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Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary
“ Paradoxia reveals that Lunch is at her best when she’s at her worst . . . [and] gives voice to her sometimes scary, frequently funny, always canny, never sentimental siren song."—Barbara Kruger, Artforum
Lydia Lunch relays in graphic detail the true psychic repercussions of sexual misadventure. From New York to London to New Orleans, Paradoxia is an uncensored, novelized account of one woman’s assault on men.
Lydia Lunch was the primary instigator of the No Wave Movement and the focal point of the Cinema of Transgression. A musician, writer, and photographer, she exposes the dark underbelly of passion confronting the lusty demons whose struggle for power and control forever stalk the periphery of our collective obsessions.
Lydia Lunch relays in graphic detail the true psychic repercussions of sexual misadventure. From New York to London to New Orleans, Paradoxia is an uncensored, novelized account of one woman’s assault on men.
Lydia Lunch was the primary instigator of the No Wave Movement and the focal point of the Cinema of Transgression. A musician, writer, and photographer, she exposes the dark underbelly of passion confronting the lusty demons whose struggle for power and control forever stalk the periphery of our collective obsessions.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
29 people are currently reading
1297 people want to read
About the author
Lydia Lunch
49 books195 followersLydia Lunch (born Lydia Koch) is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress.
In the mid-'80s, Lunch formed her own recording and publishing company called "Widowspeak" on which she continues to release a slew of her own material from songs to spoken word.
Later, she was identified by the Boston Phoenix as "one of the 10 most influential performers of the '90s", Lunch's solo career featured collaborations with musicians such as J. G. Thirlwell, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Nick Cave, Marc Almond, Billy Ver Plank, Steven Severin, Robert Quine, Sadie Mae, Rowland S. Howard, Michael Gira, The Birthday Party, Einstürzende Neubauten, Sonic Youth, Die Haut, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Black Sun Productions and french band Sibyl Vane who put one of her spoken words into music. She also acted in, wrote, and directed underground films, sometimes collaborating with underground filmmaker and photographer Richard Kern (including several films such as Fingered in which she performed unsimulated sex acts), and more recently has recorded and performed as a spoken word artist, again collaborating with such artists as Exene Cervenka, Henry Rollins, Don Bajema, Hubert Selby Jr., and Emilio Cubeiro, as well as authoring both traditional books and comix (with award-winning graphic novel artist Ted McKeever).
In 1997 she released Paradoxia, a loosely-based autobiography, in which she candidly documented her bisexual dalliances, substance abuse and flirtation with insanity.
In the mid-'80s, Lunch formed her own recording and publishing company called "Widowspeak" on which she continues to release a slew of her own material from songs to spoken word.
Later, she was identified by the Boston Phoenix as "one of the 10 most influential performers of the '90s", Lunch's solo career featured collaborations with musicians such as J. G. Thirlwell, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Nick Cave, Marc Almond, Billy Ver Plank, Steven Severin, Robert Quine, Sadie Mae, Rowland S. Howard, Michael Gira, The Birthday Party, Einstürzende Neubauten, Sonic Youth, Die Haut, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Black Sun Productions and french band Sibyl Vane who put one of her spoken words into music. She also acted in, wrote, and directed underground films, sometimes collaborating with underground filmmaker and photographer Richard Kern (including several films such as Fingered in which she performed unsimulated sex acts), and more recently has recorded and performed as a spoken word artist, again collaborating with such artists as Exene Cervenka, Henry Rollins, Don Bajema, Hubert Selby Jr., and Emilio Cubeiro, as well as authoring both traditional books and comix (with award-winning graphic novel artist Ted McKeever).
In 1997 she released Paradoxia, a loosely-based autobiography, in which she candidly documented her bisexual dalliances, substance abuse and flirtation with insanity.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 97 reviews
March 17, 2021
Yum...
Still licking my fingers.
What can I say? This book is frighteningly dirty. It's not for those delicate souls living in a world of daffodils and little birds chirping in the trees. It's not for faux-existentialists, quasi-nihilists, pseudo-cynics or embittered spinsters-turned-cat-ladies. It's for people who are either familiar with the shit of real life in the real world, or at least willing to face it. Because, as Lydia kindly reminds us, it does exist, whether we like it or not; it's out there waiting to swallow us and our children, generation after generation, so we'd better stop behaving like dumb ostriches and face the sad truth: we're into it, no matter if we actually take part in it or keep our distance.
Being a spectator is indeed a way to join in... one of many.
Predictably enough, this book is mainly judged on its contents and on the author's taste for outrage and shock value.
It's the fictionalised memoir of a musician/writer/actress/performer whose career and public persona have always been based on excessive, dangerous behaviour, ever since she set foot in 1975 NYC - a girl of 16 escaping her incestuous father and a hopelessly squalid provincial life. From then on she would relentlessly explore the darkest corners of the psyche (the other people's as well as her own): deviant sexuality, self-destructiveness, criminality, cruelty, but also loneliness and hunger for love; exploiting whoever crosses her path by giving everyone what he's looking for, no matter if it's pleasure or pain.
From the very beginning, Lydia thrives in the hellish metropolis. In her own words:
"New York City did not corrupt me. I was drawn to it because I had already been corrupted. By the age of six my sexual horizon was overstimulated by a father who had no control of his fantasies, natural tendencies or criminal urges. Like father, like daughter. (...) Surrounded by five million other junkies, addicts, alcoholics, rip-off artists, dreamers, schemers, and unsuspecting marks, New York afforded me the luxury of anonymity. The devil's playground."
And then it's Los Angeles, Amsterdam, London, New Orleans, throughout the 80s and 90s. A victimised victimiser's erotic and psychotic rampage.
This short book is violent, obscene, filthy, decadent.
It's about sex - rough, humiliating, deviant; drugs - and I mean all sorts of drugs, from pot to coke to speed to skag to acid to angel dust to Quaaludes; abusive families - where incest and domestic abuse are a daily occurrence and part of the children's upbringing; and, carrément, mental issues, underage whoring, psychopaths, a Burmese python and New York City.
