[Note: I changed the picture because so many people got pissed off about it. Here is a nicer photo to look at.]
Dear HTML Giant Universe,
Have you heard of René’s Flesh by Virgilio Piñera? If you haven’t, don’t feel bad. I only heard about it a few days ago. Then, I read it. And I am obsessed. Piñera was a huge Cuban writer, among the likes of Reinaldo Arenas, Jose Lézama Lima, and Alejo Carpentier. And yet, I’d never heard of Piñera. If I had an iron memory, I’d know that he was a character in Before Night Falls, but I don’t have an iron memory.
A few days ago, a friend of mine put René’s Flesh in my hands, an exchange because I’d told him about 2666. He said, If you like Bolaño, you’ll love this book. Despite having my ever-growing stack of books-to-read-and-review, I put my trust in this friend. I read the book in 24 hours. I took five baths, snuggling in the warmth of water and the titillation of this book.
This book: a fairy tale without magic. There is no magic, but in its absence: pain. Lots of it. The pleasure of pain, the torture of pain, it gave me nightmares from which I hoped to never wake.
René’s Flesh is set in noplace in notime. The place could be any place, the time could be any time. It’s modern: there are buses and cars, telephones and electricity, and yet, the narrative situates itself in a time before this time, a time of butcher shops and provincial villages. Reading it, I was convinced I’d been transposed to the quiet and quaint little town where the Disney Beauty & the Beast was set. I imagined Belle walking through town reading her books. And yet, despite the pastoralia, there emerges the Cult of Flesh: enter René’s world.
Enter a world where carnality reigns.
Enter a world where people worship flesh.
Flesh takes many forms, whether it is the flesh of an animal – meat floods every scene, meat still hanging fresh on a hook, meat cooked every which way – or the flesh of man. René – a man of the most perfect flesh, though hardly muscular or toned, simply beautiful, untainted flesh – on the eve of his twentieth birthday, is set to inherit his father’s position as leader of the Cause. As leader, he will be pursued, and as such, he must train his flesh to endure and enjoy pain. On the eve of his twentieth birthday, his father reveals his fate by exposing his own flesh to his son: his chest is stripped of skin, a large rotting wound; his ear is has a puncture the size of a dime; the soles of his feet have been burned. René, being accustomed to only the greatest of pleasures, wants none of this, but what he wants is irrelevant. This is his fate.
René is quickly shipped off to school, a school of torture. His first lesson: to endure electrocution in perfect silence, albeit an artificial silence insured via a muzzle.
I don’t want to give too much more away. Suffice to say, there is more torture, more flesh, more reader enjoyment.
Reading this book, I wondered why there is such satisfaction in reading about pain and masochism. More than a decade ago, when my head was all sorts of screwed, I used to cut myself. It was a brief stage that lasted maybe a year too long, and well, it’s pretty cliché in retrospect, but at the time, I was convinced my suffering was profound. As I was reading this book, I wondered if maybe my obsession with it had to do with my affair with the pain of flesh, but no, no I don’t think it’s personal. I don’t think one needs to have a history of flesh sabotage in order to want (no, maybe “desire” is a better word, or “lust”) this book. Reminiscent of Sade or Rikki Ducornet, René’s Flesh is sensual and sexual and all kinds of fantasy-dirty without any sex. That, perhaps, is what is most powerful about this book. It tempts you – carnally – without sex itself.
But here’s my problem with it: first, I’m not crazy about the ending, but more importantly, the translation isn’t great. In Spanish, meat and flesh fall under the umbrella of carne. The text itself often seems clunky when it ought to be – as flesh is – smooth. So, you presses out there who specialize in translation (I’m looking at you, Action Books, Dalkey Archive, etc), consider this book. It wants you.
And readers: maybe you haven’t heard of René’s Flesh. Maybe you have too many books to read. But if you make time for René’s Flesh, you will be satisfied in unpredictable ways. It is a book that contains the sate of a gourmet feast and the brief second before the release of orgasm and a firm slap across your face, all in one.
Love, Lily
Tags: marquis de sade, masochism, rene's flesh, rikki ducornet, virgilio pinera
yes hello i want to read this right now now
thanks lily
i certainly hadn’t heard of this, but am very glad that now i have
I agree, I hadn’t heard of this ever but now I’m sooooo curious and can’t wait to check it out!
I will have to check this book out. There is, indeed, a visceral pleasure in reading about pain and masochism. Of course, I also believe there is real pleasure in masochism itself. Suffering, in certain contexts, is erotic. Even when it is not erotic, it is compelling to see, in literature, how far the writer will go, how much they will push the bodies of their characters, the imagination of the reader, the limits of the reader. Writing about torture implicates the reader in really interesting ways. I wrote about something similar once, in graduate school, talking about depictions of rape in art (Rape of Lucrece, etc), and how the artist encourages the viewer to participate in the violation being depicted. I look forward to reading this.
