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aaronlindsey's review
1.0
This is the first book I’ve read by Dennis Cooper. It’s also the last book I’ll read by Dennis Cooper.
This guy makes Chuck Palahniuk look like Dr. Seuss.
Once again I was seduced by false reviews using words like, “Mystifying”, and “Courageous”, and , my favorite…”Ghost-Haunted”!
This novel is so disgusting I found myself scanning more pages than deep reading. If offensive is what you’re after, look no further.
I’m sorry I wasted time and money on this rubbish.
This guy makes Chuck Palahniuk look like Dr. Seuss.
Once again I was seduced by false reviews using words like, “Mystifying”, and “Courageous”, and , my favorite…”Ghost-Haunted”!
This novel is so disgusting I found myself scanning more pages than deep reading. If offensive is what you’re after, look no further.
I’m sorry I wasted time and money on this rubbish.
meganmilks's review
5.0
MIRROR TRICKS, ALL OF IT!!! i need to read this again to fully grasp 'what happened' both on the referential level and on the level of form -- but was deliriously riveted by the language and syntax play which is frequently hilarious, and very similar to Urs Allemann's BABYFUCKER w/r/t the comically disorienting syntax providing an uncomfortably comfortable distance from the horrors it's describing, though enacted in a much different way, a mode of rather hilariously insufferable linguistic excess.
some favorite moments:
On the off chance my manner hasn't made self-flattery a metaphoric gild to my veritable lily, allow me to infer that on the issue of attractiveness, I could spend many numbing if prettily over-written pages counting the ways in which my beauty is a fact, disputed by no one I've ever met, although I suspect a simple background check might do. 7
*
Were I even half as gay as you imagine, I might have rearranged my scheduled for the next few days and fucked Serge until his epidermal layer collapsed around his neck like an old white sock. 21
a favorite passage:
Didier was nothing much to look at, but his face had possibilities. Think of Leonardo DiCaprio, post-Titanic, and, more specifically, of his head's vast sweeps and curves of unused skin in which his features seem to gang up like the finger hole in a bowling ball. Now drizzle that with Kurt Cobain's scraggly hair at its most unwashed, and you will sort of have the crux of Didier's outstanding issues at your fingertips.
...
So, while I was no more tantalized by him than little girls holding baby dolls are mothers, it seems my wish to leave the house in which Alfonse was so exceptionally imprinted and furiously carved, meaning in everything and everyone, myself included, encouraged me to crowd inside the strange new door with Didier, then walk and crouch and finally crawl behind him down a wooden cave, or so I thought, squeezed and burrowed through unceasing treasuries of spiderwebs and insulation that slowly rubbed the home into the ghost of any structure I had entered in my life, until we found the world's most secret exit, and I used it. 125
some favorite moments:
On the off chance my manner hasn't made self-flattery a metaphoric gild to my veritable lily, allow me to infer that on the issue of attractiveness, I could spend many numbing if prettily over-written pages counting the ways in which my beauty is a fact, disputed by no one I've ever met, although I suspect a simple background check might do. 7
*
Were I even half as gay as you imagine, I might have rearranged my scheduled for the next few days and fucked Serge until his epidermal layer collapsed around his neck like an old white sock. 21
a favorite passage:
Didier was nothing much to look at, but his face had possibilities. Think of Leonardo DiCaprio, post-Titanic, and, more specifically, of his head's vast sweeps and curves of unused skin in which his features seem to gang up like the finger hole in a bowling ball. Now drizzle that with Kurt Cobain's scraggly hair at its most unwashed, and you will sort of have the crux of Didier's outstanding issues at your fingertips.
...
So, while I was no more tantalized by him than little girls holding baby dolls are mothers, it seems my wish to leave the house in which Alfonse was so exceptionally imprinted and furiously carved, meaning in everything and everyone, myself included, encouraged me to crowd inside the strange new door with Didier, then walk and crouch and finally crawl behind him down a wooden cave, or so I thought, squeezed and burrowed through unceasing treasuries of spiderwebs and insulation that slowly rubbed the home into the ghost of any structure I had entered in my life, until we found the world's most secret exit, and I used it. 125
daniels_books's review
4.0
I just bought Dennis Cooper's Closer on my Kindle and I am already terrified that someone is going to look at my Kindle and start reading it and see that it is not only pornographic, but pornographic in the most disturbing sense possible. I am fully convinced that e-Readers were invented for the sole purpose of being able to hide all your erotica from your friends.
