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Violent Faculties
A philosophy professor tests the limits of the soul and body by performing dehumanizing experiments on unwilling subjects, after the department is closed due to budget cuts. Violent Faculties follows a philosophy professor influenced by Sade and Bataille. She is ejected by university administrators aiming to impose business strategies in the interest of profit over knowledge. She designs a series of experiments to demonstrate the value of philosophy as a discipline, not because of its potential for financial benefit, but because of its relevance to life and death. The corpses proliferate as her experiments yield theoretical results and ethical conundrums. She questions why it is wrong to kill humans, what is it about them that makes their lives sacred, and then attempts to find it in their bodies, their words, their thoughts, and their souls—seeking foundational truths with a knife in her home office.
158 pages, Paperback
First published February 27, 2024
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2091 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 123 reviews
April 7, 2024
Full Review
Violent Faculties is my first Charlene Elsby book, but it certainly won’t be my last. Her prose is incredible, and the story is disturbing, hilarious. It may be too difficult for readers not well-acquainted with more extreme horror books, or the works of authors like Bataille or de Sade. For those who are, I highly recommend this.
Violent Faculties is my first Charlene Elsby book, but it certainly won’t be my last. Her prose is incredible, and the story is disturbing, hilarious. It may be too difficult for readers not well-acquainted with more extreme horror books, or the works of authors like Bataille or de Sade. For those who are, I highly recommend this.
January 30, 2025
I was never much into philosophy, and am definitely too old to dip into it again. So I'm sure a lot of this novel is lost on me, though I did enjoy how the ideas are relentlessly pushed to absurd and violent outcomes. Elsby's prose is an obsessive chainsaw, and a lot of this is over-the-top and (gasp) funny. But still horrific.
February 25, 2024
This was and interesting read! 😂 A philosophy professor carrying out a number of experiments in order to work out the human body and soul. Quite a few nasty and perverse parts in this one 😂 A good question though, who did decide a human life is worth more than any other animal on the planet?
December 24, 2025
Philosophy but make it depraved and insane.... For the FREAKS 😘👅
January 10, 2024
Review to come.
December 3, 2024
I just want to apologize to whoever at my local library got my book request form for this book and had to read and review it. If you want to start a support group we totally can
January 21, 2024
My favorite Charlene Elsby so far.
Written like the PhD thesis of a professor who was pushed over the edge by academic bullshit, it makes equal fun of the moral platitudes that governate our day-to-day lives and the self-righteousness of a discipline which has went above and beyond what's necessary or even useful for human life. A vivid deconstruction. Somewhat of a 201 reading too as I don't think people "just looking for a horror novel" will see the point of it, but that's Charlene Elsby for you. She is as transgressive and iconoclast as it gets
More on Dead End Follies at the end of the month.
Written like the PhD thesis of a professor who was pushed over the edge by academic bullshit, it makes equal fun of the moral platitudes that governate our day-to-day lives and the self-righteousness of a discipline which has went above and beyond what's necessary or even useful for human life. A vivid deconstruction. Somewhat of a 201 reading too as I don't think people "just looking for a horror novel" will see the point of it, but that's Charlene Elsby for you. She is as transgressive and iconoclast as it gets
More on Dead End Follies at the end of the month.
August 31, 2023
"If death is the loss of the soul, and if the soul is transmitted through the semen to the woman who acts as its vessel, who provides the material for the production of a new life, who mediates the human form from its origin in the scrotum to the offspring produced, then it only stands to reason that if I put a hole in something that should kill it, continuous fucking should keep it alive.
Are cum shots the cure for kill shots?" (p. 39)
Yes, this is the logic that constitutes this collection of interrelated stories, and horror does not even begin to describe it. Charlene Elsby was a professor of philosophy (see Deleuze and Time, for example), and indeed she shows the horror of philosophy or philosophical horrors. Whichever way the phrase turns, what we get are logical consequences that follow from a particular philosophical system in the hands of a sociopath. Or, and why shouldn't I perform a maltreatment of a maltreatment, it shows the violence of philosophy, what it does with its conceptual apparatuses and concepts to, what would François Laruelle call, victims or ordinary man (gender specifics aside). And the violence is spectacular in Elsby's hands. I'll never read Plato, Aristotle or Descartes in quite the same way again (the quote above is related to Plato and Aristotle).
Are cum shots the cure for kill shots?" (p. 39)
Yes, this is the logic that constitutes this collection of interrelated stories, and horror does not even begin to describe it. Charlene Elsby was a professor of philosophy (see Deleuze and Time, for example), and indeed she shows the horror of philosophy or philosophical horrors. Whichever way the phrase turns, what we get are logical consequences that follow from a particular philosophical system in the hands of a sociopath. Or, and why shouldn't I perform a maltreatment of a maltreatment, it shows the violence of philosophy, what it does with its conceptual apparatuses and concepts to, what would François Laruelle call, victims or ordinary man (gender specifics aside). And the violence is spectacular in Elsby's hands. I'll never read Plato, Aristotle or Descartes in quite the same way again (the quote above is related to Plato and Aristotle).
October 18, 2023
I AM BESIDE MYSELF. Charlene Elsby... I feel like I know you so well, however, this is the first book I've digested of yours, you quizzically dark and broody academic, you. I am FOREVER thankful to Clash Books for sending over this advanced physical copy before pub day -- February 27, 2024.
Our Unnamed FMC could be deemed a violent faculty member after her funding gets slashed within her university department, leading her to downsize her philosophical laboratory to her own home, kidnapping former students, colleagues, and department heads, and performing exploratory yet decisively violating experiments until they reach their final day.
