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Consumed
Stylish and camera-obsessed, Naomi and Nathan thrive on the yellow journalism of the social-media age. Naomi finds herself drawn to the headlines surrounding a famous couple, Celestine and Aristide, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Celestine has been found dead, and Aristide has disappeared. Police suspect him of killing her and consuming parts of her body. Yet Naomi sets off to find him, and as she delves deeper into the couple s lives, she discovers the news story may only skim the surface of the disturbing acts they performed together.
Journalist Nathan, meanwhile, is in Budapest photographing the controversial work of an unlicensed surgeon named Zoltan Molnar, once sought by Interpol for organ trafficking. After sleeping with one of Molnar s patients, Nathan contracts a rare STD called Roiphe s and travels to Toronto, determined to meet the man who discovered the syndrome. Dr. Barry Roiphe, Nathan learns, now studies his own adult daughter, whose bizarre behavior masks a devastating secret.
Journalist Nathan, meanwhile, is in Budapest photographing the controversial work of an unlicensed surgeon named Zoltan Molnar, once sought by Interpol for organ trafficking. After sleeping with one of Molnar s patients, Nathan contracts a rare STD called Roiphe s and travels to Toronto, determined to meet the man who discovered the syndrome. Dr. Barry Roiphe, Nathan learns, now studies his own adult daughter, whose bizarre behavior masks a devastating secret.
320 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 2014
210 people are currently reading
6207 people want to read
About the author
David Cronenberg
42 books247 followersDavid Paul Cronenberg is a Canadian film director and occasional actor.
He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the psychological is typically intertwined with the physical.
In the first half of his career, Cronenberg explored these themes mostly through horror and science fiction, culminating in his visceral and emotional remake of The Fly (1986), with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, followed by Dead Ringers (1988), with Jeremy Irons in the lead role.
Cronenberg has worked with Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), both crime thrillers, and period drama A Dangerous Method (2011), also with Michael Fassbender (Promotheus)and Keira Knightley, and Twilight star Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis (2012) and Maps to the Stars (2014), also featuring Julianne Moore.
Consumed (2014) is the first novel by Cronenberg.
He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the psychological is typically intertwined with the physical.
In the first half of his career, Cronenberg explored these themes mostly through horror and science fiction, culminating in his visceral and emotional remake of The Fly (1986), with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, followed by Dead Ringers (1988), with Jeremy Irons in the lead role.
Cronenberg has worked with Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), both crime thrillers, and period drama A Dangerous Method (2011), also with Michael Fassbender (Promotheus)and Keira Knightley, and Twilight star Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis (2012) and Maps to the Stars (2014), also featuring Julianne Moore.
Consumed (2014) is the first novel by Cronenberg.
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May 8, 2019
”Speaking the words seemed to release them into a void in which they could evaporate unexpectedly; writing them seemed to encase them safely within our skulls, where they could leisurely ripen.”
Aristide and Celestine Arosteguy are celebrated French philosophers as famous for their sexual escapades as for their contributions to a fundamental better understanding of life. They are no longer in their prime, but their attraction for each other is still sustaining, in fact, it is evolving.
”I at first willed my aesthetic for womanly beauty to change in order to accommodate her transformation, so that she remained as beautiful and desirable as ever before, though she was different. And the difference itself became provocative and exciting, as though sex with her was also sex with a new, exotic person who demanded new sexual protocols and new perversities until I didn’t have to will that change anymore because that aesthetic had permanently changed.”
So instead of going out and finding a younger version of Celestine, Arosteguy evolved his conception of female beauty to include the very natural changes that aging creates in the body. Celestine is still beautiful and sexy even in her early sixties.
”Celestine’s body had reminded Naomi of the famous sequence of photos of the nude Simone de Beauvoir taken by the American photographer Art Shay in a Chicago apartment’s bathroom. They both had the same good muscular rump, slightly heavy legs showing age-puckering behind the knees, and slim waist….”
There is a great interview with Simone de Beauvoir that also has the pictures that Art Shay took of her. The pictures that Naomi are referencing are at the bottom of the interview. Here is the link: https://articulosparapensar.wordpress...
Everything is going fine. They are having sex with pretty much everyone they want to. People are enamored with them or maybe more so with their reputations. There is certainly curiosity about what it would be like to have sex with the celebrated couple. After all, with those brilliant minds and their vast experiences, sex would have to reach some new plateau unreachable with an average sexual partner.
Did I say everything was going fine? Well, except for the fact that Celestine is convinced that a hive of insects is nested in her left breast. This disturbance in her head is not Apotemnophilia or Body Integrity Identity Disorder, but it is certainly some subset of those mental illnesses.
Things spiral out of control in ways that only two elite, intellectual minds can conceive.
Nathan is a medical journalist who chases down unusual stories regarding illness. His girlfriend Naomi is also a journalist who looks for any stories of the weird or the bizarre. They are neurotically tech savvy. David Cronenberg highlights gadgets even mentioning the brand names and all those beautifully reassuring letters and numbers designating the model number. This was annoying to some reviewers, but for me it just lent more authenticity to the fact that these two journalists are serious tech nerds.
Naomi is chasing down the story on Arosteguy in Japan. Nathan is in Toronto temporarily staying with a Doctor Roiphe who is famous for lending his name to an STD that Nathan recently acquired while sleeping with someone he was writing about. Naomi and Nathan both believe in being embedded or should I say emBEDded with their sources.
The stories of both reporters overlap when Roiphe’s daughter proves to be connected with Celestine and Arosteguy. Chase Roiphe has a particular disorder that has her slicing off pieces of her body... sushi style.
Yeah, anything you can think of, someone is doing it to themselves for entertainment purposes.
Nathan and Naomi are exchanging reports about what they are discovering about their sources. Both are starting to have thoughts they’ve never had before. The association with these people, who are beyond just uninhibited, are having detrimental influences. These people are psychologically damaged to the point that nothing can just be normal anymore. Everything has to be a stretched to new levels of sensory excess.
”His hands were powerful around her long neck. Her face was twisted into a beautiful, open-mouthed, terrifying expression of ecstasy, and the fantasy-Nathan knew that it was the end of sex, that there could be no more sex after this sex.”
Pushing the boundaries are fun. It releases all kinds of cool chemicals in our brains and gives us a sense of euphoria that can become a drug. Some people have to physically work out every day, sometimes several times a day, because endorphins are like candy to their brains. Dopamine plays a role in every addiction we have. When dating your spouse you were probably floating in a sea of dopamine (you dope :-)) If you wonder why your wife looked like Ingrid Bergman for the first two years you knew her...well you probably need to blame dopamine. If your husband looked like Cary Grant...well that was probably dopamine too. Regarding your relationship if you hear yourself saying...I must have been crazy...you probably were, or at least dopamine was giving everything a soft focus that impaired your ability to make rational decisions.
It’s okay though, it is all part of nature’s plan for reproduction.
So what happens if you have done everything you can think of to trigger all those wonderful chemicals in your brain? Nothing is working anymore. Desperation is now your sidecar companion. You are doing things you would have never considered doing before and they are starting to feel not only acceptable, but normal. You are addicted to “deviant” behavior.
David Cronenberg is best known for being a Hollywood director. His films tend to focus on body horror. A great example is Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. I’ve also watched his films History of Violence and Crash, but I realized as I was researching his body of work, before reading this book, that there are several films of his that I still need to see.
In this book he certainly continues to explore his obsession with what can happen to the human body, to the human mind, and what horrors we are capable of perpetrating on ourselves. This book was strangely compelling. I could not stop reading it despite at times shuddering over the gruesome depiction of events. The ending felt a little abrupt, not that he left things dangling, I just could have used a few more pages to let my jumbled neurons relax and a cool down period to let my tensed muscles unclench. This book will unnerve you, but at the same time it is a cautionary tale about letting your mind and your desire take you too far.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Aristide and Celestine Arosteguy are celebrated French philosophers as famous for their sexual escapades as for their contributions to a fundamental better understanding of life. They are no longer in their prime, but their attraction for each other is still sustaining, in fact, it is evolving.
”I at first willed my aesthetic for womanly beauty to change in order to accommodate her transformation, so that she remained as beautiful and desirable as ever before, though she was different. And the difference itself became provocative and exciting, as though sex with her was also sex with a new, exotic person who demanded new sexual protocols and new perversities until I didn’t have to will that change anymore because that aesthetic had permanently changed.”
So instead of going out and finding a younger version of Celestine, Arosteguy evolved his conception of female beauty to include the very natural changes that aging creates in the body. Celestine is still beautiful and sexy even in her early sixties.
”Celestine’s body had reminded Naomi of the famous sequence of photos of the nude Simone de Beauvoir taken by the American photographer Art Shay in a Chicago apartment’s bathroom. They both had the same good muscular rump, slightly heavy legs showing age-puckering behind the knees, and slim waist….”
There is a great interview with Simone de Beauvoir that also has the pictures that Art Shay took of her. The pictures that Naomi are referencing are at the bottom of the interview. Here is the link: https://articulosparapensar.wordpress...
Everything is going fine. They are having sex with pretty much everyone they want to. People are enamored with them or maybe more so with their reputations. There is certainly curiosity about what it would be like to have sex with the celebrated couple. After all, with those brilliant minds and their vast experiences, sex would have to reach some new plateau unreachable with an average sexual partner.
Did I say everything was going fine? Well, except for the fact that Celestine is convinced that a hive of insects is nested in her left breast. This disturbance in her head is not Apotemnophilia or Body Integrity Identity Disorder, but it is certainly some subset of those mental illnesses.
Things spiral out of control in ways that only two elite, intellectual minds can conceive.
Nathan is a medical journalist who chases down unusual stories regarding illness. His girlfriend Naomi is also a journalist who looks for any stories of the weird or the bizarre. They are neurotically tech savvy. David Cronenberg highlights gadgets even mentioning the brand names and all those beautifully reassuring letters and numbers designating the model number. This was annoying to some reviewers, but for me it just lent more authenticity to the fact that these two journalists are serious tech nerds.
Naomi is chasing down the story on Arosteguy in Japan. Nathan is in Toronto temporarily staying with a Doctor Roiphe who is famous for lending his name to an STD that Nathan recently acquired while sleeping with someone he was writing about. Naomi and Nathan both believe in being embedded or should I say emBEDded with their sources.
The stories of both reporters overlap when Roiphe’s daughter proves to be connected with Celestine and Arosteguy. Chase Roiphe has a particular disorder that has her slicing off pieces of her body... sushi style.
Yeah, anything you can think of, someone is doing it to themselves for entertainment purposes.
