our library only has this poetry "Amour à voix haute" and what's funny, gr won't display the cover. Too saucy?

It's coming up for me, as his drawing of a set of buttocks that are faces making out. More ridiculous than saucy, I think, as perhaps Joko's Anniversary is more ridiculous than appalling (though still a pretty vicious little book).

This is all I've read so far and I'm a poor judge of poetry, but I think I'd be interested in anything Topor-related, so I'd be curious to know how it was.

where's manny when you need him?

This is an amazing book: I am surprised it hasn't got a much wider audience. I agree with you about how many unresolved themes it brings out: its a skeleton frame on which to pitch our hang-ups: probably each reader will come away with a different take on it. But those are the kinds of books I love best.

It really is the best! So many ideas, but delivered in a such a whirlwind frenzy of action and insanity that it became inextricably glued to my hands until finished. As far as the multiplicity of meanings, in addition to all the personal issues and domestic nets of society, don't forget that France was only just out of Algeria when this was written. I think I need to re-read this again. Maybe yearly.

Algeria? Intriguing, but I'm not getting it: please elucidate. Although I did feel it carried a politcal cartoon-ish element (but I went down the track of Cronus and Christianity's preoccupation with the number 7 subsequently). Is this in reference to your gleaning of exploitation as a theme? (I actually didn't see that either: remember, Joko was paid twice as much to be a mule as a plant worker)

Right, the seductions of colonial power, and the complicity of the exploited. In a modern example, when American companies move overseas (say, Nike in southest asia) they pay scandalously low wages. And yet, sometimes, this is the best those new employees are able to get. (See also: the plight of illegal immigrant meat-packing workers in the states, willing to get below minimum wage under awful conditions since normal employment isn't open to them). As such, Joko is both being exploited, but contradictorily it's the best thing he has going. The suggestion here is that these dependencies lead to far, far greater problems. In one reading, at least. But as you say, the beauty of the book is that it is open to reading along many dimensions, and resists any single straight sociopolitical allegory.

See also: debates of whether allowing prostitution is exploitative. Can someone lured by promise of high pay into such a career be said to have full free choice in the matter? (Joko's initial reservations about degrading work overcome by promise of wealth from those in a position of financial superiority).

These are just a few of the meanings and resonances that ran through my head.

Algerian independence was 1962, I think, close enough to be pretty prevalent in the French cultural memory. I thought of it mostly in the final iteration of the book: outside powers returning as tourists to the memorials of their misdeeds abroad, further salting lingering wounds. But I do think colonialism is one of the possible running threads throughout.

Didn’t get notified by GR of your comment above at all.

Fascinating angle you’re perspecting. I am compelled to just re-bring the events of the human horse scenario to the table again, though. It was the only part of the book where Topor puts in direct but contradictory themes. At first, the workers in the plant and particularly Joko’s boss expostulate how they should be carrying the delegates because its a sort of humanitarian service: helping out the weaker, etc. Subsequently, the issue of remuneration supercedes. So, two thought threads are going on at the same time. It felt to me that Joko was more concerned with appearances at first: all his colleagues were getting ‘jobs’ whilst he was being ostracized by the delegates, which made him lose his social standing with his co-workers. But I also take your point about exploitation., and I thought your take on the relatives as being outside powers returning to the perpetrators of the misdeeds really original.(although my initial take on it was a ghosts past,present and future a la Scrooge mode, the emphasis being you can't escape the consequences of your (mis)deeds)

One last thought on the latter subject and apropos your examples of overseas and domestic ‘exploitation’. Wages, I believe, should be evaluated by their relative rather than absolute value. If you pay a worker $15 a day in the States, thats exploitation, because that worker has no purchasing power whatsoever. The same so called ‘scandalous’ wage paid to a Yemeni worker has a lot more purchasing power because the cost of living is lower, and may not be classifiable as ‘exploitative’ within the context of Yemeni RPI. Which is not to say I don't think all kinds of thirdworld exploitation is going on: cash crops are ruining the food supply of many countries, and MNCs get away with murder in terms of industrial pollution, and so forth.

Right, absolutely agreed about relative wages being more relevant. But: are these factories abroad, even with relative economics in account, allowing a standard of living equivalent even to minimum wages in the states? (I'm sure sometimes yes, and at other times no. I admit that I'm out of my element here (global economic policy), but I feel pretty safe with that statement at least. In any event, it's worth thinking about.)

But again, these are just a few threads, and as you say, Topor is always careful to introduce a multiplicoty ofmeanings. I was forgetting some of the other dimensions of Joko's early inability to find work. Yeah, to re-read for sure!

i agree with both of you. but exploitation fo the worker works well, remember the plant workers had to do this better paying work on their lunch break, they still had the regular jobs, and even after they became "wealthy", making more on one lunch break than all year at the plant, the 1% demanded more. more service, more flesh, up to and including eating joko's sisters. you just can't please the 1%.

Thats true Tuck.

Hope for something better is the easiest and saddest human emotion that can be taken advantage of. Cliche: ever watched someone who probably can't afford it feed their last money into a slot machine?