And yet, Lunch's prose turns this 20th century Hell into Kubla Khan's blooming gardens.
What most reviewers seem indeed to forget - or guiltily overlook? - is how good she is at writing; how incredibly, marvelously gifted. How the outrage becomes poetic as she turns poetry into outrage.
I repeat, brothers and sisters: Lydia Lunch is a great writer. She has an amazing talent (both aesthetically and technically speaking, what with those turgid, baroque ramblings alternated with short powerful sentences) and that's something no honest reader can reasonably deny. Let aside her impressive stage presence as an underground musician and performer, this woman has a way with words - and knows all too well what to do with them.
One of the outstanding characteristics of Decadentism is that beauty is in the details. Plot, dialogues, character development... everything is subject to the overwhelming aesthetic of the ugly and sordid, and Lydia Lunch's prose is no exception.
From the very first paragraphs I was struck for instance by her ability to describe the atmospheric natural light in seedy interiors - coming in through dirty hotel windows, moth-eaten curtains, reflected by dusty dressers and greasy skin. Just like in Vermeer's wealthy houses and workshops, light is a means to convey something else, something deeper that can only be felt by the reader/beholder, not defined by images or words. It's a concoction of nameless, liquid feelings.
In fact her writing is both graphic and visionary. She effortlessly shifts from gritty realism to unexpected, hallucinatory digressions and crazy associations (such as menstrual blood and martyred saints). Same thing with regards to the descriptions of sex, the filthier the better, in which Lydia simply excels. Even the most depraved acts - the episode of the girl sodomised with a dirty Coke bottle is only the first that comes to mind, though certainly not the worst - are redeemed by the masterful use she makes of language; that's what makes the difference between obscene and erotic, in this book as elsewhere.
The big city...
Its alienation, darkness, decay. The city as a necropolis, crawling with vampires desperately feeding on each other's insanity.
New York is
"A flame to which every moth eventually freaks (...), all consumed with a sickness to succeed. To beat the odds. Turn their lives around. Win at any cost. Oblivious to the atrocious exchange rate. Regardless of the toll. In spite of the obstacles. Despite the quality of living."
Because what lies beneath its surface of grandeur is
"A crumpled city crucified beyond repair. A giant electromagnetic force field feeding you false fuels. Agitates the nerves endings. Resulting in that chronic itch for more. And the more you get, the more you want. And more is never enough. Until it's too much. Until your life force feels like it's being continually sucked, milked, gnawed upon, ingested, digested and spat back at you by an army of living ghosts endlessly haunting a city whose borders stretch to the point of utter insanity. And try keeping your sanity in New York. I dare you."
Or Los Angeles, whose history
"revolves around the eternal possibility that something greater is almost within reach of every leech, loser and low-life. Hollywood has created Sodom with the help of a corporate machine that feeds on the bruised bones of sacrificial offerings. Its obscene wealth, undeserved fame, untold riches side by side with a desperate poverty whose scope is forever overlooked, avoided, ignored. The root of all the sickness swelling inside its soured belly."
Thus she looks down at the City of (doomed) Angels
"Wondering how many dollars were spent every minute in vulgar pursuit of the next big thing (...). Wondering how many living rooms were under siege by drunken day laborers taking out the boss's bullshit on the wife and kids (...), how many kids were undergoing their first hustle with some stinking john in any make of car cruising down Hollywood Boulevard."
... and the people.
The people she meets, fucks, rips off, beats up, stalks, get stabbed by - and, on few memorable occasions, shows sympathy for: bums, alkies, junkies, strippers, would-be musicians, would-be murders, queens, queers, lost kids whoring in the streets or sucking glue fumes in a stinky stairwell... each of them with his own story of abuse, physical or psychological or both, which Lydia is perfectly entitled to tell.
On the other hand, this sordid tale is often hilarious. Lunch has a cruel but witty sense of humour, especially when dealing with the most politically incorrect issues: the thing is that she has no restraint whatsoever, she loves going too far and that's exactly what we want her to do. We want her to say terrible things laughing out loud, expecting us to do the same - and we do, because if we keep on reading, then it means we're hardly better than her.
Even though it's hard to discern between truth and fiction in her story, it would be hard to deny its plausibility. Take a look around and ask yourselves whether the world she depicts, with its revolting, desperate fauna is so unlikely after all.
If you're looking for a moral at the end of the journey, well there's none. You just come full-circle, as there are
"no easy answers. No easy way out. No escape. From yourself. You had to learn to deal with the cards you were dealt. Had to learn the hard way that the world doesn't owe you a fucking thing. Not a reason, nor excuse. No apologies. Had to learn that some forms of insanity run in the family, pure genetics, polluted lifelines, full of disease. Profanity. Addiction. Co-addiction. Inability to deal with reality, what the fuck ever that's supposed to mean when you're born in an emotional ghetto of endless abuse. Where the only way out is in... deep, deep inside, so you poke holes in your skin, thinking that if you could just concentrate the pain it wouldn't remain an all-consuming surround which suffocates you from the first breath of day to your last dying day. Day in. Day out. Day in and out. I knew all about it."
It didn't take long for me to take stock and draw my conclusions: I loved this book, every single aspect of it. It's short and intense and has a peculiar artistic value that goes beyond any definition.
A honest memoir?
A bunch of bullshit?
A merciless 'j'accuse'?
Self-promoting crap?
Who knows - and who gives a shit anyway? It's just too beautifully written to even care.
Still licking my fingers.
What can I say? This book is frighteningly dirty. It's not for those delicate souls living in a world of daffodils and little birds chirping in the trees. It's not for faux-existentialists, quasi-nihilists, pseudo-cynics or embittered spinsters-turned-cat-ladies. It's for people who are either familiar with the shit of real life in the real world, or at least willing to face it. Because, as Lydia kindly reminds us, it does exist, whether we like it or not; it's out there waiting to swallow us and our children, generation after generation, so we'd better stop behaving like dumb ostriches and face the sad truth: we're into it, no matter if we actually take part in it or keep our distance.