Nathan and Naomi are exchanging reports about what they are discovering about their sources. Both are starting to have thoughts they’ve never had before. The association with these people, who are beyond just uninhibited, are having detrimental influences. These people are psychologically damaged to the point that nothing can just be normal anymore. Everything has to be a stretched to new levels of sensory excess.
”His hands were powerful around her long neck. Her face was twisted into a beautiful, open-mouthed, terrifying expression of ecstasy, and the fantasy-Nathan knew that it was the end of sex, that there could be no more sex after this sex.”
Pushing the boundaries are fun. It releases all kinds of cool chemicals in our brains and gives us a sense of euphoria that can become a drug. Some people have to physically work out every day, sometimes several times a day, because endorphins are like candy to their brains. Dopamine plays a role in every addiction we have. When dating your spouse you were probably floating in a sea of dopamine (you dope :-)) If you wonder why your wife looked like Ingrid Bergman for the first two years you knew her...well you probably need to blame dopamine. If your husband looked like Cary Grant...well that was probably dopamine too. Regarding your relationship if you hear yourself saying...I must have been crazy...you probably were, or at least dopamine was giving everything a soft focus that impaired your ability to make rational decisions.
It’s okay though, it is all part of nature’s plan for reproduction.
So what happens if you have done everything you can think of to trigger all those wonderful chemicals in your brain? Nothing is working anymore. Desperation is now your sidecar companion. You are doing things you would have never considered doing before and they are starting to feel not only acceptable, but normal. You are addicted to “deviant” behavior.
David Cronenberg is best known for being a Hollywood director. His films tend to focus on body horror. A great example is Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. I’ve also watched his films History of Violence and Crash, but I realized as I was researching his body of work, before reading this book, that there are several films of his that I still need to see.
In this book he certainly continues to explore his obsession with what can happen to the human body, to the human mind, and what horrors we are capable of perpetrating on ourselves. This book was strangely compelling. I could not stop reading it despite at times shuddering over the gruesome depiction of events. The ending felt a little abrupt, not that he left things dangling, I just could have used a few more pages to let my jumbled neurons relax and a cool down period to let my tensed muscles unclench. This book will unnerve you, but at the same time it is a cautionary tale about letting your mind and your desire take you too far.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
February 7, 2017
This book is a multidimensional rollercoaster ride into a hallway of warped mirrors. Nothing is as it seems. We begin with a sensationalistic news story and two overly eager journalists who would sell theirs souls for a good angle. The narrative continues by splitting up into surreal and bizarre directions which defy rationality and linearity. Paranoia, conspiracy theories, treachery and madness lead us further into the funhouse. Human grotesqueries and detailed sexual scenes are described with as much precision as the technological tools that so slickly define reality. The reader is plunged into foreign countries and equally foreign aspects of obsession and delusion. While the plot tends to meander at times, and the coincidences occasionally approach implausibility, there is a dangerous lure of possibility that satisfied this reader.
Many thanks to my friend Edward Lorn for reading this with me, and special thanks to the person who gifted me this book.
Many thanks to my friend Edward Lorn for reading this with me, and special thanks to the person who gifted me this book.
December 23, 2022
Consumed is the debut novel by filmmaker David Cronenberg, whose body of work includes such landmark films as Scanners, Videodrome, The Dead Zone, The Fly, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. This novel, published in 2014, might satisfy fans of the Canadian director, those who thrill at bizarre, often gruesome studies of mutation and the fusion of biology with technology. I found it as sterile and nauseating as watching a surgery and seeing more than I wanted to. It's less of a novel than it is a bad dream brought on by spicy foods.
The story concerns Information Age freelancers Naomi Seberg and Nathan Math, who practice yellow journalism at its most sensational. Naomi's specialty is crime. Nathan's is medicine. Professional partners as well as sexual, the couple are obsessed with buying discounted consumer electronics and camera equipment in airports. We meet them as Nathan phones Naomi from Budapest, where he's missing a 1055mm macro lens he needs for a story on a black market organ clinic. Naomi, who borrowed the lens, is in Paris, where she's meeting a clandestine contact for information on a grisly murder rocking the news.
The victim is Célestine Moreau Arosteguy, a sixty-two year old French philosopher and national treasure along with her husband, sixty-seven year old philosopher Aristide Arosteguy. Célestine's remains were found in the couple's apartment and cannibalism is believed to be involved. Arosteguy left France for a lecture tour of Japan three days before his wife was found. His location remains unknown. Naomi's contact is a French bad boy named Hervé Blomqvist, one of Célestine's former students and lovers. Stripping for Naomi to model his peculiarly bent male anatomy, she refuses to sleep with him, but does allow Hervé to put her in touch with someone in Japan who can get her to see Arosteguy.
In Budapest, Nathan observes a rogue surgeon preparing a multiple lumpectomy on a Slovenian patient named Dunja, whose breast cancer is being radically treated by radioactive pellets. Following the procedure, neither Dunja's sex drive or Nathan's morality prevent them from engaging in unsafe sex, with the patient confident that Nathan's fetish for disease makes her desirable to him. Meeting Naomi in Amsterdam, Nathan's mind drifts into fantasies of Célestine Arosteguy and eating Naomi's breast. She takes some photos of his penis with her iPhone and departs for Japan. Nathan receives a call from Dunja notifying him that she's tested positive for an STD she calls Roiphe's Disease.
En route to Japan, Naomi receives a call from Nathan, who's in Toronto with a new story. His subject is Dr. Barry Roiphe, who diagnosed the STD bearing his name in the '60s and faded into obscurity after it was (supposedly) eradicated. Nathan mentions that he's probably contracted Roiphe's and given it to Naomi. Her anger with Nathan as well as her attraction to "Ari" prompts Naomi to surrender to his seductions and move in with the man who may or may not have eaten his wife. Nathan accepts an offer from Dr. Roiphe to move in with him and his beguiling daughter Chase, who was a student of Arosteguy's. Nathan and Naomi learn their stories are part of one big story.
Keywords for Consumed include:
-- Marxism
-- Cannibalism
-- 3-D printing
-- Venereal disease transmittal
-- Cannes Film Festival
-- North Korea
-- Nikon products
-- Apotemnophilia (sexual attraction to amputees)
-- Noodles and shrimp (Japanese cuisine)
-- Misshapen penises
I'd like to be a David Cronenberg fan. I gave it another shot here. I want to be able to say that Dead Ringers is a grossly overlooked film. I'd like to be able to report that I watched Rabid and dug it. It's not only that Consumed is quite often bizarre and occasionally sick, but worse, it's boring. There's a clinical aloofness and tech obsession to it that I'd expect from a nutritionist, or maybe a navigation app, but when it comes to movies or books, that's really not my thing. I want a narrative where each scene resonates emotionally with the last and the sum of those scenes make me think or feel something I hadn't before.
There's a catastrophic info dump in this novel, pages 176-233, where Cronenberg shifts the narration to Arosteguy as this character tells Naomi whether he killed his wife. And it absolutely kills the book. Arosteguy tells us about Cannes, tells us about insect religion, tells us about North Korean agents and talks about intellectuals with diseased minds and access to too much Internet. The telling goes on and on and on and you know what: If Marvin the Martian is watching Earth and examining human beings who in any way resemble David Cronenberg characters, he's right, we don't deserve to survive. Blow me up. Put me out of my misery.
The story concerns Information Age freelancers Naomi Seberg and Nathan Math, who practice yellow journalism at its most sensational. Naomi's specialty is crime. Nathan's is medicine. Professional partners as well as sexual, the couple are obsessed with buying discounted consumer electronics and camera equipment in airports. We meet them as Nathan phones Naomi from Budapest, where he's missing a 1055mm macro lens he needs for a story on a black market organ clinic. Naomi, who borrowed the lens, is in Paris, where she's meeting a clandestine contact for information on a grisly murder rocking the news.
The victim is Célestine Moreau Arosteguy, a sixty-two year old French philosopher and national treasure along with her husband, sixty-seven year old philosopher Aristide Arosteguy. Célestine's remains were found in the couple's apartment and cannibalism is believed to be involved. Arosteguy left France for a lecture tour of Japan three days before his wife was found. His location remains unknown. Naomi's contact is a French bad boy named Hervé Blomqvist, one of Célestine's former students and lovers. Stripping for Naomi to model his peculiarly bent male anatomy, she refuses to sleep with him, but does allow Hervé to put her in touch with someone in Japan who can get her to see Arosteguy.
In Budapest, Nathan observes a rogue surgeon preparing a multiple lumpectomy on a Slovenian patient named Dunja, whose breast cancer is being radically treated by radioactive pellets. Following the procedure, neither Dunja's sex drive or Nathan's morality prevent them from engaging in unsafe sex, with the patient confident that Nathan's fetish for disease makes her desirable to him. Meeting Naomi in Amsterdam, Nathan's mind drifts into fantasies of Célestine Arosteguy and eating Naomi's breast. She takes some photos of his penis with her iPhone and departs for Japan. Nathan receives a call from Dunja notifying him that she's tested positive for an STD she calls Roiphe's Disease.
En route to Japan, Naomi receives a call from Nathan, who's in Toronto with a new story. His subject is Dr. Barry Roiphe, who diagnosed the STD bearing his name in the '60s and faded into obscurity after it was (supposedly) eradicated. Nathan mentions that he's probably contracted Roiphe's and given it to Naomi. Her anger with Nathan as well as her attraction to "Ari" prompts Naomi to surrender to his seductions and move in with the man who may or may not have eaten his wife. Nathan accepts an offer from Dr. Roiphe to move in with him and his beguiling daughter Chase, who was a student of Arosteguy's. Nathan and Naomi learn their stories are part of one big story.
Keywords for Consumed include:
-- Marxism
-- Cannibalism
-- 3-D printing
-- Venereal disease transmittal
-- Cannes Film Festival
-- North Korea
-- Nikon products
-- Apotemnophilia (sexual attraction to amputees)
-- Noodles and shrimp (Japanese cuisine)
-- Misshapen penises
I'd like to be a David Cronenberg fan. I gave it another shot here. I want to be able to say that Dead Ringers is a grossly overlooked film. I'd like to be able to report that I watched Rabid and dug it. It's not only that Consumed is quite often bizarre and occasionally sick, but worse, it's boring. There's a clinical aloofness and tech obsession to it that I'd expect from a nutritionist, or maybe a navigation app, but when it comes to movies or books, that's really not my thing. I want a narrative where each scene resonates emotionally with the last and the sum of those scenes make me think or feel something I hadn't before.
