Posts Tagged ‘bizarro’

Each story is more astounding, more amusing, and more well … just more strange than the one before. Most explored some element of male sexuality but each had something different to say. From the opening story about a guy who upon ejaculating, squirts out a “moustachioed tiler” every time, to the point they infest his life. To the conspiracy theory of just what causes menstruation. And the man with a job which involves shouting abuse at walls while wanting to go home and listen to a set of headphones which throbs the sound of someone masturbating down his ears – eerie only because the spooky masturbator doesn’t ever actually cum. It’s an assortment of varied and sometimes puzzlingly psychotic tales.

Mister Vandermeer has created a wonderful world in this novel. It’s slick, it’s nasty, it’s biological and mechanical. It’s one of those books which would be a fantastic movie in cgi with lots of darkness and a punk soundtrack surrounded by classical opera.

i just felt the novel managed to be strange without having to draw attention to this. he did this a few times in the book, and i felt each time it was undeserved. i felt better having hansel just walk us through without him turning around and saying “wow, is this strange” as though i’m supposed to stop and say “woah, yeah! you’re right! it IS strange.”