Being a spectator is indeed a way to join in... one of many.
Predictably enough, this book is mainly judged on its contents and on the author's taste for outrage and shock value.
It's the fictionalised memoir of a musician/writer/actress/performer whose career and public persona have always been based on excessive, dangerous behaviour, ever since she set foot in 1975 NYC - a girl of 16 escaping her incestuous father and a hopelessly squalid provincial life. From then on she would relentlessly explore the darkest corners of the psyche (the other people's as well as her own): deviant sexuality, self-destructiveness, criminality, cruelty, but also loneliness and hunger for love; exploiting whoever crosses her path by giving everyone what he's looking for, no matter if it's pleasure or pain.
From the very beginning, Lydia thrives in the hellish metropolis. In her own words:
"New York City did not corrupt me. I was drawn to it because I had already been corrupted. By the age of six my sexual horizon was overstimulated by a father who had no control of his fantasies, natural tendencies or criminal urges. Like father, like daughter. (...) Surrounded by five million other junkies, addicts, alcoholics, rip-off artists, dreamers, schemers, and unsuspecting marks, New York afforded me the luxury of anonymity. The devil's playground."
And then it's Los Angeles, Amsterdam, London, New Orleans, throughout the 80s and 90s. A victimised victimiser's erotic and psychotic rampage.
This short book is violent, obscene, filthy, decadent.
It's about sex - rough, humiliating, deviant; drugs - and I mean all sorts of drugs, from pot to coke to speed to skag to acid to angel dust to Quaaludes; abusive families - where incest and domestic abuse are a daily occurrence and part of the children's upbringing; and, carrément, mental issues, underage whoring, psychopaths, a Burmese python and New York City.
And yet, Lunch's prose turns this 20th century Hell into Kubla Khan's blooming gardens.
What most reviewers seem indeed to forget - or guiltily overlook? - is how good she is at writing; how incredibly, marvelously gifted. How the outrage becomes poetic as she turns poetry into outrage.
I repeat, brothers and sisters: Lydia Lunch is a great writer. She has an amazing talent (both aesthetically and technically speaking, what with those turgid, baroque ramblings alternated with short powerful sentences) and that's something no honest reader can reasonably deny. Let aside her impressive stage presence as an underground musician and performer, this woman has a way with words - and knows all too well what to do with them.
One of the outstanding characteristics of Decadentism is that beauty is in the details. Plot, dialogues, character development... everything is subject to the overwhelming aesthetic of the ugly and sordid, and Lydia Lunch's prose is no exception.
From the very first paragraphs I was struck for instance by her ability to describe the atmospheric natural light in seedy interiors - coming in through dirty hotel windows, moth-eaten curtains, reflected by dusty dressers and greasy skin. Just like in Vermeer's wealthy houses and workshops, light is a means to convey something else, something deeper that can only be felt by the reader/beholder, not defined by images or words. It's a concoction of nameless, liquid feelings.
In fact her writing is both graphic and visionary. She effortlessly shifts from gritty realism to unexpected, hallucinatory digressions and crazy associations (such as menstrual blood and martyred saints). Same thing with regards to the descriptions of sex, the filthier the better, in which Lydia simply excels. Even the most depraved acts - the episode of the girl sodomised with a dirty Coke bottle is only the first that comes to mind, though certainly not the worst - are redeemed by the masterful use she makes of language; that's what makes the difference between obscene and erotic, in this book as elsewhere.
The big city...
Its alienation, darkness, decay. The city as a necropolis, crawling with vampires desperately feeding on each other's insanity.
New York is
"A flame to which every moth eventually freaks (...), all consumed with a sickness to succeed. To beat the odds. Turn their lives around. Win at any cost. Oblivious to the atrocious exchange rate. Regardless of the toll. In spite of the obstacles. Despite the quality of living."
Because what lies beneath its surface of grandeur is
"A crumpled city crucified beyond repair. A giant electromagnetic force field feeding you false fuels. Agitates the nerves endings. Resulting in that chronic itch for more. And the more you get, the more you want. And more is never enough. Until it's too much. Until your life force feels like it's being continually sucked, milked, gnawed upon, ingested, digested and spat back at you by an army of living ghosts endlessly haunting a city whose borders stretch to the point of utter insanity. And try keeping your sanity in New York. I dare you."
Or Los Angeles, whose history
"revolves around the eternal possibility that something greater is almost within reach of every leech, loser and low-life. Hollywood has created Sodom with the help of a corporate machine that feeds on the bruised bones of sacrificial offerings. Its obscene wealth, undeserved fame, untold riches side by side with a desperate poverty whose scope is forever overlooked, avoided, ignored. The root of all the sickness swelling inside its soured belly."
Thus she looks down at the City of (doomed) Angels
"Wondering how many dollars were spent every minute in vulgar pursuit of the next big thing (...). Wondering how many living rooms were under siege by drunken day laborers taking out the boss's bullshit on the wife and kids (...), how many kids were undergoing their first hustle with some stinking john in any make of car cruising down Hollywood Boulevard."
... and the people.
The people she meets, fucks, rips off, beats up, stalks, get stabbed by - and, on few memorable occasions, shows sympathy for: bums, alkies, junkies, strippers, would-be musicians, would-be murders, queens, queers, lost kids whoring in the streets or sucking glue fumes in a stinky stairwell... each of them with his own story of abuse, physical or psychological or both, which Lydia is perfectly entitled to tell.
On the other hand, this sordid tale is often hilarious. Lunch has a cruel but witty sense of humour, especially when dealing with the most politically incorrect issues: the thing is that she has no restraint whatsoever, she loves going too far and that's exactly what we want her to do. We want her to say terrible things laughing out loud, expecting us to do the same - and we do, because if we keep on reading, then it means we're hardly better than her.