There's a catastrophic info dump in this novel, pages 176-233, where Cronenberg shifts the narration to Arosteguy as this character tells Naomi whether he killed his wife. And it absolutely kills the book. Arosteguy tells us about Cannes, tells us about insect religion, tells us about North Korean agents and talks about intellectuals with diseased minds and access to too much Internet. The telling goes on and on and on and you know what: If Marvin the Martian is watching Earth and examining human beings who in any way resemble David Cronenberg characters, he's right, we don't deserve to survive. Blow me up. Put me out of my misery.
August 11, 2021
4.5 stars
I had put off reading this one because it doesn’t generally have good ratings and as a huge Cronenberg fan I was nervous that I would be disappointed. I shouldn’t have taken any notice of the ratings because this is one of my favourite books I’ve read this year. I really hope he writes more novels. Next time I won’t wait to pick it up.
I had put off reading this one because it doesn’t generally have good ratings and as a huge Cronenberg fan I was nervous that I would be disappointed. I shouldn’t have taken any notice of the ratings because this is one of my favourite books I’ve read this year. I really hope he writes more novels. Next time I won’t wait to pick it up.
July 26, 2022
He's one of my favourite filmmakers but unfortunately his attempt to write a novel here was a massive fail, in my opinion this was absolutely garbage.
The characters were unlikeable, it was just really boring and pretentious.
He should stick to filmmaking and I'm really looking forward to his next one, Crimes of the Future.
The characters were unlikeable, it was just really boring and pretentious.
He should stick to filmmaking and I'm really looking forward to his next one, Crimes of the Future.
November 26, 2019
Έδιτ 1
Πρώτη συγγραφική προσπάθεια του αγαπημένου Ντέιβιντ Κρόνενμπεργκ και κατ' εμέ θα έλεγα άκρως επιτυχημένη. Ένα βιβλίο πρόκληση για όλους τους φαν του Καναδού σκηνοθέτη και όχι μόνο.
Ό,τι ακριβώς προβλημάτιζε τον Κρόνενμπεργκ τόσα χρόνια και προσπαθούσε με τις ταινίες του να το μοιραστεί μαζί μας βρίσκεται μέσα σε αυτό το βιβλίο. Κατάχρηση τεχνολογίας, διαστροφή, θανατηφόρες αρρώστιες, ψυχικά νοσήματα, παραϊατρική, υπερκαταναλωτισμός και πάει λέγοντας.
Ο Νείθαν και η Ναόμι μπλέκουν σε μια περίεργη υπόθεση που ξεκινάει από μια δολοφονία στο Παρίσι και καταλήγει στην Βόρεια Κορέα του Κιμ Γιονγκ Ουν και σε μια θεωρία συνωμοσίας που κανείς δεν μπορεί να καταλάβει αν είναι πραγματικά αληθινή ή ακόμα μια "οφθαλμαπάτη" του διαδικτύου.
Φυσικά, όσοι έχουν παρακολουθήσει το έργο του Κρόνενμπεργκ θα είναι εξοικειωμένοι με την εμμονή του δημιουργού με το ανθρώπινο σώμα. Μέσα στις σελίδες λοιπόν, διαφαίνεται αυτή η εμμονή με έναν μοναδικό τρόπο. Εικόνες από ακρωτηριασμένα κορμιά, παραμορφωμένα γεννητικά όργανα, προσθετικά μέλη ξεπετάγονται και σφηνώνονται για τα καλά μέσα στο μυαλό μας. Απόδειξη πως ο συγγραφέας Κρόνενμπεργκ μπορεί να δημιουργήσει παρόμοιες εικόνες με αυτές του σκηνοθέτη Κρόνενμπεργκ.
Όσοι αγαπάτε τον σκηνοθέτη αξίζει να διαβάστε το βιβλίο, όσοι πάλι δεν τον γνωρίζετε είναι μια καλή ευκαιρία να καταδυθείτε στον γεμάτο, αποτρόπαιες εικόνες, συμβολισμούς, αλληγορίες και τρόμο, κόσμο του μεγάλου αυτού δημιουργού.
5/5
Πρώτη συγγραφική προσπάθεια του αγαπημένου Ντέιβιντ Κρόνενμπεργκ και κατ' εμέ θα έλεγα άκρως επιτυχημένη. Ένα βιβλίο πρόκληση για όλους τους φαν του Καναδού σκηνοθέτη και όχι μόνο.
Ό,τι ακριβώς προβλημάτιζε τον Κρόνενμπεργκ τόσα χρόνια και προσπαθούσε με τις ταινίες του να το μοιραστεί μαζί μας βρίσκεται μέσα σε αυτό το βιβλίο. Κατάχρηση τεχνολογίας, διαστροφή, θανατηφόρες αρρώστιες, ψυχικά νοσήματα, παραϊατρική, υπερκαταναλωτισμός και πάει λέγοντας.
Ο Νείθαν και η Ναόμι μπλέκουν σε μια περίεργη υπόθεση που ξεκινάει από μια δολοφονία στο Παρίσι και καταλήγει στην Βόρεια Κορέα του Κιμ Γιονγκ Ουν και σε μια θεωρία συνωμοσίας που κανείς δεν μπορεί να καταλάβει αν είναι πραγματικά αληθινή ή ακόμα μια "οφθαλμαπάτη" του διαδικτύου.
Φυσικά, όσοι έχουν παρακολουθήσει το έργο του Κρόνενμπεργκ θα είναι εξοικειωμένοι με την εμμονή του δημιουργού με το ανθρώπινο σώμα. Μέσα στις σελίδες λοιπόν, διαφαίνεται αυτή η εμμονή με έναν μοναδικό τρόπο. Εικόνες από ακρωτηριασμένα κορμιά, παραμορφωμένα γεννητικά όργανα, προσθετικά μέλη ξεπετάγονται και σφηνώνονται για τα καλά μέσα στο μυαλό μας. Απόδειξη πως ο συγγραφέας Κρόνενμπεργκ μπορεί να δημιουργήσει παρόμοιες εικόνες με αυτές του σκηνοθέτη Κρόνενμπεργκ.
Όσοι αγαπάτε τον σκηνοθέτη αξίζει να διαβάστε το βιβλίο, όσοι πάλι δεν τον γνωρίζετε είναι μια καλή ευκαιρία να καταδυθείτε στον γεμάτο, αποτρόπαιες εικόνες, συμβολισμούς, αλληγορίες και τρόμο, κόσμο του μεγάλου αυτού δημιουργού.
5/5
December 30, 2025
Whatever happened to Celestine's left breast?
'Consumed' was in parts very typical Cronenberg and in parts not. Exploring borders of perversity, sexuality, sensuality, thinking not in organs and bodies, but in lumps and bumps and flops and protrusions, his unique mind does its work again. I never know with Cronenberg's stories whether they are some revolutionary metaphor or if he's being literally sick. In any way, this book was more accessible for me than some of his earlier work, but of course carries his signature all over.
'Consumed' was in parts very typical Cronenberg and in parts not. Exploring borders of perversity, sexuality, sensuality, thinking not in organs and bodies, but in lumps and bumps and flops and protrusions, his unique mind does its work again. I never know with Cronenberg's stories whether they are some revolutionary metaphor or if he's being literally sick. In any way, this book was more accessible for me than some of his earlier work, but of course carries his signature all over.
December 16, 2014
David Cronenberg is a film director who needs no introduction, and Consumed is his first novel. It's a difficult book to write about - Consumed is an esoteric, cinematic thriller, full of references to and observations about many different topics, its setting switching constantly between the countries and continents of the world.
It's hard to not see Consumed as a book written by a film director; the novel is very cinematic in scope, sweeping across great cities of the world as it follows two journalists on a quest to discover the true nature of Aristide Arosteguy, a philosopher suspected of murdering and eating his wife. But as the novel moves forward, Arosteguy moves into the background and Consumed becomes the stage for the author's many interests - the relationship between philosophy, technology and sex being just a small part of them. Much of the book borders on voyeurism - both characters are photojournalists, and the process of taking photographs is almost fetishized - as the world of Consumed at times seems to be almost a dark reflection seen through a lens, and something even Cronenberg wouldn't be allowed to capture on film.
Still, for all its many interesting threads - from Marxist philosophy, East/West differences, NIkon cameras and even North Korea - Consumed is largely disorganized and without a clear path to connect all threads. Its plot moves swiftly but chaotically, asking many questions but answering very few. I think it's a novel with potential for a small but dedicated cult following - comprised of those willing to devote enough time to untangle all that Cronenberg has put in it - but it has left me disappointed and feeling numb.
It's hard to not see Consumed as a book written by a film director; the novel is very cinematic in scope, sweeping across great cities of the world as it follows two journalists on a quest to discover the true nature of Aristide Arosteguy, a philosopher suspected of murdering and eating his wife. But as the novel moves forward, Arosteguy moves into the background and Consumed becomes the stage for the author's many interests - the relationship between philosophy, technology and sex being just a small part of them. Much of the book borders on voyeurism - both characters are photojournalists, and the process of taking photographs is almost fetishized - as the world of Consumed at times seems to be almost a dark reflection seen through a lens, and something even Cronenberg wouldn't be allowed to capture on film.
Still, for all its many interesting threads - from Marxist philosophy, East/West differences, NIkon cameras and even North Korea - Consumed is largely disorganized and without a clear path to connect all threads. Its plot moves swiftly but chaotically, asking many questions but answering very few. I think it's a novel with potential for a small but dedicated cult following - comprised of those willing to devote enough time to untangle all that Cronenberg has put in it - but it has left me disappointed and feeling numb.
December 25, 2014
I remember reading about Calvin Klein’s daughter. Every time she pulled down a lover’s pants, she was confronted by her father’s name on the band of his underwear. A total sex killer.
I should've known better. It was about this time last year that I stumbled into Night Film. There is something about the holidays which suggests or portends a post-modern rendering of the Uncanny. If my wife hadn't been sleeping, I would've screamed upon completing this. If I had been stupid enough to buy it, I would've thrown it out the front door and onto the rainswept street, allowing nature to pulp it appropriately. That's enough, I don't want to think about this anymore. Though it is coincidence that the novel's plot has a great deal in common with the recent hacking incident at Sony.
I should've known better. It was about this time last year that I stumbled into Night Film. There is something about the holidays which suggests or portends a post-modern rendering of the Uncanny. If my wife hadn't been sleeping, I would've screamed upon completing this. If I had been stupid enough to buy it, I would've thrown it out the front door and onto the rainswept street, allowing nature to pulp it appropriately. That's enough, I don't want to think about this anymore. Though it is coincidence that the novel's plot has a great deal in common with the recent hacking incident at Sony.
October 1, 2014
“Could he really say anything about classical concepts of art, and therefore beauty, being based on harmony, as opposed to modern theories, post-industrial-revolution, post-psychoanalysis, based on sickness and dysfunction?”
The master of body horror, David Cronenberg, has written an esoteric debut novel that proves that the director is confident with a narrative story beyond dialogue and images. He allows the reader to form the visuals themselves that he graphically describes in print. Cronenberg leaves some psychological motivations to the imagination, but as far as vivid body mutilation, not much is left to ponder there. He captures it, almost casually, raw, and sometimes with an absurd delicacy. It isn’t for the weak of stomach or the faint of heart! And, like certain exotic diets, it won’t go down or digest well with everybody.
Two photojournalist lovers, Naomi and Nathan, often communicate through their technology because they are usually traveling for work at different ends of the world. Here, Naomi is in Paris investigating a celebrity academic couple, Aristide and Célestine Arosteguy, existential and possibly nihilistic philosophers. An allegation that Aristide has killed his wife, mutilated her, and eaten her, is being investigated. Meanwhile, Nathan travels to Budapest to photograph an unlicensed surgeon perform cutting edge surgery on a young woman with breast cancer. How these two stories finally connect is through people, technology, a rare STD, North Korea, global politics, cannibalism, Body Integrity Disorder (particularly apotemnophilia) and Cronenberg's active, vivid imagination about the concept of beauty and artistic innovation.
Cronenberg pulls off a quasi-linear narrative (albeit with some accessible jumps back in time to reveal history) that, while shocking, failed to really seduce me while I was reading it, fascinating though it was. It was cold, cerebral, and detached. However, I waited several days to write this review to see how it would linger in me. My conclusion is that the director was effective in transmitting florid and shadowy images behind my eyes, even as the characters fade. And, as a film director, it is what he does best. He frightens through hyper-surrealism, and leaves you with fears beyond the savage acts of his characters. The finale is both coy and suggestive, which conveys that the horror of being monitored, of privacy quashed by a terroristic government, may not be many steps apart from our society of social media fetishism. The crimes and the criminals have some blurry lines to navigate, and our obsession with images, the “other,” and social media have consequences.
There are many themes to explore here, and Cronenberg is no doubt an intrepid genius and techno-obsessed (especially Apple and Nikon). I have to admit, though, that I didn’t enjoy this book, but was riveted by his combo of psychological and body horror, and felt compelled to see where it was going. Like watching surgery on LSD. I did feel that Cronenberg’s characters are largely straw-like—the relationships often felt contrived—selected only to further his themes and harrowing plot. Aristide did come alive, as did Sophie Roiphe, at intervals. But it was not enough to convince me to empathize. Of the Davids, I prefer Lynch.
This is certainly a filmic book, in the Cronenberg-esque vintage way. And this may appeal to certain fans of the macabre. But, it is a matter of taste. It went down hard and cold for me.
The master of body horror, David Cronenberg, has written an esoteric debut novel that proves that the director is confident with a narrative story beyond dialogue and images. He allows the reader to form the visuals themselves that he graphically describes in print. Cronenberg leaves some psychological motivations to the imagination, but as far as vivid body mutilation, not much is left to ponder there. He captures it, almost casually, raw, and sometimes with an absurd delicacy. It isn’t for the weak of stomach or the faint of heart! And, like certain exotic diets, it won’t go down or digest well with everybody.
Two photojournalist lovers, Naomi and Nathan, often communicate through their technology because they are usually traveling for work at different ends of the world. Here, Naomi is in Paris investigating a celebrity academic couple, Aristide and Célestine Arosteguy, existential and possibly nihilistic philosophers. An allegation that Aristide has killed his wife, mutilated her, and eaten her, is being investigated. Meanwhile, Nathan travels to Budapest to photograph an unlicensed surgeon perform cutting edge surgery on a young woman with breast cancer. How these two stories finally connect is through people, technology, a rare STD, North Korea, global politics, cannibalism, Body Integrity Disorder (particularly apotemnophilia) and Cronenberg's active, vivid imagination about the concept of beauty and artistic innovation.
Cronenberg pulls off a quasi-linear narrative (albeit with some accessible jumps back in time to reveal history) that, while shocking, failed to really seduce me while I was reading it, fascinating though it was. It was cold, cerebral, and detached. However, I waited several days to write this review to see how it would linger in me. My conclusion is that the director was effective in transmitting florid and shadowy images behind my eyes, even as the characters fade. And, as a film director, it is what he does best. He frightens through hyper-surrealism, and leaves you with fears beyond the savage acts of his characters. The finale is both coy and suggestive, which conveys that the horror of being monitored, of privacy quashed by a terroristic government, may not be many steps apart from our society of social media fetishism. The crimes and the criminals have some blurry lines to navigate, and our obsession with images, the “other,” and social media have consequences.
There are many themes to explore here, and Cronenberg is no doubt an intrepid genius and techno-obsessed (especially Apple and Nikon). I have to admit, though, that I didn’t enjoy this book, but was riveted by his combo of psychological and body horror, and felt compelled to see where it was going. Like watching surgery on LSD. I did feel that Cronenberg’s characters are largely straw-like—the relationships often felt contrived—selected only to further his themes and harrowing plot. Aristide did come alive, as did Sophie Roiphe, at intervals. But it was not enough to convince me to empathize. Of the Davids, I prefer Lynch.
This is certainly a filmic book, in the Cronenberg-esque vintage way. And this may appeal to certain fans of the macabre. But, it is a matter of taste. It went down hard and cold for me.
July 5, 2020
I have no idea why I read this entire thing. Maybe I just hate myself. Maybe because I somehow doubted it could end as badly as it began, and it wound up being worse. The writing style is dispassionately in-your-face, a sort of emphatic blandness. I get that the style is meant to be a clinical portrayal of "horror" and "philosophy," but the ham-handed use of brutally cold language serves only to emphasize the far too obvious message of the book. The graphic body horror and frightening sexuality did, occasionally, serve to make me uncomfortable, but after a while I totally lost all sensitization to the word "breast."
The ending is terrible. I actually had to go online and research to find out if the ebook I was reading had been cut off, because it ends so abruptly. Turns out at least a few other reviews found the sudden stop jarring, and it doesn't leave me wanting more. It only leaves me angry that I read 270 pages of nonsense in the hopes that it would eventually say something that wasn't apparent on the first page. It didn't.
The ending is terrible. I actually had to go online and research to find out if the ebook I was reading had been cut off, because it ends so abruptly. Turns out at least a few other reviews found the sudden stop jarring, and it doesn't leave me wanting more. It only leaves me angry that I read 270 pages of nonsense in the hopes that it would eventually say something that wasn't apparent on the first page. It didn't.
October 3, 2014
"Let me unbox you..."
-Aristide Arosteguy
This is a novel best suited to two audiences: those looking for innovative horror, and people interested in visionary possibilities of new media. It would also be good for fans of first-time novelist David Cronenberg's work in film, but I suspect they'd fall into the first two categories.
(I fall into all three, being a lifelong Cronenberg fan since I first saw the mad genius of Videodrome.)
Consumed is, as one might expect from the author, a challenging and strange book. I can describe the plot like this: two journalists investigate a Parisian crime, wherein a husband killed and ate part of his wife. The (former) couple were influential philosophers, Célestine and Aristide Arosteguy, and a cute parody of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. They made waves with a theory of consumer society (hence one meaning of the title). Naomi and Nathan are lovers and colleagues, fellow gadget hounds, but they usually live apart, and follow their joint inquiry along separate, parallel lines.
What follows is a picaresque or road trip, as the two N's travel the world: Paris, Japan, Canada, Hungary, Cannes, Holland. Cronenberg teasingly refuses to give us much local color, offering instead the thin, usually tech-mediated views of our protagonists, or sketches of the people they meet.
So much for the plot's initial action. But I'd also need to tell you more about the book's style. Consumed adores its surfaces and fetishes. It lovingly describes clothing, technologies, record covers (oh yes), body parts, and interior decorating exactly as far as major characters obsess over them. Technology looms large; this is very much a novel about modern digital devices and how we intimately use them.
Consumed is also about pushing against discussing awkward or awful topics, mostly in a horrific way. Without spoilering too much, I can mention offhandedly cannibalism, murder, autocannibalism, apotemnophilia, acrotomophilia, deformed body parts, sexually transmitted diseases, cancerous body parts, and medical fetishism. Which brings us back to Cronenberg's tone. He doesn't revel in these topics, but comes to them thoughtfully, from a character's mind, almost (and sometimes literally) clinically.
Back to the plot, and now I must hide some words, because after about 40% of the book Naomi meets
In a sense Consumed is an update of Videodrome, a deep dive into our current media obsessions and how they warp (and delight) ourselves. "Naomi was in the screen" is how it begins. In a sense this is about limitation, especially by the end. Yet Cronenberg isn't simply a techno-skeptic, at least not in the text; he's too fond of devices and their powers. He sees their depths, and shares them with us through his well-informed, perverse vision.
It's also a horror novel by any stretch of the term. There's body horror, dread, suspense, and even a touch of something deeper by the end.
It is also funny, although not everyone laughs with me. There are running gags, like many characters' obsession with landing a New Yorker story, or in Naomi and Nathan's banter, or nearly everything the bad Hungarian surgeon says.
I'd recommend this to the audiences mentioned above.
NB: I didn't read Consumed, but listened to it as audiobook. William Hurt does a terrific job overall, handling a wide range of accents. He seems especially at home with Aristide Arosteguy's voice. Early on Hurt inserts odd, non-Shatnerian pauses into sentences that disconcert, but this ceases by the middle of the book. It's a pleasure to listen to.
April 30, 2015
It would have been five stars if not for the ending. Now I don't mind an open ending that leaves you hanging and musing about all the potential outcomes, but THIS ending seems deliberately abrupt and unkind to a reader who'd avidly turned the pages, consumed (yes - pun intended) by the sordid, bizarre and sexy Cronenberg's world, just to close the back cover with his or hers mouth hanging. A friend of mine said this book required maybe a hundred pages more. I don't know whether it's a hundred, or more likely 20-25, but the CLOSURE is missing. I know it's by Cronenberg's design, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I must like such design. The whole experience was like a fabulous sex orgy without being awarded the orgasm at the end. Otherwise - totally my cup of tea.