Dennis Cooper scares me, yet The Marbled Swarm was still one of the most interesting novels I've read this year. The Marbled Swarm refers to the narrator's manner of speaking. It's a style that is both intricate and convoluted, but the most interesting thing about this Marbled Swarm is how it is also reflected in the plot itself: the plot continually stops, regresses, or goes off on a permanent tangent. The language is formal, and this formality is represented by a stunning lack of emotion in the narrator. Cannibalism, incest, rape, and abuse are revisited again and again as the plot circles around and around, attempting to avoid the whole point of the novel entirely. The events are terrifying and, in some ways, darkly funny. Yet it is an emotionless journey for the narrator, until the time comes when the heart of the novel cannot be avoided any longer.
In short, it's The Story of the Eye for the 21st century. (Which I had no problem sharing with all my friends. I was too enthralled by my own deviousness.) This novel is hard to simplify and dismiss it as a gross-out novel, because there is some real pain here. Cooper is too intelligent to let himself be reduced so easily. I don't want to call it a masterwork, but it's damn brilliant.
Dennis Cooper scares me, yet The Marbled Swarm was still one of the most interesting novels I've read this year. The Marbled Swarm refers to the narrator's manner of speaking. It's a style that is both intricate and convoluted, but the most interesting thing about this Marbled Swarm is how it is also reflected in the plot itself: the plot continually stops, regresses, or goes off on a permanent tangent. The language is formal, and this formality is represented by a stunning lack of emotion in the narrator. Cannibalism, incest, rape, and abuse are revisited again and again as the plot circles around and around, attempting to avoid the whole point of the novel entirely. The events are terrifying and, in some ways, darkly funny. Yet it is an emotionless journey for the narrator, until the time comes when the heart of the novel cannot be avoided any longer.
In short, it's The Story of the Eye for the 21st century. (Which I had no problem sharing with all my friends. I was too enthralled by my own deviousness.) This novel is hard to simplify and dismiss it as a gross-out novel, because there is some real pain here. Cooper is too intelligent to let himself be reduced so easily. I don't want to call it a masterwork, but it's damn brilliant.
foxwrapped's review
2.0
First I was like, "Awesome! He's written a comedy!" but then I was like, "Oh shit, he's written his own version of a Story of the Eye." and I hate the Story of the Eye! BUT. maybe. maybe this is the punchline. Maybe it is some sort of comment/joke on True Art Is Incomprehensible yes?
God, I hope so. I don't want to have spent all that time being like, "nononono, he's not like that!" and then this. which is exactly like that.
God, I hope so. I don't want to have spent all that time being like, "nononono, he's not like that!" and then this. which is exactly like that.
ourtempsuprvsr's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
An exceptional book, in every sense of the word.
For all that, this is a beautiful novel about the most grimmest acts imaginable. It is *utterly* revolting, and continually challenges and questions the reader about their complicity in the actions of the narrator.
It is a novel of ellipses and elisions, made more important that it is expressly a novel about language, and language's effect on our brains and culture.
It is a very troubling book. It reminds me of Lolita - a book emphatically not for everyone, especially not those affected by the content discussed within. For all that, though, it diagnoses and drags into the light the profoundly violent and sexual roots of certain accepted social behaviours.
Not for everyone, probably barely for anyone.
For all that, this is a beautiful novel about the most grimmest acts imaginable. It is *utterly* revolting, and continually challenges and questions the reader about their complicity in the actions of the narrator.
It is a novel of ellipses and elisions, made more important that it is expressly a novel about language, and language's effect on our brains and culture.
It is a very troubling book. It reminds me of Lolita - a book emphatically not for everyone, especially not those affected by the content discussed within. For all that, though, it diagnoses and drags into the light the profoundly violent and sexual roots of certain accepted social behaviours.
Not for everyone, probably barely for anyone.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Sexual assault, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail
llamasama's review
4.0
I've been thinking about The Marbled Swarm a lot since I finished reading it. Trying to put my thoughts in order. I've got a ton of feelings about the book, but trying to sort them out and put them into words is proving to be a herculean endeavor, titanically difficult. More than anything, a sisyphean task... and other Greek idioms.. Which makes perfect sense, because this book is a winding labyrinth with a minotaur at the center. The Marbled Swarm is less a novel, and more a transgressive literary experiment. It's fun. I promise.