Even though it's hard to discern between truth and fiction in her story, it would be hard to deny its plausibility. Take a look around and ask yourselves whether the world she depicts, with its revolting, desperate fauna is so unlikely after all.
If you're looking for a moral at the end of the journey, well there's none. You just come full-circle, as there are
"no easy answers. No easy way out. No escape. From yourself. You had to learn to deal with the cards you were dealt. Had to learn the hard way that the world doesn't owe you a fucking thing. Not a reason, nor excuse. No apologies. Had to learn that some forms of insanity run in the family, pure genetics, polluted lifelines, full of disease. Profanity. Addiction. Co-addiction. Inability to deal with reality, what the fuck ever that's supposed to mean when you're born in an emotional ghetto of endless abuse. Where the only way out is in... deep, deep inside, so you poke holes in your skin, thinking that if you could just concentrate the pain it wouldn't remain an all-consuming surround which suffocates you from the first breath of day to your last dying day. Day in. Day out. Day in and out. I knew all about it."
It didn't take long for me to take stock and draw my conclusions: I loved this book, every single aspect of it. It's short and intense and has a peculiar artistic value that goes beyond any definition.
A honest memoir?
A bunch of bullshit?
A merciless 'j'accuse'?
Self-promoting crap?
Who knows - and who gives a shit anyway? It's just too beautifully written to even care.
May 13, 2021
I saw Lydia Lunch do a reading at Quimby's. She employed the obnoxious reading style that is standard fare at coffee shop open-mics everywhere, the kind that drags out end-words like saxophones in slow jazz songs. I think the Beats are responsible for convincing people that this is an okay thing to do when reading aloud.
Her supporters were numerous and rude, talking while another author read an excerpt from his first novel. From the bits of conversation I couldn't tune out, they keep Ms. Lunch high up on a pedestal, probably among the rest of the literary luminaries that are canonized by know-nothing 19 year-olds that get their kicks by reading books that glorify slumming. Maybe it's a form of self-flagellation, preaching the brilliance of Bukowski, Kerouac, and their ilk (of which Lunch is one) while being too lazy to do anything of interest on their own.
Why am I so bitter?
Anyway, I grabbed this at the library, because I had to know if it is as bad as I thought it would be. It is.
Her supporters were numerous and rude, talking while another author read an excerpt from his first novel. From the bits of conversation I couldn't tune out, they keep Ms. Lunch high up on a pedestal, probably among the rest of the literary luminaries that are canonized by know-nothing 19 year-olds that get their kicks by reading books that glorify slumming. Maybe it's a form of self-flagellation, preaching the brilliance of Bukowski, Kerouac, and their ilk (of which Lunch is one) while being too lazy to do anything of interest on their own.
Why am I so bitter?
Anyway, I grabbed this at the library, because I had to know if it is as bad as I thought it would be. It is.
August 2, 2011
An hilarious romp through the seedy sexual underworld of 1970s New York and beyond, no doubt based on the author’s “experiences” but probably embellished for added shock value. The narrator is a predator who uses and abuses men as she was used and abused by her own father. In sharp, staccato sentences the book explores a life defined by child abuse: one woman’s attempt to degrade and humiliate men through spirals of disgraceful sex and emotional manipulation. This lasts about two decades.
Lunch’s work is characterised often by stylised psychobabble, a fuzz of posturing attitude and genuine insight. Often she sets this to loud twanging guitars or shards of ear-bleeding feedback, which is a punishing alternative to therapy, for sure. This novel is well edited: no verbose reams of self-indulgent intellectualising to obscure the real terror of what went on in the protagonist’s life; simple, confessionally lurid prose ribbed with black humour. The last ten or so pages collapse into vaguely redemptive new-age claptrap, leaving the reader unclear whether anything was learned from all the nihilistic romping.
The true nihilist, of course, would admit nothing. Lydia has her credentials to think about.
Lunch’s work is characterised often by stylised psychobabble, a fuzz of posturing attitude and genuine insight. Often she sets this to loud twanging guitars or shards of ear-bleeding feedback, which is a punishing alternative to therapy, for sure. This novel is well edited: no verbose reams of self-indulgent intellectualising to obscure the real terror of what went on in the protagonist’s life; simple, confessionally lurid prose ribbed with black humour. The last ten or so pages collapse into vaguely redemptive new-age claptrap, leaving the reader unclear whether anything was learned from all the nihilistic romping.
The true nihilist, of course, would admit nothing. Lydia has her credentials to think about.
March 13, 2017
Really, if anything, it made me hate Lydia Lunch more. I can understand and greatly sympathize that Lydia Lunch is a victim of repeated abuse by men throughout her life, but at the same time, this lends no excuse for her abusive actions and behavior towards other women, as well as her tendency to emotionally, mentally, and physically abuse men throughout the course of the novel. More of a trudge than a novel, particularly the last 30 or so pages, which introduce Lunch's spirtual beliefs abruptly, relatively for no reason.
As a fan of her musically output, it was disheartening to read such a disappointing retelling of her life, which could have been written in a way to contain valuable lessons about love, or respect, or overcoming the pains in her life. Instead Lunch simply takes the easy route of excess and nihilism to craft a purposefully repetitive and draining novel in which the reader has nothing to take away from but Lunch's own toxic outlook.
As a fan of her musically output, it was disheartening to read such a disappointing retelling of her life, which could have been written in a way to contain valuable lessons about love, or respect, or overcoming the pains in her life. Instead Lunch simply takes the easy route of excess and nihilism to craft a purposefully repetitive and draining novel in which the reader has nothing to take away from but Lunch's own toxic outlook.
November 5, 2007
made me dislike lydia lunch even more
January 19, 2013
A tough review to write, after an unexpectedly tough read.
I've been a fan of Lydia's since buying the ROIR cassette of 8-Eyed Spy in 82...
Too bad I was bored/grossed out by 'Paradoxia'.
Lydia excorcising some of the demons of her past... or reliving and celebrating the past? So many questions...