May 13, 2019
This book is an intense, bizarre reading experience which amazes and enthralls the reader from the beginning till the end. Get ready to dive into the depraved and grotesque world, created by the notorious film director, David Cronenberg who makes his debut in literature and he certainly doesn't disappoint his loyal cinema audience. The main theme of the novel is Cronenberg's obsession with the relationship between humans and technology, the possibility of mechanical prosthetics to radically transform the human character and behavior, and the nexus of sexuality and machines. Cronenberg explored the above subjects in various films which he directed and, for the most part, written such as ''Crash'' (1996), ''Videodrome'' (1983) and ''eXistenZ'' (1999). ''Consumed'' tells the story of Naomi and Nathan, two journalists and lovers who try to uncover the truth behind an extremely disturbing crime, the murder, and dismemberment of the wife of a world-famous Greek-French philosopher, Aristide Arosteguy in Paris. This the basic premise of the plot which becomes weirder and weirder as the reader is confronted by brutal, nevertheless very well-written, brutal descriptions of cannibalistic actions, innermost sexual fantasies and dark thoughts by the -unlikable- characters. I read in many reviews a harsh critique on the sterilized and dissociative way of Cronenberg's writing manner but I think that the style of ''Consumed'' is the most appropriate as the story and the messages that the writer wishes to impart demand a distanced approach. There is also a bit of information on the subject of philosophy scattered in the text with references to great Western thinkers. Overall, ''Consumed'' is not a book for the uninitiated readers who are not familiar with David Cronenberg's work. On the other hand the devoted fans of his films will definitely enjoy it.
December 22, 2014
The ongoing controversy about The Interview reminded me of the running gag in David Cronenberg’s first novel about ‘Kimunism’ and the The Judicious Use of Insects. This fictitious movie causes controversy and upheaval at Cannes, as it is supported by France’s most intellectually daring philosopher couple, who are sympathetic towards the North Korean dictatorship (Cronenberg mentions the scandal of Gerard Depardieu renouncing his French citizenship and being personally awarded a Russian passport by Vladimir Putin).
The book opens with the death of the wife, killed and cannibalised by her husband, who is hiding out in Japan as a result. Cronenberg refers to the bizarre case of Issei Sagawa, who murdered and cannabilised a fellow Dutch student at the Sorbonne in 1981. A French judge declared Sagawa to be mentally insane, whereupon he was extradited to Japan, becoming a minor celebrity and even writing restaurant reviews.
What this means is that a lot of the more outlandish plot elements here are, in actual fact, refractions of real events, which adds another dimension to Cronenberg’s theme of the fusion of entertainment, media, technology and politics. We see the story through the eyes of yet another couple, two journalists, whose obsession with the latest gadgets is almost a fetish.
Cronenberg’s experience as a filmmaker allows him to riff authoritatively on the latest camera and recording technology: “...he consumed her body with that lens (the awkwardly named Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED).” There is a very funny scene where Naomi demonstrates the photographic potential of the newest iPhone by taking pictures of Nathan’s erect penis.
Indeed, much of the novel is blackly and bleakly funny, taking in its stride everything from acrotomophilia (a sexual attraction to amputees) to the fictitious Roiphe’s Disease, which Nathan contracts after having sex with a radical surgery patient, to the Worldwide Genital Mutilation Conference, 3D printing as a medical tool and ‘philosospasms’ (Naomi and Nathan’s pet term for their digressive interests).
The discussion of ‘insect politics’ and the ingestion of insects for both religious and nutritive value reminds us, of course, of Cronenberg’s own movies The Fly and his adaptation of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. Indeed, Consumed is very much a love letter to long-term Cronenberg fans, running a sustained trajectory from the ‘body horror’ of his early work to his later interest in identity and gender.
Cronenberg’s writing reflects the dispassioned, steely intelligence of his movies. It is rather fitting that Consumed is a genre hybrid, straddling horror, science fiction and satire. Cronenberg writes with such confidence and insight that it is difficult to imagine this is his first novel. Of course, the attention to detail is very much a result of his director’s eye.
What I found fascinating is how the novel format allows Cronenberg to expand upon his ideas in a much more radical way than he is able to do in his movies – to the extent that a movie based upon Consumed would be almost impossible to make in the current socio-political climate. We do not want to upset the Boy King of North Korea, now do we.
The book opens with the death of the wife, killed and cannibalised by her husband, who is hiding out in Japan as a result. Cronenberg refers to the bizarre case of Issei Sagawa, who murdered and cannabilised a fellow Dutch student at the Sorbonne in 1981. A French judge declared Sagawa to be mentally insane, whereupon he was extradited to Japan, becoming a minor celebrity and even writing restaurant reviews.
What this means is that a lot of the more outlandish plot elements here are, in actual fact, refractions of real events, which adds another dimension to Cronenberg’s theme of the fusion of entertainment, media, technology and politics. We see the story through the eyes of yet another couple, two journalists, whose obsession with the latest gadgets is almost a fetish.
Cronenberg’s experience as a filmmaker allows him to riff authoritatively on the latest camera and recording technology: “...he consumed her body with that lens (the awkwardly named Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED).” There is a very funny scene where Naomi demonstrates the photographic potential of the newest iPhone by taking pictures of Nathan’s erect penis.
Indeed, much of the novel is blackly and bleakly funny, taking in its stride everything from acrotomophilia (a sexual attraction to amputees) to the fictitious Roiphe’s Disease, which Nathan contracts after having sex with a radical surgery patient, to the Worldwide Genital Mutilation Conference, 3D printing as a medical tool and ‘philosospasms’ (Naomi and Nathan’s pet term for their digressive interests).
The discussion of ‘insect politics’ and the ingestion of insects for both religious and nutritive value reminds us, of course, of Cronenberg’s own movies The Fly and his adaptation of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. Indeed, Consumed is very much a love letter to long-term Cronenberg fans, running a sustained trajectory from the ‘body horror’ of his early work to his later interest in identity and gender.
Cronenberg’s writing reflects the dispassioned, steely intelligence of his movies. It is rather fitting that Consumed is a genre hybrid, straddling horror, science fiction and satire. Cronenberg writes with such confidence and insight that it is difficult to imagine this is his first novel. Of course, the attention to detail is very much a result of his director’s eye.
What I found fascinating is how the novel format allows Cronenberg to expand upon his ideas in a much more radical way than he is able to do in his movies – to the extent that a movie based upon Consumed would be almost impossible to make in the current socio-political climate. We do not want to upset the Boy King of North Korea, now do we.
August 20, 2016
75% pročitano i ne mogu dalje. Koliko se u ovoj knjizi jbn ništa ne dešava osim nekih bednih pokušaja da šokira. Da mogu, dao bih nulu.
November 20, 2014
Fans of Cronenberg's films will find many of his signature traits on display in his debut novel: a fetishistic obsession with technology (every electronic device mentioned in the novel is given its full model name and a rundown of its capabilities), a fascination with insects, a coldly dispassionate demeanor, and plenty of psychosexual kink. Unfortunately, where a dispassionate demeanor can set the tone of a film perfectly, it doesn't work as well in a novel, making it very difficult to engage with the characters. It is to Cronenberg's credit that the characters remain interesting even from a distance, but while the cannibalistic murder-mystery at the heart of the novel is compelling, when your story is this twisty and opaque you really need to nail the ending. Alas, in my opinion Cronenberg doesn't. The novel ends too abruptly, which left this reader wondering what was happening. Perhaps that was Cronenberg's intent, but as intriguing as the plot's labyrinthine turns were, I was hoping for at least a moment of revelation to bring it all together. Still, I'm giving this one four stars because it held my undivided attention all the way through and even a lesser Cronenberg project is still something worth experiencing.
December 16, 2014
"Consumed," David Cronenberg's debut novel, is probably my favorite novel published this year. In a way it reads a lot like the work of J.G. Ballard, both in a thematic sense (the sterile, almost clinical relationships between the main characters, the fixation on STDs, the insectile body horror, the perverted/psychotic doctors, and a fascination at the intersection of where technology and the human body meet: indeed, the book has an almost fetish-like obsession with modern technology and social media that borders on resembling a sort of hardcore techno-pornography), and also in a prose sense, in that he loves his bizarre metaphors: I love how a doctor's latex-gloved hand is described thusly: "...the grotesquely swollen knuckles and finger joints looked like goblins wearing translucent latex dresses."
The book is also very funny in a dark way, with some hilariously camp dialogue: chapter one concerns itself with a man filming a highly unorthodox surgical procedure, and the chapter ends with the (clearly insane) doctor exclaiming, "It's a good thing you are not shooting film, I must admit to myself. Her breasts will soon be radioactive, and your film would be fogged as a result!" It's been observed by others that the insane doctor in question bears more than a passing resemblance to Dr. Benway from the novels of William S. Burroughs.
Also, the book's incredibly bizarre and convoluted plotline brings to my mind the work of Thomas Pynchon, especially in the book's second half, as the reader is gradually pulled into a convoluted and murky paranoid conspiracy involving a number of shadowy and sinister technology firms and corporations whose tentacles extend (much like the book's setting) into Paris, Tokyo, and Canada (I find it odd that a book so obsessed with consumerism has no scene is set in the United States).
Throughout the book, Cronenberg discourses at length on everything from chiropteric penes, selfish genes, the iPhone as a "malevolent protean organism," apotemnophilia, poundofflesh.com, "the politics of genital mutilation," Issei Sagawa, cannibalism, John Donne, 3D printing, Samuel Beckett, Schopenhauer's hair, parajournalism, "macrophagic voyeurism," Sartre, and the "Sailor Moon" theme song. It's one of those books where you have no idea where the hell it's going (or even any idea as to what happens next), and perhaps fittingly it ends with more questions raised than answered... though anyone expecting a nice and tidy ending that ties everything up evidentially hasn't seen all too many of Cronenberg's films!
The book is also very funny in a dark way, with some hilariously camp dialogue: chapter one concerns itself with a man filming a highly unorthodox surgical procedure, and the chapter ends with the (clearly insane) doctor exclaiming, "It's a good thing you are not shooting film, I must admit to myself. Her breasts will soon be radioactive, and your film would be fogged as a result!" It's been observed by others that the insane doctor in question bears more than a passing resemblance to Dr. Benway from the novels of William S. Burroughs.
Also, the book's incredibly bizarre and convoluted plotline brings to my mind the work of Thomas Pynchon, especially in the book's second half, as the reader is gradually pulled into a convoluted and murky paranoid conspiracy involving a number of shadowy and sinister technology firms and corporations whose tentacles extend (much like the book's setting) into Paris, Tokyo, and Canada (I find it odd that a book so obsessed with consumerism has no scene is set in the United States).
