Desire in Palahniuk's 'Guts'

Auto-asphyxiation, candle wax up the urethra, greased up carrot used as a dildo; these are the bizarre, yet sadly common in modern society, methods of masturbation that Chuck Palahniuk describes before one-upping all of them by the technique used by the narrator of Guts; the pool circulatory water pump at the bottom of the pool. This was the first, and probably the last, time that I had encountered anything referring to such a method of fulfilling one’s sexual desires. The method, dubbed ‘Pearl Diving’, used by the narrator however, does not seem to be the central aspect of the short story. Instead, it is the reaction of the family’s in relation to the ‘invisible carrot’, a source of shame for the family. In the first example about the boy who used a lubricated carrot as a dildo, it is assumed that his mother found the soiled, oily carrot while picking up the boys dirty laundry. Despite the undeniable evidence of what her son had done with the carrot, it goes unmentioned for the remainder of his life, an object that has essentially been deemed invisible by the parents due to the truth it would potentially reveal about their son, a truth that is barbed and which could destroy the delicate fabric of the ideal American family. The same is true about the narrator’s family. When the pool boy is hired to clean out the narrator’s large intestine from the pump, his father conceals the truth by claiming that the ‘family dog fell in and drowned’. This lie was not meant as a means to uniquely protect the thirteen year-old narrator from potential mockery at school, but to protect the entire family’s image. This behavior from the narrator’s father and carrot-boy’s parents, points to an American social tendency of keeping what has happened in a household within the premises. In a way, the saying ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’, can be true about traumatizing events within a family that may be a source of embarrassment. It is better to just sweep them under the rug and never be referred to again.

                Palahniuk’s writing style is simple and free-flowing as if he was reciting the story in person. Despite having written Guts when in his mid-forties, he is able to mimic the voice of a smart teenager. Apart from the very beginning and the end when he asks the reader to inhale and then exhale at the end, I could easily imagine hearing this story in a high school cafeteria. Ridiculous, gory, and painful tales are exceptionally fun for teenage boys in particular, especially if an element of sex is added to the mix. Teenage kids are always attempting ways to realize their social, physical and sexual desires.The only difference is that in real life, no boy would admit that he was the victim of such a twisted masturbation session.

One immediate link between this short story and the British transgressive novels that we’ve been reading is the need for the narrators or lead characters to accomplish their desire; in Crash, James Ballard seeks the erotic thrill of near-death car accidents and the thrill of the morphed sexually of man and human; in Money, John Self pursues many desires, ranging from alcohol, sex, drugs, fame, recognition of his new social status, but is driven by his craving for as much money as possible; in Nights at the Circus, Walser is propelled by his yearning to unveil Sophie Fevvers has a hoax.

The Allusion of Martyrs

An allusion that is constantly repeated throughout the opening 125 pages of the novel Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter is that of Jesus Christ. Just like Christ, numerous of the characters are portrayed as martyrs, those who suffer for the benefit of others. The two notable examples of such characters are Fevvers, the aerialist who sacrifices her own comfortable life at the Battersea ice cream shop dignity to become one of the girls under the charge of Madame Schreck, the head of a brothel that ‘caters for those who were troubled in their…soul’, and Buffo the Great, the leader of the troupe of clowns in the Colonel’s circus, the Ludic Game. Both of these characters have different reasons for becoming a martyr like Christ however; Fevvers is pushed by the need to help her new adopted family, the cousins of her trusty mother-figure, Lizzie; Buffo has become by choice, a ‘subject of laughter’ who’s personal feelings does not matter. Having made his decision to adopt a face that is not his, Buffo, whose real name is George Buffins, has ‘condemned [himself] to be “Buffo” in perpetuity’ and be the ‘subject of laughter’ for the rest of his life. Like wise, by making the choice to enter Madame Shreck’s house, Fevvers appears to have condemned herself to a life of ‘sorrow of exile and of abandonment’ yet she still proceeds with the hope of making money for her starving and sickly adoptive family. In their roles as martyrs, both characters also become whores, albeit different kinds. Fevvers has become a whore for the men with damaged souls, who seek to satisfy their twisted fetishes by observing ‘freaks’ of human nature (ranging from a dwarf woman to a woman with eyes instead of nipples) whilst Buffo has become, like all other clowns, a ‘whore of mirth’, obliged to appear joyful and silly at all times for the benefit of others, while suppressing his ‘constant companion’, despair (thus resulting in his alcoholism). It will be interesting to see if Carter decides to portray more characters in her novel as martyrs and relate them to other scapegoat figures of history such as Socrates, who died for his philosophy, and Nathan Hale, who acted as a spy for the Americans during the revolution against the British.

Amisesque Writing about Biking

The raw wind flew over the smooth, albeit scarred, plastic curvature of my helmet. If it were summer, the air would have battled through my hair, finding its way to the exit of the labyrinths of locks, hair knots, and critters. Not in this cold…A blanket of nail biting frost, the cold that makes your body scream, “Move your fucking ass!!” And so I went, pushing myself to the breaking point for every revolution of the back wheel. I have encountered many of such nights, riding my Fuji (God bless you, you 100 dollar speed demon) in the desolate concrete world of 4 o’clock New York City on a Tuesday morning…the city that never sleeps my ass. It’s eerily quiet at that time of night; nothing can be heard except for the blowing wind and the distant cry of a woman being raped. I don’t care. In fact, I love it; the ability to go as fast as I can without fear of having an immigrant cabbie run over me or an innocent leg-user nonchalantly appear right in front of me just to piss me off. I fucking hate walkers while I’m biking. The ground continuously sped by, constantly changing the background to my life: one block after another. I began to play with the painted marks on the pavement. Zigzagging between the intervals of fluorescent lane lines, I tried to slalom a bit too quickly. Next thing I knew it, my front wheel launched me forward. After an extravagant front flip, I landed smack on my back. Oh I forgot to mention, I’m usually smacked during these late night rides. Slowly, my body heated up, sweat drenched clothes began sticking to my skin - Ugh, this is annoying, I truly hate it when it happens – and almost instantaneously, the sweat freezes. I’m in a tropical jungle yet on a vast plain of frozen tundra. The humidity was killing me, I needed to strip naked in that blistering cold.  After that not much happened…I’m actually not too sure about that. The only thing I'm sure of is that I'm the mother fucking speed king of 4 o'clock New York City on a Tuesday morning.

NYC, the Grand Stage

The theme of acting is ever-present in Money, the characters seem to be playing their own dysfunctional role in what at times seems to be a mockumentary on the production of a big budget Hollywood movie; Lorne Guyland is the ageing past his prime who still wishes to stamp his authority as a senior (even though he would despise being labeled as such) member of the cast; Caduta Massi, the motherly figure on the set who is beginning to have self-confidence issues regarding her body having been a sex icon for the majority of her career; Butch Beausoleil, the young actress who would be more suitable for pornography but convinces John Self to employ her by having sex with him; Spunk Davis, the young up-and-coming actor who is so into his ‘art’ that it becomes ridiculous and sucks up to the director; and finally, the director himself, John Self, a schizophrenic mess/drunk (though he begins to drink less near the end) who could have a breakdown at any moment. This ensemble of characters leads to a hilarious story in which each person is attempting to outdo the other in their absurdness and craziness. The protagonist himself, John, constantly puts on a different persona when he is in New York City than when he is in London. Being his home, John cannot put up a fake appearance whilst in London; he’s just another fat, ugly bloke who has honed his brutish fighting skills after years of street and bar brawls. However, when he’s in New York City, he becomes a respectable figure, despite his terrible rug and his protruding beer gut, almost solely due to his British accent. In NYC, others inevitably give him the role of the intelligent, artistic, European director even though all evidence points to the exact opposite. New York City is his grand stage, the place where he can be the man he wished he was, a man with power, money, respect, and loads of women.

MEDIA

            In the second half of Money, John Self begins to continually bring up Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s upcoming wedding. His obsession with the royal family’s affairs is linked to another of John’s addictions: the media. He can’t get enough of it. When he watches the news, he is over flooded with information, much of which he doesn’t process and analyze, but rather repeats what has been said by the reporter to the reader; ‘TV’s Val has been rushed to the hospital with a mystery illness. On page five blonde Ulla sports big tits and cool pants. Sissy Skolimowsky turns out to be a diesel, and an ex-chick of hers is suing Siss for galimony’ (Amis 225). Overconsumption is a recurring theme in John’s interaction with all aspects of life. All of these news snippets have only one thing in common; they are random and have to do to with TV personalities’ gossip. Amis depicts modern entertainment as a brainwasher; something that offers so much random and useless information to the masses that ‘cretinizes’ people like John Self (31). Thus his inclusion of 1984 by George Orwell, a critic of the modern television and mass media as a means of mind control, as John’s present/reading assignment from Martina. On the day of the wedding, he is with Selina Street, his gold-digging lover, at his ‘sock’. Feeling the romantic mood arising from the royal wedding, John elaborates his intention to marry and then go on a honeymoon to exotic places such as Barbados, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, and Bali. Given her past record of essentially demanding John to marry her, it is surprising that Selina doesn’t react positively. Instead she yells at John ‘look, get off. Anyway I want to watch the royal wedding on television’ (225). The reality that exists on the television, the luxurious reality of royalty, overpowers Selina’s sense of reality. In the television, she finds an escape to the world she wishes she was part of, a world where money is not merely an essential part of life, but a mainstay and normality. In his essay on Money’s satirical critic of Thatcherite England, Miracky comments on the use of the media as a means of consolidating two of John’s favorite topics: money and sex. Being a TV commercial director, John made his fortune by mixing his addictions of money and pornography in order to convince millions of viewers to purchase his product. However, this hasn’t harbored him from the negative effects of television. He still idolizes members of that unreal world, the world of television where everyone is young, virile, beautiful, and most importantly, rich.