The prose itself borrows from DeSade and Bataille, with the sleaze of Richard Kern and Nick Zedd thrown in... sex is not a spectator sport here, but a weapon for Lydia to rub your face, your psyche, your calm abiding... in.
There is no mention of Lydia's music career, except for the musicians she uses/allows to use her... I recognized two... you will too...
Lydia as sexual vampire (her description)... use 'em and lose 'em...
I'm not voyeur enough to be comfortable with the Life of Lydia as told by Lydia...
Of course, it may also be a giant fantasy, Lydia writing to get the demons out of her life...
By the end I was exhausted, skipping through all of the sex to try and get more of Lydia's life, which was defiantly just a series of cities to plow through and escape from at convenient moments.
I'm glad you survived. Lydia... good luck!!
After this read, I'm happy I'm celibate... sex as a weapon is so tawdry... ONE star, and that's just for the past...
I've been a fan of Lydia's since buying the ROIR cassette of 8-Eyed Spy in 82...
Too bad I was bored/grossed out by 'Paradoxia'.
Lydia excorcising some of the demons of her past... or reliving and celebrating the past? So many questions...
The prose itself borrows from DeSade and Bataille, with the sleaze of Richard Kern and Nick Zedd thrown in... sex is not a spectator sport here, but a weapon for Lydia to rub your face, your psyche, your calm abiding... in.
There is no mention of Lydia's music career, except for the musicians she uses/allows to use her... I recognized two... you will too...
Lydia as sexual vampire (her description)... use 'em and lose 'em...
I'm not voyeur enough to be comfortable with the Life of Lydia as told by Lydia...
Of course, it may also be a giant fantasy, Lydia writing to get the demons out of her life...
By the end I was exhausted, skipping through all of the sex to try and get more of Lydia's life, which was defiantly just a series of cities to plow through and escape from at convenient moments.
I'm glad you survived. Lydia... good luck!!
After this read, I'm happy I'm celibate... sex as a weapon is so tawdry... ONE star, and that's just for the past...
August 20, 2020
Paradoxia will leave you with dirt under your fingernails and filthy film over your eyes. But if this book disgusted and horrified you by the third chapter and you pushed yourself to read on and finish the book, well, who is the disturbed one here? This book intends to make you feel these things. It's supposed to turn your stomach. Lydia wants to bring out emotions you never knew were there. She wants to see if you have the guts to finish this atrocity. And you did. So she wins. She got you. Sucker. You got caught in her web for a short time and she had her way with you. She hustles her ass off in this book and then hustles you, the reader because you couldn't help yourself but to read on. This book is a masterpiece in my eyes. Not a masterpiece in general but for what it is and what it's supposed to do. It succeeds. Of course it is embellished but she dares you, forces you to think about things you never imagined. Lydia Lunch says and does whatever the hell she wants. She doesn't let her damage control her, she takes full advantage of it. These are the things that make her a relevant artist. She is nobody's puppet. Purging ugly truths about yourself and the world and the ability to entertain while doing this is truly an art form.
July 8, 2014
Trash. I enjoy books that possess the shock factor, but this individual is a sociopath. This is simply the muddled description of one deviant sexual act after another with little to no character development in between. I am no prude but this was a little over the top. I can say for sure this would have been a better book if it actually had provided some type of story; if there was some sort of substance all the detailed sexual escapades may have had some merit and made for an enjoyable read.
September 26, 2008
Be warned this read is not for the squemish. It details a damaged, savage souless, wreckless sex fiend on a death trip. She is not a victim, she thrives on both ends of degradation and its hard to tell if there is ever any real redemption. Intro by Jerry Stahl and afterword by Thurston Moore. You will probably read it very fast, then not be able to exorcize it from your mind. What I learned from this book: I am scared of and intrigued by Lydia Lunch.
July 9, 2009
After reading this book, I wouldn't want to be in the general radius of Lydia Lunch's overused and self-abused crotch.
Lydia Lunch is an entertaining writer with a very basic grasp of the English language. Although she is no H.L. Mencken(in more ways than one), she makes up for her lack of grasping the English language by her oftentimes unbelievable stories.
On a final note, Thurston Moore's "afterword" is about as forgettable and pretentious as most of his "music."
Lydia Lunch is an entertaining writer with a very basic grasp of the English language. Although she is no H.L. Mencken(in more ways than one), she makes up for her lack of grasping the English language by her oftentimes unbelievable stories.
On a final note, Thurston Moore's "afterword" is about as forgettable and pretentious as most of his "music."
Read
November 1, 2014I like to shine a light on the shadows myself but I remember finding no redeeming literary qualities in this "raw and gritty" work. It has in fact made me absolutely hate Lydia Lunch, cos she writes/ talks/ walks/ dresses/ eats/ breathes/ pisses/ poses like someone who thinks she's so hard: but when yr hard, you don't try so hard.
October 11, 2019
Well, that was a waste of time..
June 8, 2014
I have known about Lydia Lunch for a long time. Back in high school, we used to rent VHS tapes of Richard Kern movies, and she starred in a few of them. She was in the Sonic Youth video for "Death Valley 69" and on the cover of "EVOL". This means I was familiar with her before reading this book. It is a good thing. If I had went into this book without any prior knowledge of her, I would just see a bunch of disjointed stories about sex, drugs, and abusive relationships. And though these things are fun to read to some extent, without any knowledge of her raising above this lifestyle, it would be nothing but disheartening. It is a dreary book, with no real bright spots. Mostly because the art stuff, the acting and modeling and writing and recording, do not appear in this short memoir. Instead you get a steady stream of bad lovers and addiction. This can be off-putting in a way, making "Paradoxia" one of those books that is more for fans of Lydia Lunch instead of for the casual reader.
December 6, 2008
i thought it was well-written and engaging but the intense nihilism bummed me out.
February 14, 2011
Astronomically dirty and very very very good bad.
April 6, 2021
That was some fucked-up shit.
July 23, 2023
Esta autobigrafia de Lydia me parece un texto más que necesario. Además, la versión leída cuenta con el prólogo de Despentes, lo cual ya per se lo hace un documento maravilloso.