I will have to check this book out. There is, indeed, a visceral pleasure in reading about pain and masochism. Of course, I also believe there is real pleasure in masochism itself. Suffering, in certain contexts, is erotic. Even when it is not erotic, it is compelling to see, in literature, how far the writer will go, how much they will push the bodies of their characters, the imagination of the reader, the limits of the reader. Writing about torture implicates the reader in really interesting ways. I wrote about something similar once, in graduate school, talking about depictions of rape in art (Rape of Lucrece, etc), and how the artist encourages the viewer to participate in the violation being depicted. I look forward to reading this.
damn. need this in my hands.
damn. need this in my hands.
I dig Arenas and Bolano. Have heard about Lezama Lima.
Gregory Rabassa is still alive
the picture actually made me throw up.
I had this weird suspicion, Mike, that you would like this.
aka Caligula’s Stepchildren. How many people in this thread get off on descriptions of extreme gore/suffering yet turn around and lament the lack of “civility” in a flamey thread? Cog Dis much… ?
But if you’re reading about and enjoying a pain that’s not your own, you’re not a “Masochist” you’re a *Sadist*; read something by Erich Fromm (zb: “Anatomie der menschlichen Destruktivität”) before gobbling up the above-cited, neat little Rorschach for ur fuktup kultcha… and, hey, which books do you suppose they’re getting off on in Iraq/Libya/Afghanistan/Pakistan right now?
(PS: “electrocution” is one of the most misused words on the Internet)
well part of that enjoyment of gore/suffering in literature maybe has to do with the language used in the description, like it’s really good/beautiful writing that depicts something horrible, so there’s the enjoyment of the beautiful reading and possibly the enjoyment of or at least the experience of that strange feeling where the reader is divided between admiration for the writing and repulsion at the acts. that seems like it might be absent from a flamey thread on the internet, like it’s just a flamey thread, not a beautifully written flamey thread (I don’t even know what that would look like?).
also possibly there’s the idea that in literature it’s a character (or two characters or whatever, the point is they’re not real), while in a flamey thread it’s two (or more, or just one) real people (person) really behaving in an uncivil way. that kind of stinks.
or I don’t know, maybe this was your point. I didn’t read this blog post because that picture grosses me out. there I said it.
Trey, do you (or would you) enjoy reading about animals in pain?
“I didn’t read this blog post because that picture grosses me out. there I said it.”
Actually, you’ve already answered my question.
haha, fair enough.
Why the exploitive photo of someone’s suffering.
It’s actually one of the first images when I typed “flesh” into google images.
It’s actually one of the first images when I typed “flesh” into google images.
I Did read the post, hoping to find some context or explanation for that photo (because the photo – the Use of it, that is – made me Not want to read the post) but found none.
Perhaps the unfortunate owner of that gory leg has had expert surgical cleanup of a burn (motorcycle mishap?) or animal bite, removal of a cancer or of a shrapnel. The wound is quite clean, actually, and thanks to modern-day anesthetics and antibiotics, he probably felt (after the initial insult) and is still feeling ‘no pain’ and will not die of infection. He has some reconstructive grafting in his future, that’s for sure. So, as gory goes, to a biologist-by-training (me), (my first job out of college was for an oncologist/surgeon at UC-SF), it’s not too bad.
I have not read any of the linked authors/works, so can’t comment on them.
But I have read de Sade, which I think is more about liberty than language-beauty (in any case ‘liberty’ swept me away, not ‘beauty’).
I’ve read Lolita, darn near purtiest (and often funny: ‘I had stolen the honey of a spasm without impairing the morals of a minor.’) language about an ostensibly abhorrent subject – language-beauty at its best.
To me, it’s all about the words.
(And I’m always up for enjoying a goodwords flamewar/shitstorm.)
I just don’t see the image fitting the post. It seems gratuitous to me.
And yeah, read the Fromm. And while you’re at it, check out ‘Female Perversions’ by Kaplan. And maybe ‘Animals in Translation’ by Temple Grandin.
This comment is all over the place, disjointed, sorry. Prolly have more to say but am distracted by end of day circus . . . .
I think it isn’t nice to use. It makes me sad for the person.
necrotizing fasciitis (?)
The photo works, meat is an obsessive theme in this book, that it’s removed from a person instead of an animal is more alarming, or less so? I got images of added synthetic meat when searching for “flesh”
Fromm would chuckle at that one, DG
Fromm would chuckle at that one, DG
“The text itself often seems clunky when it ought to be – as flesh is – smooth.”
In this case, the main draw obviously isn’t the Nabokovian splendor of the style. The main draw is… well, let’s let Lily speak for herself:
“This book: a fairy tale without magic. There is no magic, but in its absence: pain. Lots of it. The pleasure of pain, the torture of pain, it gave me nightmares from which I hoped to never wake.”
“The text itself often seems clunky when it ought to be – as flesh is – smooth.”
In this case, the main draw obviously isn’t the Nabokovian splendor of the style. The main draw is… well, let’s let Lily speak for herself:
“This book: a fairy tale without magic. There is no magic, but in its absence: pain. Lots of it. The pleasure of pain, the torture of pain, it gave me nightmares from which I hoped to never wake.”