Throughout the book, Cronenberg discourses at length on everything from chiropteric penes, selfish genes, the iPhone as a "malevolent protean organism," apotemnophilia, poundofflesh.com, "the politics of genital mutilation," Issei Sagawa, cannibalism, John Donne, 3D printing, Samuel Beckett, Schopenhauer's hair, parajournalism, "macrophagic voyeurism," Sartre, and the "Sailor Moon" theme song. It's one of those books where you have no idea where the hell it's going (or even any idea as to what happens next), and perhaps fittingly it ends with more questions raised than answered... though anyone expecting a nice and tidy ending that ties everything up evidentially hasn't seen all too many of Cronenberg's films!
February 6, 2017
Δεν μπορώ να είμαι αντικειμενική γιατί αγαπώ τον Cronenberg, ακόμα και στις πιο βλαμμένες ταινίες του, αγαπώ τους φρικαλέους χαρακτήρες του, την εμμονή του με τα έντομα και την άβολα εθιστική διαστροφή του.
Αγαπώ αυτό το βιβλίο γιατί νιώθω την αγάπη του ίδιου του Cronenberg για αυτό το διεστραμμένο χάρτινο αδερφάκι της Μύγας, του Videodrome και του Dead Zone. Η ιστορία με απογοήτευσε λίγο εκεί προς το τέλος αλλά δεν ξέρω αν αυτ�� έγινε επειδή τελείωσε διαφορετικά απ'ότι ήθελα ή αν απλώς δεν ήθελα να τελειώσει.
Επίσης αν γενικά διαβάζετε ενώ τρώτε ε εδώ μη φάτε
Αγαπώ αυτό το βιβλίο γιατί νιώθω την αγάπη του ίδιου του Cronenberg για αυτό το διεστραμμένο χάρτινο αδερφάκι της Μύγας, του Videodrome και του Dead Zone. Η ιστορία με απογοήτευσε λίγο εκεί προς το τέλος αλλά δεν ξέρω αν αυτ�� έγινε επειδή τελείωσε διαφορετικά απ'ότι ήθελα ή αν απλώς δεν ήθελα να τελειώσει.
Επίσης αν γενικά διαβάζετε ενώ τρώτε ε εδώ μη φάτε
January 5, 2016
It begins as a thriller. Murder in Paris, a libertin couple of philosopher, a kind of bisexual Sartre-Beauvoir trash. The woman was murdered and partially eaten. The husband Arosteguy is suspected. Naomi, photojournalist investigates. His lover, Nathan, photojournalist also, is interested to an Hungarian crazy surgeon.
A novel of Cronenberg. Interrogation: is it a scenario for a failed project? No, it is a real novel. Two remarks in introduction. At first, Cronenberg is a real writer, he has style. And we begin to regret that he spent so much time to make movies and so few for book ( this is the only one). Secondly, we find there all his obsessions and in particular the sex. And the novel allows to go much more far than the cinema. Some people will see only it. It is an error. At Cronenberg, the sex is never the end, rather the way, an instrument of dramaturgy. And it is particularly interesting in the book. For example Naomi and Nathan are addicts to the technology. They buy in the high-tech shops of airports all the last made objects. In fact, they are rarely together. They cross in hotel rooms of airport, but really love each other. They are connected all the time. E-mails, SMS, they photograph theirself and send their photos, dressed, nude, a part of them, everything, in front of, behind. But somewhere, technology is a rempart, it protects them. In fact, the only times when they communicate without fooling themself, it is when they make love. Bodies do not lie. Naomi meets for her investigation a student, lover of the couple of philosopher. She discovers that he suffer from the la Peyronnie disease. It is responsible for a deformation of the penis in erection. Disformed sex, a symbol. It is him who suggests to Naomi making a book of photography. All of the lover of the philosopher and his wife would be naked. The nudity of bodies is less obscene of that of the soul. Cronenberg poses as a moralist. He is undoubtless one of the first post-postmodern (hypermodern ?) novelist with Foster-Walace.
Nathan contracts a STD with a patient of the hungarian surgeon, the Roiphe disease. He decides to meet the doctor Roiphe in Toronto. This one lives alone with his daughter. She presents behaviour disorders. She was an Arosteguy student. Things are linked. Roiphe suggests to Nathan living at his home to work on a book on his daughter. Naomi finds by means of the student Arosteguy is Tokyo. He agrees to speak to her if she installe at his home. He recognizes have killed and eated his wife. Roiphe an Arosteguy are monsters. Naomi and Nathan sign a Faustian pact.
Arosteguy speak about his relation with his wife Célestine. She was persuaded that there were insects in one of her breast. Although the doctors showed the absence of cancer, she decides to make it removed. Only the Hungarian surgeon accepts to do it. In Toronto, Roiphe's daughter reconstitues part of body with a 3D printer. All link in the end.
Never Cronenberg pushed so far his thought on the report to the body, even theory like transhumanism. End is rather surprising with a kind of cyberparanoïa, the demonic spirit being represented by North Korea. A powerful book, at the same level as his best movies. I think that it is an important book.
A novel of Cronenberg. Interrogation: is it a scenario for a failed project? No, it is a real novel. Two remarks in introduction. At first, Cronenberg is a real writer, he has style. And we begin to regret that he spent so much time to make movies and so few for book ( this is the only one). Secondly, we find there all his obsessions and in particular the sex. And the novel allows to go much more far than the cinema. Some people will see only it. It is an error. At Cronenberg, the sex is never the end, rather the way, an instrument of dramaturgy. And it is particularly interesting in the book. For example Naomi and Nathan are addicts to the technology. They buy in the high-tech shops of airports all the last made objects. In fact, they are rarely together. They cross in hotel rooms of airport, but really love each other. They are connected all the time. E-mails, SMS, they photograph theirself and send their photos, dressed, nude, a part of them, everything, in front of, behind. But somewhere, technology is a rempart, it protects them. In fact, the only times when they communicate without fooling themself, it is when they make love. Bodies do not lie. Naomi meets for her investigation a student, lover of the couple of philosopher. She discovers that he suffer from the la Peyronnie disease. It is responsible for a deformation of the penis in erection. Disformed sex, a symbol. It is him who suggests to Naomi making a book of photography. All of the lover of the philosopher and his wife would be naked. The nudity of bodies is less obscene of that of the soul. Cronenberg poses as a moralist. He is undoubtless one of the first post-postmodern (hypermodern ?) novelist with Foster-Walace.
Nathan contracts a STD with a patient of the hungarian surgeon, the Roiphe disease. He decides to meet the doctor Roiphe in Toronto. This one lives alone with his daughter. She presents behaviour disorders. She was an Arosteguy student. Things are linked. Roiphe suggests to Nathan living at his home to work on a book on his daughter. Naomi finds by means of the student Arosteguy is Tokyo. He agrees to speak to her if she installe at his home. He recognizes have killed and eated his wife. Roiphe an Arosteguy are monsters. Naomi and Nathan sign a Faustian pact.
Arosteguy speak about his relation with his wife Célestine. She was persuaded that there were insects in one of her breast. Although the doctors showed the absence of cancer, she decides to make it removed. Only the Hungarian surgeon accepts to do it. In Toronto, Roiphe's daughter reconstitues part of body with a 3D printer. All link in the end.
Never Cronenberg pushed so far his thought on the report to the body, even theory like transhumanism. End is rather surprising with a kind of cyberparanoïa, the demonic spirit being represented by North Korea. A powerful book, at the same level as his best movies. I think that it is an important book.
June 30, 2022
When an artist switches mediums, especial an artist so iconically linked to a specific medium--for example, a director of some significant distinction for his aesthetic and styled body of work--the immediate question becomes: why did they chose this medium to deliver this piece of art?
When it comes to Consumed by David Cronenberg, I'm struggling to figure out why it's a novel and not a film. The book is centered around two globe-trotting journalists, Naomi and Nathan, who are investigating a French philosopher husband-wife cannibalistic murder, and the other the origins of a strange and rare STD in Toronto. The story unfolds in a very classic Cronenberg way, full of images of severed and disembodied flesh, of suppurating diseases, of unnatural acts, of highly charged and viscerally detailed sex. Consumed is also full of a lot of tech jargon around cameras and audio-recording equipment, and a slight pre-occupation on how the iPhone was already unbalancing the natural order of photojournalistic tech gear. So with everything being so intimately Cronenberg-esque, why is this a novel and not a screenplay or film?
For this question, I have no answer, other than I can't help feeling that it would have indubitably made for a much better, more interesting film than novel, not only in part due to Cronenberg's middling prose style, full of expository language, told plainly, with kind of painfully overt, beat-you-over-the-head messages about consumerism and consumption in general. There are some moments of clarity where what may be some of Cronenberg's philosophy of art peaks in when two characters are talking about a sexually charged "performance" related to the philosopher murder mystery: "We can't worry about meaning. Ari proposed to us that meaning is a consumer item. Some people manufacture it through religion, philosophy, nationhood, politics, and some people buy it. But an artist is not a manufacturer."
This moment, hardly revelatory, yet succinctly well stated, made me think about the relationship general audiences have with "art" and the expectation that it "has a point," or you "get something out of it. Capitalism has perverted our relationship with art and the artist, contorting it into a transactional experience: we put in the time and effort to read a book, look at a painting, watch a film, and we expect that from this act we will be given meaning from the godhead. This reminds me a bit of how David Lynch refused to elaborate on the effects and "meanings" behind his art and films.
Anyway, as a novel, Consumed isn't so much bad as it is just very middle of the road because it feels like a Cronenberg film, but whereas a Cronenberg film has a visual style and panache that elaborates the aesthetic vision, the bland prose and clumsy plot moves just leave the reader with a book full of Cronenberg-esque images and unmemorable characters and none of that Cronenberg "feeling."
And, as always, Long Live the New Flesh.
When it comes to Consumed by David Cronenberg, I'm struggling to figure out why it's a novel and not a film. The book is centered around two globe-trotting journalists, Naomi and Nathan, who are investigating a French philosopher husband-wife cannibalistic murder, and the other the origins of a strange and rare STD in Toronto. The story unfolds in a very classic Cronenberg way, full of images of severed and disembodied flesh, of suppurating diseases, of unnatural acts, of highly charged and viscerally detailed sex. Consumed is also full of a lot of tech jargon around cameras and audio-recording equipment, and a slight pre-occupation on how the iPhone was already unbalancing the natural order of photojournalistic tech gear. So with everything being so intimately Cronenberg-esque, why is this a novel and not a screenplay or film?