Ha sido duro, desagrable y muy incómodo leer a Lunch, las escenas de sexo violento, violaciones y agresiones eran hardcore del bueno.
Te hace sentir la paradoxia en tu piel, el deseo insaciable de follar para placar la sed de dolor por los abusos sufridos.
Creo que Lunch nos sitúa en ese lugar oscuro y perverso que nunca queremos estar, ni entrar y que incluso negamos. Ella nos lo muestra dándonos un puñetazo en la cara diciéndonls: gilipollas espabilate, hay mucha mierda ahí fuera si sales de tu círculo de yupi, así que o devoras o te devorarán.
El punto que más me ha flipado ha sido el hecho de que a pesar de la brutalidad de los hechos que desarrolla, jamás se pone en el lugar de víctima y eso, para estos feminismos de hoy en día tan punitivistas que nos acaban relegando a ese lugar (sea premeditadamente o no), me ha parecido algo, ya no solo maravilloso, sino rompedor y necesario.
Tener ReferentAs que nos digan que podemos vivir desde otra posición la mierda vivida, te da fuerza para sentirte con ganas de vivir.
Recomiendo mazo este libro, creo que, salir de las zonas de comfort y leer aquello que nos incómoda o confronta, es totalmente necesario para poder deconstruir tanta mierda y avanzar hacia otro lugar completamente alejado al que estamos.
Ha sido duro, desagrable y muy incómodo leer a Lunch, las escenas de sexo violento, violaciones y agresiones eran hardcore del bueno.
Te hace sentir la paradoxia en tu piel, el deseo insaciable de follar para placar la sed de dolor por los abusos sufridos.
Creo que Lunch nos sitúa en ese lugar oscuro y perverso que nunca queremos estar, ni entrar y que incluso negamos. Ella nos lo muestra dándonos un puñetazo en la cara diciéndonls: gilipollas espabilate, hay mucha mierda ahí fuera si sales de tu círculo de yupi, así que o devoras o te devorarán.
El punto que más me ha flipado ha sido el hecho de que a pesar de la brutalidad de los hechos que desarrolla, jamás se pone en el lugar de víctima y eso, para estos feminismos de hoy en día tan punitivistas que nos acaban relegando a ese lugar (sea premeditadamente o no), me ha parecido algo, ya no solo maravilloso, sino rompedor y necesario.
Tener ReferentAs que nos digan que podemos vivir desde otra posición la mierda vivida, te da fuerza para sentirte con ganas de vivir.
Recomiendo mazo este libro, creo que, salir de las zonas de comfort y leer aquello que nos incómoda o confronta, es totalmente necesario para poder deconstruir tanta mierda y avanzar hacia otro lugar completamente alejado al que estamos.
February 21, 2018
La novela es un catálogo de conductas cada vez más perversas pero, pese a que el nombre de Bataille aparece en alguna que otra página, la calidad literaria no es la misma del autor francés. El estilo es de frases cortas, cortantes, muchas veces con el ánimo de epatar. (No soy un ángel, siempre me he puesto del lado de los malos). Pero tanto desfase acaba haciéndose repetitivo, incluso aunque suba el tono de los excesos.
July 24, 2025
A well-written biopic of a central artist of the NY no wave music and art movement, that is also a compelling, almost poetic, narrative.
Also, if somebody told me no biopic ever written is more erotic than this one, I wouldn't mind believing them...
Also, if somebody told me no biopic ever written is more erotic than this one, I wouldn't mind believing them...
Read
January 10, 2016Lydia Lunch « Une dose de réalité brute, hardcore » ?
Ne jamais juger un livre d’après sa couverture disaient-ils. Dans la version française : une paire de fesses trop lisses et pas assez vergeturées pour être celles de l’auteure, tenues à pleine paume par des mains velues, un doigt d’honneur énorme et phallique en surimpression mal photoshoppé. Le tout surmonté du titre en rose Tati. La couverture de Paradoxia fait cheap et très compliquée à sortir dans une rame de métro ou en café. Détracteurs du porno chic vous ne serez pas déçus, ici, tout est vulgaire, et ce dès la première page.
On connaissait l’amour fraternel voir incestueux de Lydia Lunch pour le glauque, mais dans ses autres entreprises, la tornade rousse semblait faire plus de sens que dans cet amas de scènes de cul (appelons un chat une chatte) sensées dépeindre son parcours dans la luxure et la souillure. New York, les années no-wave, le parcours typique, la doctrine plus si parallèle, d’une enfant abusée qui privée de repères essentiels finit par abuser elle-même.
On pourrait crier à la subversion si ce schéma de pauvre petite fille n’avait été vu, revu, dit et mieux dit. On pourrait s’enthousiasmer du voyage dans le temps si notre génération, blasée de tout et surtout de la controverse à deux cents ne connaissait pas déjà par cœur ce mouvement grunge mal vieillissant. Qui aurait besoin de s’encanailler se verrait alors prescrire quelques doses homéopathiques de George Bataille et s’en verrait au moins repartir quelque peu plus instruit qu’au départ. Si la seule valeur de ce texte était ce choc cru, ces idées à cran, et qu’il est possible de saisir sa portée lors de sa première publication, force est de constater qu’aujourd’hui les nouvelles générations ont tout vu, tout entendu et qu’il ne reste que la pauvreté du verbe.
Peu de références temporelles, pas de plan narratif, ellipses à gogo, on est en plein trip LSD du début aux 80% de l’ouvrage et il faudra d’ailleurs un courage sans failles aux lecteurs qui parviendront à ce stade de l’histoire. Entre le rythme lourd parsemé d’accumulations sans but, ni foi, ni loi et les épisodes à la limite du snuff movie, il est très difficile d’enchainer plus de trois pages du livre, pourtant vendu par Virginie Despentes (qui d’autre ?…) en préface, comme la 8e merveille du monde.
