Cringeworthy (Part 1 of 3)

American Psycho, by Brett Easton Ellis (UK 1st edition)

What is it about writing so powerful that it evokes a physical reaction from the reader? I don't refer to the cheap thrills of an airport purchase or arousal from a dime store bodice ripper, I mean fiction that pulls you in and doesn't let go. I mean writing that sets up a character, a scene, and a plot that is so convincing,  so effective, that you cringed while reading. Okay, maybe you didn't cringe, but perhaps you had to take a deep breath before continuing, or maybe you put it down and walked away. I've cringed, but amongst the best writing I've exhibited a number of physical effects beyond cringing. I've finally decided to classify my symptoms along with the authors who caused my distress:

Nausea, cold sweat, vertigo

When the blade and the blood first appear in American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis, it's only after you've been lulled by the first 100 or so pages of the glamorous-yet-rote life of a yuppie investment banker in 1980s Manhattan. Patrick Bateman seems to have it all: a cushy, high-profile job, a string of girlfriends, and a fine apartment on the Upper West Side. In reality he's miserable, in a cutthroat race with his peers to have the finest business cards, the newest electronic equipment, and the hottest reservations in town. As with any race for consumption, Patrick is destined to lose. He seems to know this, and his anguish, fears, and frustration regularly erupt in fits of predatory violence.

He starts by spontaneously victimizing a homeless man and his dog. From there, the violence - mostly premeditated - escalates in quantity, intensity, and sadism. There's usually a pause in between each orgy of butchery - perhaps a visit to a new restaurant, or a work out session - but then the body count resumes its climb: street walkers, high-end call girls, prep school girlfriends (Bateman conflates all the three), yuppie competitors, an unfortunate jellyfish, and even the occasional cop.

Nothing is left to the imagination here. To paraphrase Scott McCloud, the reader is not a silent accomplice to crimes happening "off-camera," instead the reader is a silent witness, helpless while reading very clinical descriptions of torture and finally murder. While it's possible to make it unscathed through a singular scene, the pointless - and apparently plotless (at least at the outset) - violence is unrelenting, and has a cumulative effect on the stomach and psyche. For me, there was no fighting the urge to put the book down, get some fresh air, talk to other people, and tell myself everything was gonna be all right.

The consume-brag-dismay-kill zoetrope plays over and over, until you realize that it's Bateman's tacit, reluctant acceptance of his life that is the story. Despite his despicable nature, it was difficult for me to completey hate Patrick Bateman. Perhaps it's the alienation he suffers as an anti-God. Perhaps it's the remote chance that he hasn't committed these killings at all - except in his head. That you can somehow sympathize with a creature who lashes out (consequence-free) at a world he's seemingly trapped in is a tribute to Ellis' writing.

I may read it again one day, to determine if he really kills or not. It may be a while, though. Years later, it's still hard for me to look at German brushed steel kitchen appliances or high thread count luxury bed sheets once the mind's eye has seen them with splattered human fat and dripping, atramentous ichor.

Chronic itchiness / sensation of bugs crawling on your skin

Basically, anything written by Irvine Welsh is enough to make you shift in you seat as if you've got crotch rot. Trainspotting is the obvious top contender for its detailed explanations of the ins-and-outs of heroin use. Do you know what kinds of scabs and abscesses can form on the skin when you shoot too long and too often in the same spot on your arm? Or between your toes? Or on your penis? Aficionados of Welsh will demand places on the podium for the necrophilia and bestiality in Acid House, the terrible skin and colonic conditions of the dirty cop in Filth, or the pub porn and rape in Porno.

Heroin. Coke. Ecstasy. Sex. Power. No matter the drug of choice in his novels, novellas, and short stories, Irvine Welsh's true talent lies in his ability to give you a colorful character who's life is a runaway train headed for the buffers. His stories have forced me to laugh and cringe on a number of levels. The gun that goes off at the end of each story is right there in plain sight - one last score that can't go wrong, one last drink, or a chance for revenge - and I itch like mad waiting for the self-destructive protagonist to reach for it. When it finally goes off with its usual disastrous consequences, the character gives a figurative shrug of the shoulders. They may be dead, widowed, dismembered, banished, or incarcerated, but they "didnae gie a fuck" in the first place. "Ye ken?"

In his 2009 anthology, Reheated Cabbage, Welsh dials it back a bit, but he still can't let Trainspotting favorite Francis Begbie get through Christmas lunch without chinning his sister's boyfriend. (I laughed aloud at that one; it was like a high school reunion where the crazy kid shows up and is still reliably crazy.) He does grant reprieve to two other recurring characters in the short story "I am Miami." Oh sure, they're still self-destructive - what with their drink and drug abuse - but the repercussions at the climax of the story (during a rave) are buffeted by a sensible girlfriend and their fearsome grammar school teacher - Albert Black, who's inadvertantly come along for the ride. Perhaps even Irvine Welsh himself has become exhausted by nihilism, and finally made a little room for redemption?

Next entry: Insomnia with S.M. Stirling and plaatsvervangende schaamte thanks to Jonathan Franzen.

- Chris