For this question, I have no answer, other than I can't help feeling that it would have indubitably made for a much better, more interesting film than novel, not only in part due to Cronenberg's middling prose style, full of expository language, told plainly, with kind of painfully overt, beat-you-over-the-head messages about consumerism and consumption in general. There are some moments of clarity where what may be some of Cronenberg's philosophy of art peaks in when two characters are talking about a sexually charged "performance" related to the philosopher murder mystery: "We can't worry about meaning. Ari proposed to us that meaning is a consumer item. Some people manufacture it through religion, philosophy, nationhood, politics, and some people buy it. But an artist is not a manufacturer."
This moment, hardly revelatory, yet succinctly well stated, made me think about the relationship general audiences have with "art" and the expectation that it "has a point," or you "get something out of it. Capitalism has perverted our relationship with art and the artist, contorting it into a transactional experience: we put in the time and effort to read a book, look at a painting, watch a film, and we expect that from this act we will be given meaning from the godhead. This reminds me a bit of how David Lynch refused to elaborate on the effects and "meanings" behind his art and films.
Anyway, as a novel, Consumed isn't so much bad as it is just very middle of the road because it feels like a Cronenberg film, but whereas a Cronenberg film has a visual style and panache that elaborates the aesthetic vision, the bland prose and clumsy plot moves just leave the reader with a book full of Cronenberg-esque images and unmemorable characters and none of that Cronenberg "feeling."
And, as always, Long Live the New Flesh.
March 26, 2017
The superficial maximalism of DeLillo and Ballard dissolves into cold, Easton Ellisian self-indulgence—knowingly. That's an oft-debated topic in storytelling: need a thematically dark story be dark itself? Must the literature of alienation alienate? Well, this one does. But that's okay; I'm still glad I read it.
I don't know why I don't mind knowing that Cronenberg not only wants to fuck cars but also iPads. And make no mistake: he does. Like, Quentin Tarantino might have thought that there isn't enough cinematic material for people who love feet, but only because he himself loves feet. LGBTQ readers are subjected to excessive heterosexual lovemaking scenes and implicitly told to broaden their minds because "really it's about all people/ why wouldn't hetero be the default" but I didn't choose this issue to try and counteract in my own writing randomly; I did it because, take a guess, dirtbag. There aren't enough BAME characters, and I'll include them where possible but they'll be better served by other writers. There's no real point here; just an observation. But I think that's fitting of the text itself.
But you don't come to a director turned novelist for novelistic brilliance; you do it for love of his cinema, and out of curiosity. And my God! Cronenberg is mostly shit in my opinion, but he misses so much because he's been swinging the whole fucking time, and that I respect! Maps to the Stars, oddly enough, is one of my favourites. I wasn't smart enough to understand Cosmopolis, but I sure as hell respected it. There is something compelling about Videodrome but I'm not one to add it to my list of best films ever because I'd much MUCH rather sit down and watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (SO good. If you've seen it, go watch it again, because winter is officially over and you deserve some unfettered, sunny joy. Life is BRILLIANT!!)
Foremost literary scholar Viggo Mortensen thinks it's as good if not better than Nabokov. To each his own ;D And Stephen King liked it because he's read everything, is everywhere and has so infected the psyche of my peers that it's his name that should appear on their gravestones—but I'll leave that story to those who love Stephen King and want to fuck gravestones. Or something. I don't know; meaningfully meaningless existential introspective postpostpostmodernist literature is hard—mostly for itself!
I don't know why I don't mind knowing that Cronenberg not only wants to fuck cars but also iPads. And make no mistake: he does. Like, Quentin Tarantino might have thought that there isn't enough cinematic material for people who love feet, but only because he himself loves feet. LGBTQ readers are subjected to excessive heterosexual lovemaking scenes and implicitly told to broaden their minds because "really it's about all people/ why wouldn't hetero be the default" but I didn't choose this issue to try and counteract in my own writing randomly; I did it because, take a guess, dirtbag. There aren't enough BAME characters, and I'll include them where possible but they'll be better served by other writers. There's no real point here; just an observation. But I think that's fitting of the text itself.
But you don't come to a director turned novelist for novelistic brilliance; you do it for love of his cinema, and out of curiosity. And my God! Cronenberg is mostly shit in my opinion, but he misses so much because he's been swinging the whole fucking time, and that I respect! Maps to the Stars, oddly enough, is one of my favourites. I wasn't smart enough to understand Cosmopolis, but I sure as hell respected it. There is something compelling about Videodrome but I'm not one to add it to my list of best films ever because I'd much MUCH rather sit down and watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (SO good. If you've seen it, go watch it again, because winter is officially over and you deserve some unfettered, sunny joy. Life is BRILLIANT!!)
Foremost literary scholar Viggo Mortensen thinks it's as good if not better than Nabokov. To each his own ;D And Stephen King liked it because he's read everything, is everywhere and has so infected the psyche of my peers that it's his name that should appear on their gravestones—but I'll leave that story to those who love Stephen King and want to fuck gravestones. Or something. I don't know; meaningfully meaningless existential introspective postpostpostmodernist literature is hard—mostly for itself!
July 18, 2018
4 stars--I really liked it.
This book has a lot of body horror, so if you're at all squeamish, avoid! (Seriously. I love horror and I was squirming.) It's about philosophy and technology and aging and some very awful characters doing some very awful things. I really enjoyed how the plot tied together at the end, though, and also loved the complete excess of the story.
There's a slight tone of "a pervy old man wrote this book." (I guess to be expected?) I had insomnia while reading, so stayed up late a couple nights, making the entire story feel like a fever dream, like something unreal. And that's fitting, I think. This book is a sort of crazy, dark nightmare.
This book has a lot of body horror, so if you're at all squeamish, avoid! (Seriously. I love horror and I was squirming.) It's about philosophy and technology and aging and some very awful characters doing some very awful things. I really enjoyed how the plot tied together at the end, though, and also loved the complete excess of the story.
There's a slight tone of "a pervy old man wrote this book." (I guess to be expected?) I had insomnia while reading, so stayed up late a couple nights, making the entire story feel like a fever dream, like something unreal. And that's fitting, I think. This book is a sort of crazy, dark nightmare.
July 27, 2022
Bien el inicio, alabada sea la nueva carne y blablabla... Pero
entre que parece que Apple le haya pagado por hacerle
publi, los flashbacks interminables que no me cuentan nada y todo el rollo de Corea del Norte... pelin coñazo y
decepcionante en general, sobre todo viniendo de quien viene.
entre que parece que Apple le haya pagado por hacerle
publi, los flashbacks interminables que no me cuentan nada y todo el rollo de Corea del Norte... pelin coñazo y
decepcionante en general, sobre todo viniendo de quien viene.
July 2, 2016
Αν και δεν έχω δει όλες του τις ταινίες, ο Ντέιβιντ Κρόνενμπεργκ είναι σίγουρα ένας από τους αγαπημένους μου σκηνοθέτες. Μια θέση στην πρώτη δεκάδα την έχει καπαρωμένη. Οπότε το γεγονός ότι έγραψε μυθιστόρημα και ότι αυτό το μυθιστόρημα μεταφράστηκε στα ελληνικά, όσο να'ναι με χαροποίησε. Φυσικά είναι εντελώς διαφορετικό πράγμα η συγγραφή σεναρίων και η σκηνοθεσία με την συγγραφή μυθιστορημάτων - δύσκολα μπορεί να είναι κανείς εξίσου καλός και στα δυο-, αλλά πιστεύω ότι ο Κρόνενμπεργκ έκανε αρκετά καλή δουλειά για πρώτη προσπάθεια.
Συνήθως γράφω μια περίληψη της ιστορίας, αλλά αυτή την φορά δεν θα το κάνω, μιας και τα πράγματα είναι κάπως περίπλοκα, περίεργα και σύνθετα για να γράψω μια περίληψη λίγων σειρών. Νομίζω ότι η περίληψη στο οπισθόφυλλο της ελληνικής έκδοσης τα λέει μια χαρά, οπότε αρκεστείτε σ'αυτήν. Τεχνολογία φωτογραφικών μηχανών και υπολογιστών, τρισδιάστατες εκτυπώσεις, γεωπολιτική και Βόρεια Κορέα, underground δημοσιογραφία, διαφόρων ειδών ψυχώσεις, αρρώστιες του σώματος και της ψυχής, διαστροφές και σεξ, με λίγα λόγια απ'όλα έχει ο μπαξές (χα, έκανα και ομοιοκαταληξία!). Με αυτά και άλλα πολλά καταπιάνεται ο συγγραφέας. Οι χαρακτήρες μπλέκονται σε επικίνδυνες καταστάσεις για το σώμα και την ψυχή, γίνονται συμμέτοχοι σ'ένα "παιχνίδι" διαστροφών και συνωμοσιών, κανείς τους δεν βγαίνει αλώβητος. Μυστήριο, εκπλήξεις, ψυχολογική πίεση και υπόγειος τρόμος χαρακτηρίζουν την πλοκή του βιβλίου. Η γραφή του Κρόνενμπεργκ πολύ καλή, ιδιαίτερη και με δική της ταυτότητα, με ύφος παρόμοιο με αυτό των ταινιών του, κάτι απόλυτα φυσιολογικό και ευπρόσδεκτο. Οι χαρακτήρες χωρίς τρομερό βάθος, αλλά αναμφισβήτητα ενδιαφέροντες.
Το βιβλίο έχει κάπως μέτρια βαθμολογία στο Goodreads, κάτι μάλλον αναμενόμενο. Δεν είναι για όλα τα γούστα. Είναι αρκετά περίεργο και παράξενο, θέλει προσοχή και υπομονή εκ μέρους του αναγνώστη, δεν προσφέρεται για μια ευχάριστη και ευκολοδιάβαστη ανάγνωση στην παραλία -ή οπουδήποτε αλλού-, ασχολείται με αμφιλεγόμενα ζητήματα, μπλέκει διάφορα πράγματα, σε σημεία είναι κάπως βαρύ και κουραστικό με όλο το φιλοσοφικό μπλα μπλα, και πάει λέγοντας. Όμως το διαολεμένο με κράτησε μέχρι το τέλος. Κατάφερε να με βυθίσει στο σκοτεινό και παρακμιακό σύμπαν του, όπως περίπου κατάφερε ο σκηνοθέτης το ίδιο και στις αντίστοιχου περιεχομένου ταινίες του (δεν αναφέρω αυτές που είναι πιο φυσιολογικές και ίσως mainstream, αλλά τις παλιές του, που είναι αρκετά παράξενες). Όχι ότι δεν με κούρασε σε μερικά σημεία ή ότι δεν μου έκανε λιγάκι το μυαλό πουρέ, αλλά κάτι τέτοιο το περίμενα, άλλωστε μιλάμε για Κρόνενμπεργκ. Όπως είπα όμως, κατάφερε να με κάνει να γίνω ένα με την τρέλα της ιστορίας, αλλά και με τους χαρακτήρες.