Accordons néanmoins à l’auteur la restitution de cette nausée permanente aux commissures, sensation qui se devait d’être celle de cette génération perdue, sans but et sans idées. Quelques passages à sauver également, tout d’abord lorsque la Lunch se décide de sortir enfin son nez de ses propres orifices pour observer la faune, les sans-abris qui sont tous des univers à part entière. On retiendra surtout cette fin où à mi-chemin entre une prêtresse hippie en retard sur son temps et une sorcière new-age, la rousse diabolique finit par s’oublier et se retrouver à coup de rituels vaudous maison, dans une nouvelle Orléans qui même décrépie ne perd de son côté rien de son charme.
Ne jamais juger un livre d’après sa couverture disaient-ils. Dans la version française : une paire de fesses trop lisses et pas assez vergeturées pour être celles de l’auteure, tenues à pleine paume par des mains velues, un doigt d’honneur énorme et phallique en surimpression mal photoshoppé. Le tout surmonté du titre en rose Tati. La couverture de Paradoxia fait cheap et très compliquée à sortir dans une rame de métro ou en café. Détracteurs du porno chic vous ne serez pas déçus, ici, tout est vulgaire, et ce dès la première page.
On connaissait l’amour fraternel voir incestueux de Lydia Lunch pour le glauque, mais dans ses autres entreprises, la tornade rousse semblait faire plus de sens que dans cet amas de scènes de cul (appelons un chat une chatte) sensées dépeindre son parcours dans la luxure et la souillure. New York, les années no-wave, le parcours typique, la doctrine plus si parallèle, d’une enfant abusée qui privée de repères essentiels finit par abuser elle-même.
On pourrait crier à la subversion si ce schéma de pauvre petite fille n’avait été vu, revu, dit et mieux dit. On pourrait s’enthousiasmer du voyage dans le temps si notre génération, blasée de tout et surtout de la controverse à deux cents ne connaissait pas déjà par cœur ce mouvement grunge mal vieillissant. Qui aurait besoin de s’encanailler se verrait alors prescrire quelques doses homéopathiques de George Bataille et s’en verrait au moins repartir quelque peu plus instruit qu’au départ. Si la seule valeur de ce texte était ce choc cru, ces idées à cran, et qu’il est possible de saisir sa portée lors de sa première publication, force est de constater qu’aujourd’hui les nouvelles générations ont tout vu, tout entendu et qu’il ne reste que la pauvreté du verbe.
Peu de références temporelles, pas de plan narratif, ellipses à gogo, on est en plein trip LSD du début aux 80% de l’ouvrage et il faudra d’ailleurs un courage sans failles aux lecteurs qui parviendront à ce stade de l’histoire. Entre le rythme lourd parsemé d’accumulations sans but, ni foi, ni loi et les épisodes à la limite du snuff movie, il est très difficile d’enchainer plus de trois pages du livre, pourtant vendu par Virginie Despentes (qui d’autre ?…) en préface, comme la 8e merveille du monde.
Accordons néanmoins à l’auteur la restitution de cette nausée permanente aux commissures, sensation qui se devait d’être celle de cette génération perdue, sans but et sans idées. Quelques passages à sauver également, tout d’abord lorsque la Lunch se décide de sortir enfin son nez de ses propres orifices pour observer la faune, les sans-abris qui sont tous des univers à part entière. On retiendra surtout cette fin où à mi-chemin entre une prêtresse hippie en retard sur son temps et une sorcière new-age, la rousse diabolique finit par s’oublier et se retrouver à coup de rituels vaudous maison, dans une nouvelle Orléans qui même décrépie ne perd de son côté rien de son charme.
January 8, 2020
I randomly picked this up having been a "fan" back in the 80s. I guess more or less a "fan" of all-things-NYC than of Lunch specifically. Still, back then, some of those Kern films, 8 Eyed Spy, and a few of her "readings" were interesting.
That said, 30 some years later, it's all a bit repetitive, tiring, not well-written, and frankly dull. Surely, if you want real seedy underbelly stuff, you'll reach for Selby, Genet, Burroughs, etc. Right? And that's exactly what this felt like: a novelty retread of the greats. Lunch even comes across as trying to write like Burroughs in more than a few instances.
Her writing about sex sounds more like the staff writers at Hustler than anything original. She pads out this book with lots of it, too. Mainly because anytime she stops writing about it and tries to go in an dramatic direction, she lapses into her canned routines. The fleeting moments of good stuff come and go in these dramatic moments, and then are lost; rarely to appear again in the book. (Never mind character development!) Really, just leaves us with desperate attempts to shock and turns transgressive sex dull. A chapter of this published in Forced Exposure or Film Threat in 1986 would have freaked everyone out in a good way. Now? Hardly shocking.
Surely, an actual writer is out there that can pen a truly great Lydia Lunch biography. She has led a wild and weird life; which could surely be turned into something up there with Selby, Genet or Burroughs. Until then...
That said, 30 some years later, it's all a bit repetitive, tiring, not well-written, and frankly dull. Surely, if you want real seedy underbelly stuff, you'll reach for Selby, Genet, Burroughs, etc. Right? And that's exactly what this felt like: a novelty retread of the greats. Lunch even comes across as trying to write like Burroughs in more than a few instances.
Her writing about sex sounds more like the staff writers at Hustler than anything original. She pads out this book with lots of it, too. Mainly because anytime she stops writing about it and tries to go in an dramatic direction, she lapses into her canned routines. The fleeting moments of good stuff come and go in these dramatic moments, and then are lost; rarely to appear again in the book. (Never mind character development!) Really, just leaves us with desperate attempts to shock and turns transgressive sex dull. A chapter of this published in Forced Exposure or Film Threat in 1986 would have freaked everyone out in a good way. Now? Hardly shocking.
Surely, an actual writer is out there that can pen a truly great Lydia Lunch biography. She has led a wild and weird life; which could surely be turned into something up there with Selby, Genet or Burroughs. Until then...