I think an image of the book would have served the post better, or the author`s photo. Not sure Pinera would have appreciated this much. I have read the book. Ahhhh… the World Wide Web, we are creating our own hell. This picture of disease & Pinera can now be eternally linked. Shame.
Dear Everyone who was Disturbed by the Image: I’ve changed it. Now, you can see Pinera instead. My apologies for soiling your pure imaginations with something so gross.
Dear Everyone who was Disturbed by the Image: I’ve changed it. Now, you can see Pinera instead. My apologies for soiling your pure imaginations with something so gross.
I’ve changed it, Anon. BUT, but, wouldn’t that disgusting image have been something similar to what Rene saw on Ramon’s chest? His “wound”? (Not to mention the third year students’ bodies at the school, when they are naked and “softening” him.) But do what you want: Preach on!
I’ve changed it, Anon. BUT, but, wouldn’t that disgusting image have been something similar to what Rene saw on Ramon’s chest? His “wound”? (Not to mention the third year students’ bodies at the school, when they are naked and “softening” him.) But do what you want: Preach on!
Lily, I have a book recommendation for you: A Melon for Ecstasy by John Wells ( http://www.amazon.com/Melon-Ecstasy-Prion-Humour-Classics/dp/1853754706/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303821988&sr=8-1 )
It’s an epistolary novel about a man who has sex with trees. Brilliant, hilarious, disturbing, etc.
Thanks very much Lily – very nice of you.
Dear Lily and EveryBody –
Just to clarify my Own Personal Perspective –
1) I was not Disturbed by The Image – the point of my First Comment was that The Image, Relatively Speaking, was Not So Gross – I’ve seen Far Worst IRL – with attendant Real Sounds and Real Smells – and Suffering of Profound Loss by Real Families – I was Needing an Explanation or Context for it – and have found my Need Fulfilled in This Comment Thread – Thank You
2) prolly wouldn’t want a post about Lolita illustrated by a Real Image of Real Child Molestation either
3) my Unpure Imagination is Long Past Being Soiled – Trust Me
Have a Nice Day !
I like my sugar with coffee AND cream
– the Beastie Boys
(emphasis – mimi)
now That’s Smooth
really? i found it beautiful and interesting. it’s not often one gets to see inside a person’s leg. how many people have to get pissed off, lily, before you change it back? count me for one.
Hate to be an RN here but I an RN; why do you assume the person is suffering? This could be treatment to alleviate suffering. Now my lit side: Why is the photo viewed literally–wasn’t it a comment on the content of the book? Isn’t it in context? What person? Isn’t this photo anonymous? It is a leg. It is your leg and my leg. Hell, it could be a hyper-realistic sculpture to make you think about why it repels us so. Etc. Bring the flesh back!
– probably echoing the patient
Man, what was wrong with that image? I agree with Sean. That’s your leg, people, in the nursing home, when the Alzheimer’s is in full effect, and your caregivers, not so much because they’re lazy or incompetent but because, well, legs like these, they come and go, get seen everyday, and so maybe they forget to turn you as often as they should, and these ulcers, they just happen, and down the line, you know, they’re probably going to happen to you. So why not take a peek? Thanks Lily, for the review and reflection on the limits of the flesh.
if we’re talking lit/context/imagination, why ‘taint’ or ‘prejudice’ my own imaginationings (i could come up with way better imaginary images i think don’t do my imagining for me) with a real-leg-photo or hyper-realistic-leg-sculpture
if we’re talking the-visual-arts then okay
and i’m with you on the “It is your leg and my leg.”
one last thought about lily’s Use of The Image – it was right at the top (“above the fold”) – not in the Context-Meat of the post – don’t tell me it wasn’t for ‘visual-shock’ value
I thought the image was appropriate and fascinating and terrible. It made perfect sense given the post.
A masochist can get off on a sadomasochistic fantasy as easily as a sadist can. You are getting pleasure from seeing or reading about the act happening. Just as watching vanilla porn where two people have sex has the potential to get a person off no matter which role (top/bottom, male/female) they prefer in real life, even if they’re not necessarily directly envisioning themselves as a part of the action.
Maybe if he was into bestiality he would be. But that doesn’t really have anything to do with sadomasochism.
I think people defending the use of the now gone image really are heartless. Some sort of fake artsy cool based on getting slight thrills off of someone’s suffering. “How do you know he was suffering?” It is like Chuang Tzu when asked how he knew the fish were happy. Amazing how heartless the internet can make people.
No, it isn’t “your leg”. If it was your leg you probably would be doing something besides posting here.
What?
Sounds Like you think the leg us made of concrete.
?
Heartless is a bit much? How do you know what is suffering or not? Are you waving or drowning? What does that Rothko down below mean? What does it mean, I need to know. It is an image of a leg. And yes fish ate happy. Aren’t you happy when swimming? Got to go. I just saw a tree waving it’s branches and need to go see if it needs help.
The above typos r why you should never comment from an iPhone while wasting time before an event.
Btw pinera is pissed off about his photo up there, I can tell.
How about we cut off your leg and you can tell us how it feels.
How about we dance about architecture?
http://xrl.us/bh8tjk
http://xrl.us/bh8tjk
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