Αυτά τα ολίγα. Περίμενα ότι το βιβλίο θα με ταρακουνήσει λιγάκι, θα με κάνει να σκεφτώ, θα μου βάλει το μυαλό στο μπλέντερ, ίσως και να με κουράσει με όλα τα περίεργα και αμφιλεγόμενα ζητήματα που ασχολείται ο σκηνοθέτης. Όλα αυτά συνέβησαν και χαίρομαι γι'αυτό. Σημαίνει ότι δεν πήγαν τα λεφτά μου στράφι και ότι δεν ξόδεψα άσκοπα τον χρόνο μου. Έτσι, θα βάλω τέσσερα αστεράκια στο βιβλίο -αν και κάποια στιγμή έφτασα στο σημείο να του βάλω οριστικά τρία. Και σημειώνω ότι είναι ένα από τα βιβλία που θα ξαναδιαβάσω στο μέλλον. Πάντως δεν το προτείνω σε όλους.
Υ.Γ. Εξαιρετική δουλειά από τις εκδόσεις Τόπος, η μετάφραση πολύ καλή και προσεκτική και η έκδοση όμορφη.
Συνήθως γράφω μια περίληψη της ιστορίας, αλλά αυτή την φορά δεν θα το κάνω, μιας και τα πράγματα είναι κάπως περίπλοκα, περίεργα και σύνθετα για να γράψω μια περίληψη λίγων σειρών. Νομίζω ότι η περίληψη στο οπισθόφυλλο της ελληνικής έκδοσης τα λέει μια χαρά, οπότε αρκεστείτε σ'αυτήν. Τεχνολογία φωτογραφικών μηχανών και υπολογιστών, τρισδιάστατες εκτυπώσεις, γεωπολιτική και Βόρεια Κορέα, underground δημοσιογραφία, διαφόρων ειδών ψυχώσεις, αρρώστιες του σώματος και της ψυχής, διαστροφές και σεξ, με λίγα λόγια απ'όλα έχει ο μπαξές (χα, έκανα και ομοιοκαταληξία!). Με αυτά και άλλα πολλά καταπιάνεται ο συγγραφέας. Οι χαρακτήρες μπλέκονται σε επικίνδυνες καταστάσεις για το σώμα και την ψυχή, γίνονται συμμέτοχοι σ'ένα "παιχνίδι" διαστροφών και συνωμοσιών, κανείς τους δεν βγαίνει αλώβητος. Μυστήριο, εκπλήξεις, ψυχολογική πίεση και υπόγειος τρόμος χαρακτηρίζουν την πλοκή του βιβλίου. Η γραφή του Κρόνενμπεργκ πολύ καλή, ιδιαίτερη και με δική της ταυτότητα, με ύφος παρόμοιο με αυτό των ταινιών του, κάτι απόλυτα φυσιολογικό και ευπρόσδεκτο. Οι χαρακτήρες χωρίς τρομερό βάθος, αλλά αναμφισβήτητα ενδιαφέροντες.
Το βιβλίο έχει κάπως μέτρια βαθμολογία στο Goodreads, κάτι μάλλον αναμενόμενο. Δεν είναι για όλα τα γούστα. Είναι αρκετά περίεργο και παράξενο, θέλει προσοχή και υπομονή εκ μέρους του αναγνώστη, δεν προσφέρεται για μια ευχάριστη και ευκολοδιάβαστη ανάγνωση στην παραλία -ή οπουδήποτε αλλού-, ασχολείται με αμφιλεγόμενα ζητήματα, μπλέκει διάφορα πράγματα, σε σημεία είναι κάπως βαρύ και κουραστικό με όλο το φιλοσοφικό μπλα μπλα, και πάει λέγοντας. Όμως το διαολεμένο με κράτησε μέχρι το τέλος. Κατάφερε να με βυθίσει στο σκοτεινό και παρακμιακό σύμπαν του, όπως περίπου κατάφερε ο σκηνοθέτης το ίδιο και στις αντίστοιχου περιεχομένου ταινίες του (δεν αναφέρω αυτές που είναι πιο φυσιολογικές και ίσως mainstream, αλλά τις παλιές του, που είναι αρκετά παράξενες). Όχι ότι δεν με κούρασε σε μερικά σημεία ή ότι δεν μου έκανε λιγάκι το μυαλό πουρέ, αλλά κάτι τέτοιο το περίμενα, άλλωστε μιλάμε για Κρόνενμπεργκ. Όπως είπα όμως, κατάφερε να με κάνει να γίνω ένα με την τρέλα της ιστορίας, αλλά και με τους χαρακτήρες.
Αυτά τα ολίγα. Περίμενα ότι το βιβλίο θα με ταρακουνήσει λιγάκι, θα με κάνει να σκεφτώ, θα μου βάλει το μυαλό στο μπλέντερ, ίσως και να με κουράσει με όλα τα περίεργα και αμφιλεγόμενα ζητήματα που ασχολείται ο σκηνοθέτης. Όλα αυτά συνέβησαν και χαίρομαι γι'αυτό. Σημαίνει ότι δεν πήγαν τα λεφτά μου στράφι και ότι δεν ξόδεψα άσκοπα τον χρόνο μου. Έτσι, θα βάλω τέσσερα αστεράκια στο βιβλίο -αν και κάποια στιγμή έφτασα στο σημείο να του βάλω οριστικά τρία. Και σημειώνω ότι είναι ένα από τα βιβλία που θα ξαναδιαβάσω στο μέλλον. Πάντως δεν το προτείνω σε όλους.
Υ.Γ. Εξαιρετική δουλειά από τις εκδόσεις Τόπος, η μετάφραση πολύ καλή και προσεκτική και η έκδοση όμορφη.
February 19, 2016
Dejvid Kronenberg je dobro poznat ljubiteljima sedme umetnosti. Kanadski režiser se početkom sedamdesetih proslavio beskompromisnim, bizarnim filmovima u kojima je dosledno sprovodio svoju poetiku šoka. Kronenberg je tokom duge i plodne karijere režirao mnoge značajne naslove, uključujući i remek-dela kao što su Videodrom, Goli ručak i Ukleti blizanci. Poslednjih godina, Kronenbergovi filmovi su postali konvencionalniji (Istorija nasilja, Zakletva), pa su mnogi pomislili da su ga godine smekšale… Progutana (Consumed, 2014) opovrgava tu tvrdnju – u pitanju je odvažan i uspeo pokušaj promene medija koji u sećanje priziva telesni horor ranijih Kronenbergovih filmova. Roman počinje kao triler, da bi postepeno prerastao u fantazmagoričnu potragu za neuhvatljivom istinom. Sve to je, po Kronenbergovom običaju, začinjeno sa dosta seksa i perverzija. Kritičari i čitaoci su u Progutanoj prepoznali uticaje Barouza, Balarda i DeLila, pisaca čija je dela Kronenberg adaptirao za film. Valja imati u vidu da je pitanju jedan izuzetno pikantan roman, uz to i intelektualno zahtevan. Jedno je sigurno… Poštovaoci Kronenbergovog filmskog opusa, posebno oni koji su uživali u filmovima Besnilo i eXistenZ, umeće da cene mračno i perverzno narativno tkanje Progutane.
Ocena: 3,5.
Ocena: 3,5.
June 21, 2014
So let me start by saying I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. Okay so I know this book was going to be an interesting read when I entered the giveaway. The little summary blurb makes it clear the contents will be somewhat odd. So when I started reading it I though I knew what I was getting myself into. Wrong. It was way more twisted and weird than I could have imagined. It was a great read, there's some parts that I know I didn't catch and should probably give a reread to. Which sometime down the road I absolutely plan on giving it a reread. The plot was juicy and entertaining. It had you questioning the characters throughout the book. Are they really telling the truth? Did that really happen? Could someone be so odd? The fact that you want to question their motives and honesty means they are well developed. My biggest complaint is that it felt like the ending was abrupt and unsatisfying. I felt like there was still more I needed and deserved to read. Basically the book was exciting and entertaining to read but felt like it had more to give.
March 16, 2023
Ayer fue el cumpleaños de David Cronenberg y, para celebrarlo, hoy he acabado con la lectura de Consumidos, que ya me tenía bastante hasta el gorro. No voy a desarrollar.
November 18, 2014
Cronenberg as a film director is known for his unconventional approach, which (with minor commercial films) tends to express itself in an all around WTF bizarreness. As a writer, he's done the same. This is all of course a very much acquired taste sort of thing. Personally I believe a film or a book's overall impression shouldn't be primarily WEIRD. Cronenberg does weird, different variations, always original, unquestionably interesting works that seem to be primarily designed to mess with the audience's perceptions. Always well executed as such, consistently disturbing over engaging, but never something to like or love. This book is exactly like that. Odd, trippy, uber sexual, relentlessly graphic exploration of a crime, cannibalism, apotemnophilia and a ubiquitous technological disconnect despite (or because of) an insatiable cultural obsession with gadgetry. The photographical equipment alone here is practically fetishized. The entire book has a fetishistic motif to it. Cronenberg is actually an impressively good writer (as good or better than he is a director), he can do terrific things with words when he chooses. The subject matter is another story. For any fan of Cronenberg's unique world vision, this book is exactly like his...quirkier films. Casual reader unfamiliar with his work might find this much too grotesque. It certainly isn't a book to be enjoyed in a Webster definition of enjoyed way. This is a profoundly unpleasant sort of story with morally reprehensible characters doing morally reprehensible things. Morality is, of course, always subjective to an extent, but Cronenberg's cast of oddities defies the most elastic boundaries. It's a mindf*ck. It's trippy. It's different, but in theory a genuinely good read should have more to offer.
January 24, 2015
4.5 stars but a very biased opinion. I loved every Cronenberg movie I've seen as such sublime mindfucks. This novel reads like one of his films, but as a bonus Cronenberg wrote prose and a novel is a much more reader friendly format than a script IMO. This is a character study under the surreal lens of cronenberg's imagination.
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