Maybe labyrinthian isn't exactly right though. Synecdochal? That sort've works.. The titular "Marbled Swarm" refers to the twisted winding prose of the narrator, itself a bastardization of the flowery manipulative French his father (a billionaire Svengali-type with a penchant for perversion) speaks, which is then twisted and confused again through the translation to English. But it also refers to the narrator's crimes, ALSO a bastardization, mistranslation and failed copy of his father's. So it's a synecdoche right? The Marbled Swarm is both a microcosm and a macrocosm of its constituent parts. The title, the prose, the plot.
No. That doesn't feel right either though. Recursive? I guess, but also not as specific as I want.. Maybe fractal is closer to how I feel? Would I feel pretentious as fuck saying, "The Marbled Swarm" is the novelization of fractal geometry? Definitely. Lets go with it.
You know how when you zoom in on a fractal you get recursive structure? As you zoom into the center of this book you get recursive structure. Every character has a doppelganger, every estate has a copy (and mazelike secret tunnels), every transgression has a doubling. Every action is nested within itself.
For example, there's a scene near the exact center of this book where the main character is being told a story by his lawyer about a woman being told a story by her son about a surreal Kafkaesque play he performed in (written by a doppelganger of the main character's father) spanning the course of days which is a near perfect recursion of the plot of the entire novel.
Then at the same time I think it's a statement on modern transgressive fiction? A transgressive author transgressing transgressive fiction by parodying it and himself? TOO MANY LAYERS I CAN'T KEEP UP. SEND HELP.
On a side note, what's with me and fiction involving cannibalism lately? It feels like every other book I've read this year trades heavily in cannibalism as symbolism. There's something about the allegory that I just find.. tasty (pun nintendo). It probably has something to do with the last 5 years in the world and the gross hyper-capitalistic dystopia we live in that treats humans as consumable and disposable? Something for me to chew on I guess.
Aaaaaannnyyyway. 4/5. A Baudelairean nightmare, a Sadeian fever-dream. I recommend this book to no one.
Maybe labyrinthian isn't exactly right though. Synecdochal? That sort've works.. The titular "Marbled Swarm" refers to the twisted winding prose of the narrator, itself a bastardization of the flowery manipulative French his father (a billionaire Svengali-type with a penchant for perversion) speaks, which is then twisted and confused again through the translation to English. But it also refers to the narrator's crimes, ALSO a bastardization, mistranslation and failed copy of his father's. So it's a synecdoche right? The Marbled Swarm is both a microcosm and a macrocosm of its constituent parts. The title, the prose, the plot.
No. That doesn't feel right either though. Recursive? I guess, but also not as specific as I want.. Maybe fractal is closer to how I feel? Would I feel pretentious as fuck saying, "The Marbled Swarm" is the novelization of fractal geometry? Definitely. Lets go with it.
You know how when you zoom in on a fractal you get recursive structure? As you zoom into the center of this book you get recursive structure. Every character has a doppelganger, every estate has a copy (and mazelike secret tunnels), every transgression has a doubling. Every action is nested within itself.
For example, there's a scene near the exact center of this book where the main character is being told a story by his lawyer about a woman being told a story by her son about a surreal Kafkaesque play he performed in (written by a doppelganger of the main character's father) spanning the course of days which is a near perfect recursion of the plot of the entire novel.
Then at the same time I think it's a statement on modern transgressive fiction? A transgressive author transgressing transgressive fiction by parodying it and himself? TOO MANY LAYERS I CAN'T KEEP UP. SEND HELP.
On a side note, what's with me and fiction involving cannibalism lately? It feels like every other book I've read this year trades heavily in cannibalism as symbolism. There's something about the allegory that I just find.. tasty (pun nintendo). It probably has something to do with the last 5 years in the world and the gross hyper-capitalistic dystopia we live in that treats humans as consumable and disposable? Something for me to chew on I guess.
Aaaaaannnyyyway. 4/5. A Baudelairean nightmare, a Sadeian fever-dream. I recommend this book to no one.
shanz77's review
5.0
I really love this book. The use of language alone is stunning. The subject matter is grisly and disturbing, presented with (especially for Cooper) luscious language. This is not a long novel but it is very dense and not something to be breezed through. For those familiar with his work this book is a beautiful surprise. Well done as always.
iamthez's review
2.0
Maybe I'm jaded. Maybe I'm desensitized by all the years of bizarro and spatterpunk and other such genres. Maybe I've read the same story in a more interesting way.
