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Dec 19, 20161aa rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
A wild, almost random book: every second page has a lightning flash of linguistic wizardry, often of preternatural insight, for example, "down the corridor, fuzzy patches of afternoon sun stagger along, full of mortar dust" (p. 466), "partygoers stagger fore and aft, evening clothes decorated with sunbursts of vomit" (p. 498), "...breathing the closing smell of grey weather" (p. 536), "It will be possible, after all, to die in obscurity, without ever having helped a soul: without love, despised, never trusted, never vindicated - to stay down among the Preterite, his poor honour lost, impossible to locate or redeem." (p. 553), "But every true God must be both organizer and destroyer." (p. 101), "I should ... should have ... there are in his history, so many of these unmade moves, so many 'should haves' [...]" (p. 143), and "weeds of paranoia begin to bloom, army-green, among the garden and midday tranquilities." (p. 579). There are also lots of big ideas addressed: cause and effect (31), history and war (107, 529-30), colonies (321-2), psychology and addiction (354), language (358-9), the German language (397), life and human mutability (548-9), anomie (600-1), and death (736-7). It also includes the words fuck, shit, cock, cunt, nigger, faggot, and asshole. It includes scenes of coprophagia (238), sex (199, 453 (an anal rape), 474), bestiality (454), and castration (620). There is an extraordinary amount of obscenity, both words and scenes. If one can bear the nonsense to get those flashes, its worth reading, but it requires much patience and determination to finish reading it.