each chapter is told from the POV of a different character, except for George, who gets more than one chance to make the reader care about him. Once the plot actually starts to move foreward (unfortunately, almost ha More...

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Nov 28, 2010

Kurt rated it:

Dear hopeful young novelists. Here is your formula for instant success:

1. make all your characters gay
2. have them use the word 'bored' on every page
3. add some fecal matter eating
4. add mutilation

Congratulations! Your novel will have queer theorists gushing over you for a year.

ps my real review:

"Cooper grew up the son of a wealthy businessman in Arcadia, California.... as he began his teenage years, he wrote poetry and sto More...

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Feb 07, 2012

John rated it:

I've just finished this book, my third so far by Dennis Cooper, the other two being "Frisk" and "Guide". Cooper seems to be covering the same issues of sadomaschoism, death, murder, homosexual rape, etc...In this book as compared to the other two the reader can see his development as a writer,which in the later books he is more controlled in his prose. This was one of his first books, while the other two were written later. It's a good novel with some similar characters but i More...

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Sep 10, 2011

Tancredi rated it:

John (...) non riusciva a decidere se voleva fargli un ritratto, scoparselo, pestarlo a sangue o innamorarsi di lui.

Forse sono di parte, a leggere e recensire Dennis Cooper. O forse, sono solo più obiettivo di tutti gli altri. Perché in me Cooper smuove qualcosa di nero ed indecifrabile. Solletica il mio piacere del brutto. Del rivoltante, dell'orrido, del violento. Una persona sana di mente fuggirebbe a gambe levate dai romanzi di Cooper. Ma forse, proprio per questo, sono meno adatti a leggerl More...

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Nov 29, 2010

Jasmine rated it:

This is a fast book. You can certainly sit down and read it during the commercials of whichever medical show you happen to watch.

This book should be exceedingly disturbing, but it isn't. You don't notice how disturbing it should be because none of the characters seem to notice. Once a character vomits and you suddenly realize how disgusting the book is. None of the characters show emotions. For sake of ridiculous comparisons I have to say that it reads almost as a postmodern poem tha More...

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Jun 16, 2008

Guy rated it:

Closer (1989) is het eerste deel van de “George Miles”-cyclus, waar het gore geweldfestijn van Frisk ook deel van uitmaakt. Het is opgebouwd als een reeks van portretten van homoseksuele tieners/adolescenten, die allen hun zinnen gezet hebben op de figuur van George Miles, een catatonische jonge god die op hen allen een pijnlijke aantrekkingskracht uitoefent, en hem gebruiken en (vooral) misbruiken om hun begeerte en onalledaagse driften te verzadigen. De uitzichtloze monotonie van het boek (all More...

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Dec 19, 2009

Annie rated it:

Strip away the ubiquitous pop culture references in Bret Easton Ellis's novels, make all the characters gay. . . imbue them with real teenage emotions but in somewhat unrealistic circumstances, and you have the idea. I thought this worked quite well as a cohesive novel. I don't particularly enjoy gratuitous violence but, hey, I said it worked.

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Nov 01, 2011

Johnos rated it:

Cooper's interview in this summer's issue of the Paris Review piqued my curiosity: How would his own desire and complex relationship with George Miles, both addressed at length in the interview, be alluded to in the cycle? I've made my way through the second of the five books and can't help but think that I'm still missing something, which may have been hidden in the uncomfortable slasher parts that I could only skim.

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Mar 28, 2011

Laura rated it:

This was my first Dennis Cooper book and still maybe my favorite. Between scenes of characters getting mutilated there are little nuggets of beautiful commentary on life. It's easy to say Cooper's work is gimmicky if things like homosexuality and violence turn you off. However, I'm thankful that he's pushing my limits.

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Apr 10, 2010

Gori rated it:

Closer’s plot is irrelevant. This book is a masterpiece in character study. Cooper vivisects disenchanted gay teens, exposing their fragility and humanity like a mad doctor ripping the nervous system from his subject with abject fascination. Blatantly honest yet poetically beautiful. Cooper is far ahead of his time.

1 comment like

Jan 23, 2011

Joe rated it:

While I loved My Loose Thread, I was less impressed with this novel. I will probably read the whole Pentology, though. Having had a best friend who died, I can understand Cooper's desire to immortalize George. I'd like to see how it all works out, at least at the emotional level.

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Jun 22, 2011

Aral rated it:

"How would you kill Georges?" Very slowly, so I could see everything in him and know what he has meant to me. "Would you expect to see yourself in him?" I would expect to see someone who could answer my questions looking at me through him. He would resemble me.

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Nov 02, 2010

Patrick rated it:

Dennis Cooper's George Miles Cycle is a series of novel based loosely on his personal interactions with a childhood crush. The first of this five-part series is called Closer. George Miles is passive and lets his friends use him for whatever and in whatever ways they like - sexually, financially, and otherwise. In real life, Cooper's infatuation with the eponymous character of George was stimulated further when he sought out the real George Miles and found he had died of AIDs. After this rev More...

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Jun 14, 2008

John rated it:

One of the most original books I've read - there are similarities to Bret Easton Ellis (rotating view points of young people behaving badly) and A.M. Homes (plenty of shock and surprise to go around), but this seemed to be smarter (if more revolting) than work I've read by those writers. Before you read this one, be prepared for scenes so disgusting that even the characters puke in response. What makes it all ok (i think) is that even the most repellent stuff seems to be done in the service o More...

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Jul 29, 2011

Ckwheat rated it:

I almost couldn't finish it at the time....it was incredible, but the imagery was so gruesome at one point that I had to put it down for weeks. This book solidified Cooper as one of my favorite authors

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Jan 08, 2011

Adam rated it:

This was excellent and totally outside my comfort zone (shit-eating and snuff films), but I'll wait and actually review the entire 5-book cycle at once. Maybe.

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Jul 13, 2010

Brett rated it:

This pretty much reads like less clever, more pretentious, Bret Easton Ellis. It gets two stars for being appropriately creepy but beyond that it's vacant.

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Mar 11, 2007

Ryan rated it:

is there something i'm missing here?

more fantasies about disaffected pretty gay boys doing drugs and having sex to cartoonish degrees. when i say that i mean EVERY character is gay, EVERY character does drugs, and EVERY character thinks about nothing but sex. CONSTANTLY. i don't get it. to me these characters are unrealistic and unrelatable.

this book is better than Guide and i should say that Cooper is not without flair. he has a knack for cadence and pace and hi More...

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Apr 28, 2009

M. rated it:

Dennis Cooper has been on my mind lately, so I've decided to revisit the George Miles cycle and read it in order for the first time. When I first read it at the beginning to middle of our current decade, I simply read them as I found them, eventually ordering the ones I never found at used bookshops online. I think re-reading these now that I'm, er, smarter I guess, is a very good thing-- they're much more rewarding and devastating now, plus I'm more attuned to Cooper's subtle narrative experi More...

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Dec 24, 2008

Ryan rated it:

"So why am I looking at him like my dad looked at me when I fell off our roof? Is that love, or anywhere close to it?"

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Jul 17, 2009

Cale rated it:

Reading this book is like having a vulgar joke played on you... poorly.

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Mar 08, 2011

Alexander rated it:

"When he looked at the scars he saw the inside of George, not as cold, gray and empty -- as he preferred it to be -- but brightly colored and very disorganized. On the negative side, they'd complicated his feelings for death by defining his view of it. On the positive side, they looked like fireworks.

Still, no matter how George had filled up with hieroglyphs, they didn't help Phillipe figure things out. Scars merely forced him to stylize his thoughts, until the destruction he saw More...

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