feuchtgebiete

[khana]

just opened 'feuchtgebiete' ('wetlands') at some random page and read for 20 pages or so. and it is a disgusting as i remembered the beginnig being (which i heard in a readin on the leipzig book fair a few years ago). this particular section was about the main character's period and how she deals with it, her various visits to brothels, and how much she likes to eat all her various bodily ... things. (blut und popel, schorf und eiter, all sowas. mjam.)

seriously. I can't help but wonder how much of that the author does herself, because people don't just come up with all that shit, do they? I'd never even think of writing a character who eats her own boogers and calls it a hobby. just - what?

it's really pretty disgusting.

Comments

[peaches.livejournal.com]

still, i found the book disappointing, because i always had the feeling that the wrote it *only* to shock people. I've read far worse, but in those cases, i always believed the characters - if that makes sense? I believed that they needed to do those things because they were in love or crazy or even normal (booger eating is pretty common, isn't it?), not because the author thought it was "shocking".
you said it yourself, you'd never think of writing a character like that, so she had the chance to write a really "new" character, but i think she was so far off with it, just because she didn't really get how to make a character believeable.

*puts soap box away*

[khana.livejournal.com]

yeah, absolutely. she doesn't feel like a character - granted, I haven't read the novel as a novel, just snippets here and there - she feels like a standin to get as many dusgusting and/or unhygienic things as possibly out there.
I'm not interested in her as a character, because it doesn't feel as if there will be a reason why she does all the shit she does (apart from her parents divorcing. please.) It just makes no sense, there's no real plot or anything to tie all the weirdness together.
And yeah, booger eating is pretty common, but most of the stuff she does isn't. to go by the pages I read yesterday, who always and on reasons of getting one over the tampon industry always stuffs themselves with toilet paper roll things? eats their schorf and eiter and just, ugh. there is just no reason for all her madness.

it really doen't feel like a novel, and that's what makes me stop reading, and not wanting to read it in order. if it did, I might even get through all the disgusting stuff. but there's just nothing beyond that.