Whatever the reason, I found this book to be boring. Stream of consciousness novels are always hit or miss for me, and I felt that there were too ma y loose ends, and too many stories to tell that none of them were done particularly well. I inderstand the point is really about The Marbled Swarm and how it's infiltrated the main character's life, but at the end of the day, nothing happened. Things were hinted at often, things were almost promised and when it ended, I was left feeling incredibly unimpressed.
It felt like this is written simply for shock factor, and the shock wasn't even that great. If it wasn't for how well it was written, it'd be a 1 for me.
Whatever the reason, I found this book to be boring. Stream of consciousness novels are always hit or miss for me, and I felt that there were too ma y loose ends, and too many stories to tell that none of them were done particularly well. I inderstand the point is really about The Marbled Swarm and how it's infiltrated the main character's life, but at the end of the day, nothing happened. Things were hinted at often, things were almost promised and when it ended, I was left feeling incredibly unimpressed.
It felt like this is written simply for shock factor, and the shock wasn't even that great. If it wasn't for how well it was written, it'd be a 1 for me.
whatsheread's review
Before anyone contemplates reading The Marbled Swarm by Dennis Cooper, please note that the language is extremely rough, but more importantly the subject matter is seriously disturbing. One could take this as a sign of Mr. Cooper's genius in that he challenges the reader's sensibilities, or one could believe that Mr. Cooper may need to seek psychiatric help for his depraved subject matter. No matter what one feels about the main character of his novel however, one must laud Mr. Cooper for his ability to play with the language, rendering it completely unfamiliar and forcing the reader to wrest any meaning through painstaking and careful reading.
To say The Marbled Swarm is a difficult read is an understatement of the greatest magnitude; it makes Nabokov's Lolita seem like a children's bedtime story. First off, there is the narrator and his actions as he takes the reader through his horrific past and gruesome present. He surrounds himself with friends who share his more perverse proclivities, and some of the scenes about his "hobby" that ensue make the bloodiest horror movie pale in comparison. Even worse are his actions towards his brother and the horrible mental game his father unknowingly played with both his brother and him. The entire backstory of the narrator is enough to send shivers up and down the spine of the reader or send one running to the bathroom before losing one's stomach contents.
Yet, this is a novel that one is compelled to continue reading. The reader never really knows if the narrator is telling the truth or presenting his past as he would prefer it to have happened. The Marbled Swarm could be construed as one huge psychological study on the use of language to obfuscate the truth. As upsetting as the narrator's story is, the possibility that it is all a delusion allows the reader to power through to the end in order to resolve the mystery without having to question one's own mindset.
The Marbled Swarm is disturbing in its depravity but absolutely brilliant in its use of language. It is one novel that is not going to attract a large following because it is one of the most challenging reads ever published. For those readers who persevere, one will be rewarded with an entirely new appreciation for the English language and the power of words to hide or tell the truth.
Acknowledgments: Thank you to Erica Barmash from Harper Perennial for my review copy and for bringing to my attention some of the most challenging books I have ever had the pleasure of reading!
To say The Marbled Swarm is a difficult read is an understatement of the greatest magnitude; it makes Nabokov's Lolita seem like a children's bedtime story. First off, there is the narrator and his actions as he takes the reader through his horrific past and gruesome present. He surrounds himself with friends who share his more perverse proclivities, and some of the scenes about his "hobby" that ensue make the bloodiest horror movie pale in comparison. Even worse are his actions towards his brother and the horrible mental game his father unknowingly played with both his brother and him. The entire backstory of the narrator is enough to send shivers up and down the spine of the reader or send one running to the bathroom before losing one's stomach contents.
Yet, this is a novel that one is compelled to continue reading. The reader never really knows if the narrator is telling the truth or presenting his past as he would prefer it to have happened. The Marbled Swarm could be construed as one huge psychological study on the use of language to obfuscate the truth. As upsetting as the narrator's story is, the possibility that it is all a delusion allows the reader to power through to the end in order to resolve the mystery without having to question one's own mindset.
The Marbled Swarm is disturbing in its depravity but absolutely brilliant in its use of language. It is one novel that is not going to attract a large following because it is one of the most challenging reads ever published. For those readers who persevere, one will be rewarded with an entirely new appreciation for the English language and the power of words to hide or tell the truth.
Acknowledgments: Thank you to Erica Barmash from Harper Perennial for my review copy and for bringing to my attention some of the most challenging books I have ever had the pleasure of reading!