May 24, 2021
Quedé impactada con este libro. Cuando comencé a leerlo me parecía divertido y morboso, tenía curiosidad, asi como cuando uno ve una película sadomasoquista que está seguro que no quiere intentar pero aún así quiere saber que más pasará; en la medida que fui avanzando es inevitable meterse en el papel del personaje principal, cada narración de sus experiencias más allá de lo sexual nos permite ver el trasfondo de las situaciones, los lugares, las personas y el espacio en el que habita, y más allá de glorificar dichos actos nos permite ver el daño que hacen a la misma protagonista.
Una mujer que siempre está al borde del abismo pero nunca lo suficiente para caer, un personaje que en muchos sentidos me representó, claro está no al extremo, pero sin duda alguna nos pone a pensar en el vacío que muchas veces queremos llenar y a la degradación a la que llegamos buscando ese fin.
Nos muestra el otro lado de la moneda una sociedad llena de personas que existe y que nosotros decidimos creer que no.
Recomendadísimo.
Una mujer que siempre está al borde del abismo pero nunca lo suficiente para caer, un personaje que en muchos sentidos me representó, claro está no al extremo, pero sin duda alguna nos pone a pensar en el vacío que muchas veces queremos llenar y a la degradación a la que llegamos buscando ese fin.
Nos muestra el otro lado de la moneda una sociedad llena de personas que existe y que nosotros decidimos creer que no.
Recomendadísimo.
September 8, 2017
I came across this book in a used bookstore and thought I'd give it a shot cause I was familiar with some of LL's music (which I thought was interesting) and knew she was a bit of an icon of a certain scene, and I love reading accounts of past underground scenes (real, fictional, or a mix). however I could barely get through the book, it is written like an angry goth/punk teenager would write to try to purposely shock people and prove how hardcore they are. I am not an easily shocked person- I have no problem with books that describe disturbing or unsavoury scenes, as long as it is well written and there seems to be a point to it all. But in this book, the writing is repetitive and cliched and it just feels like she's trying too hard to prove something, describing things to purposely shock more than actually share anything meaningful or original. I just got bored with it and stopped caring.
July 24, 2017
Shakspeare wrote " It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing". This could apply to Lydia's story, a story told by a nihilistic rock and roll witch who is into art terrorism. It is an outrageous story full of shock and awe which is the polar opposite of straight life. If true and I've no reason to doubt it, then I can understand why she had to write it and if not true then I can understand why she had to write it. This book is not for the weak of mind as it will challenge the reader and rightly so, this is rock and roll extreme. I don't have what's needed to review this book properly, I just don't know where to start and anyway other reviewers have made a good job of this. Suffice to say that if you want awakened from your slumber then go for it. Looking at the reviews and the devisiveness it has caused I would say she has done her job well.
June 5, 2009
Lydia's such a nice girl.
The darling of the No Wave scene is on a heavy De Sade trip, and like the good Marquis the result is a catalog of kink with novel perversions aplenty. Also like the Marquis, there is an interesting study of power dynamics in our society if one is willing to wade through the exceptionally fecund filth. Don't get me wrong, filth can be fun, but such a nonstop wallow becomes tedious.
Ultimately the book fails because of the lack of coherent and engaging narrative, but it succeeds precisely where it set out to . . . as a tonic for the endless victim narratives that make up such a large part of our literature of the last 20 yrs or so. Lydia has provided us with a portrait of the artist as unrepentant predator.
The darling of the No Wave scene is on a heavy De Sade trip, and like the good Marquis the result is a catalog of kink with novel perversions aplenty. Also like the Marquis, there is an interesting study of power dynamics in our society if one is willing to wade through the exceptionally fecund filth. Don't get me wrong, filth can be fun, but such a nonstop wallow becomes tedious.
Ultimately the book fails because of the lack of coherent and engaging narrative, but it succeeds precisely where it set out to . . . as a tonic for the endless victim narratives that make up such a large part of our literature of the last 20 yrs or so. Lydia has provided us with a portrait of the artist as unrepentant predator.
July 20, 2008
As someone who's been vaguely interested in Lydia Lunch since the mid 80's, I was really disappointed in this book. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I was hoping for more than cheap shocks, tiresome sex, phony hardboiled prose, and pretentious rambling.
I have no plans to read anything else she's written.
I have no plans to read anything else she's written.
November 11, 2012
.......... και παρόλο που τους καταφρονούσα σαν είδος έπιανα τον εαυτό μου από την μια να τάσσεται με το μέρος του φύλου τους και από την άλλη να ξεσπά ανήλεα πάνω τους.
Η μπαταρία των συναισθημάτων που τροφοδοτούσε την ζωτική ορμή μου λειτουργούσε ως αγωγός προς μια ανώτερη κατάσταση.
επ αυτού πρόκειται..
κυνισμός, χυδαίο γλωσσάριο, ωμότητα, παροξυσμός
αυτό - και καταστροφικό παθός.
Η μπαταρία των συναισθημάτων που τροφοδοτούσε την ζωτική ορμή μου λειτουργούσε ως αγωγός προς μια ανώτερη κατάσταση.
επ αυτού πρόκειται..
κυνισμός, χυδαίο γλωσσάριο, ωμότητα, παροξυσμός
αυτό - και καταστροφικό παθός.
June 28, 2020
On a l'impression de s'être battu pendant plus de deux cents pages. Et c'est le coeur en miette et les nerfs à vif que vous terminerez votre lecture de cette vie particulièrement crue. Son livre est à l'image de sa musique, c'est violent, c'est intense, c'est Punk ! : http://bookymary.blogspot.fr/2016/06/...
September 12, 2019
I read this sometime in college when all I cared about was punk literature and knowing the history of the New York underground. Flipping back through some of these books now, I see that I was desperate for something that smacked of authenticity but read a lot of shit in the process.
August 22, 2007
I've seen and heard Lydia speak/perform spoken-word twice. INCREDIBLY articulate, and just down-right awesome. "Paradoxia's" a good introduction to her writing. But I'd prefer to see and hear her.
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