A review by storyorc
Cleanness by Garth Greenwell

challenging dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The prose is the standout here - not to say that the look into the narrator's relationship with love and sex isn't interesting but enveloping it in touching, earnest, beautiful prose furnishes it with a contemplative edge that elevates it from a nosy peek or a straightforward write-up of an American expat's experiences in Bulgaria. The audiobook, narrated by the author, colours it in a way I doubt I would have thought of in text form too; an honest, but resigned acknowledgement of when these experiences don't mean enough or mean too much, like one long, heartfelt sigh. 

In a Macmillan interview, Greenwell states he wanted to write "something that was 100% pornographic and 100% high art". This characterises the three explicit scenes pretty aptly. They are a strong challenge to anyone who disparages sex scenes as pure titillation. They point toward things the narrator is looking while still admitting the ugly parts. 

The only part of the book that left me truly uncomfortable is also the part I can't find anyone else discussing - the narrator's final night out in Bulgaria at the end of the book with two of his ex-students. Artistically, it was an interesting mix of tense dread and youthful joy, but this is the only part of the book wherein I felt the author let his narrator off the hook a little. Not entirely -
Z's reactions still make the pit of your stomach drop and the narrator blanches with us at times, once wondering whether sexually assaulting his ex-student was being a 'caricature' of himself or himself 'without impediment'
- but I was looking forward to seeing how his sober self would process the night. Furthermore,
the dog scene read to me like smoothing over the violation, acting as a metaphor for allowing yourself some spots of moral dirt. But not all dirt is equal. It seemed to soon to make peace with predation, especially when it the only other instance of predation in the novel for our minds to go to is the abuse that so dogs his beloved R's footsteps. I'm not arguing against the inclusion of the narrator taking advantage of his ex-student, I just feel it was comparatively unexplored (interestingly, the only other part I felt similarly about was the longer-term effects of the narrator's own rape)
. The ending note sounded a little false to my ears after being trained on chapters of relentless honesty and self-reckoning.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings