The line between
pleasure and pain is often so thin as to be completely nonexistent. Anyone with
even a cursory knowledge of sadomasochism knows that receiving and inflicting
pain can be a singularly euphoric experience. Few books ever explore this
dichotomy as openly as The Hellbound
Heart by Clive Barker. Barker managers to plum the common human psyche, the
dark recesses of our collective unconscious so to speak, and present a vision
that can be seen as a cautionary morality play. Because sexuality is a primary
impulse (in much the same way that food is) it can be both exhilarating and
dangerous. Barker captures the darkest aspects of human sexuality in his tale.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Review of Ham on Rye
Horror stories
often involve the supernatural or the extra-ordinary. Often times the only
mundane subjects in such stories are the principal characters, generally mortal
men and women bereft in a world that once made perfect sense. But what if the
world never made sense? What if the horror itself was mundane and the result of
a sometimes banal landscape? Charles Bukowski’s Ham on Rye is as semi-autobiographical as his other novels except
this one deals primarily with his coming-of-age. The horror to which I spoke of
earlier in the paragraph is growing up feeling like the world has something
against you, which is the general sense one gets reading this novel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)