She cuts, prods, tears, and deconstructs these victims after they collectively wrongfully took her entire well-being and livelihood from her. There were many chapters where I had to physically stop reading out of fear of losing my dinner, but there were other moments where I was in her corner the entire time, rooting for her vengeance and voice to be cataloged.
This is a stunner for sure, and I cannot wait to hear what other people think of this one.
Our Unnamed FMC could be deemed a violent faculty member after her funding gets slashed within her university department, leading her to downsize her philosophical laboratory to her own home, kidnapping former students, colleagues, and department heads, and performing exploratory yet decisively violating experiments until they reach their final day.
She cuts, prods, tears, and deconstructs these victims after they collectively wrongfully took her entire well-being and livelihood from her. There were many chapters where I had to physically stop reading out of fear of losing my dinner, but there were other moments where I was in her corner the entire time, rooting for her vengeance and voice to be cataloged.
This is a stunner for sure, and I cannot wait to hear what other people think of this one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 7, 2024
"It doesn't take an experiment to show that you can't take someone's humanity away from them. It's a bad faith concept all around. That's the sickening part of it. People only do it to other people. Doing it to other people is what makes it fun. The only real dehumanization is death."
Violent Faculties is a brutal, violent, stunner of a novel. It's at once both hilarious yet disturbing and entirely gross as all hell. See, this is extreme horror with substance, it never fully tips itself off the edge into gratuitous shock factor nastiness, but it balances on that edge all the same. It's a cruel and gruesome little thing, a novel that's entirely difficult to recommend, not because it isn't good, because, it's fantastic, it's riveting and brilliant - but because it's almost impossible to find Violent Faculties' intended audience, because it's so damn intense and strange. It's a brutal, perverse, sickening novel, the word horrific doesn't even begin to describe its vile and ugly nature.
How does one even begin to recommend a book such as this? It's an enrapturing and enigmatic thing despite the strangeness in its writing style. It feels oddly enough, like interlaced stories that connect to make up something bigger - a challenging and complex experience, an unflinching tale that reads like the PhD thesis of someone driven to the brink of insanity. This is extreme horror at it's finest, how it was intended to be, mind-bending and absorbing, an absolute force to be reckoned with, a high rising tide intent on sweeping away everything in its path. Violent Faculties is horrific and uncomfortable, but that's what makes it so enthralling and addictive.
There's a real deeply personal, extremely horrific quality to this novel, it's a cynical and punishing experience but, one that's ever so rewarding providing you see it through. It, always, at all times, makes your brain feel like it's being dissolved in a vat of acid. Absolutely, without a single shred of a doubt, worth the read. All too vivid and utterly awful, Violent Faculties is a sickening yet deeply thoughtful text. It won't be for everyone, in fact, it's likely to divide opinion, but it will absolutely tick every single box for those who enjoy unhinged, deep, extremely angry works of literature. It's absolutely spectacular and horrible, it's what extreme horror always should have been, less focus on shock factor, and more focus on meaningful brutality.
"My bullet forged a path from one set of Ally's lips to the other, my divine light to shine through. The blood at each end of it tasted the same. And in the morning, when the other nuns came, they'd see that Ally had done her part to make me see the sin of it all. But I am animal become God. The condemnation of humanity."
Violent Faculties is a brutal, violent, stunner of a novel. It's at once both hilarious yet disturbing and entirely gross as all hell. See, this is extreme horror with substance, it never fully tips itself off the edge into gratuitous shock factor nastiness, but it balances on that edge all the same. It's a cruel and gruesome little thing, a novel that's entirely difficult to recommend, not because it isn't good, because, it's fantastic, it's riveting and brilliant - but because it's almost impossible to find Violent Faculties' intended audience, because it's so damn intense and strange. It's a brutal, perverse, sickening novel, the word horrific doesn't even begin to describe its vile and ugly nature.
How does one even begin to recommend a book such as this? It's an enrapturing and enigmatic thing despite the strangeness in its writing style. It feels oddly enough, like interlaced stories that connect to make up something bigger - a challenging and complex experience, an unflinching tale that reads like the PhD thesis of someone driven to the brink of insanity. This is extreme horror at it's finest, how it was intended to be, mind-bending and absorbing, an absolute force to be reckoned with, a high rising tide intent on sweeping away everything in its path. Violent Faculties is horrific and uncomfortable, but that's what makes it so enthralling and addictive.
"I realized something about myself that must also be true of others - the protrusion of teeth from the face is unnerving, but something we have become used to by exposure. However, as I removed Gillian's teeth and all that was visible of her became flesh and not skeleton, her physical form achieved a sort of serenity. The face was no longer confused as to which parts were inside and which were outside"
There's a real deeply personal, extremely horrific quality to this novel, it's a cynical and punishing experience but, one that's ever so rewarding providing you see it through. It, always, at all times, makes your brain feel like it's being dissolved in a vat of acid. Absolutely, without a single shred of a doubt, worth the read. All too vivid and utterly awful, Violent Faculties is a sickening yet deeply thoughtful text. It won't be for everyone, in fact, it's likely to divide opinion, but it will absolutely tick every single box for those who enjoy unhinged, deep, extremely angry works of literature. It's absolutely spectacular and horrible, it's what extreme horror always should have been, less focus on shock factor, and more focus on meaningful brutality.
"My bullet forged a path from one set of Ally's lips to the other, my divine light to shine through. The blood at each end of it tasted the same. And in the morning, when the other nuns came, they'd see that Ally had done her part to make me see the sin of it all. But I am animal become God. The condemnation of humanity."
August 31, 2025
I started this book over a year ago and would pick it up every couple of months and read a chapter because it was just a lot. Decided to just sit down and read through it today. Reminiscent of a modern Georges Bataille but more camp and outright philosophical, like punch you in the face, scholarly writings philosophical. It’s so thoughtfully written, dancing seamlessly between verbose, academic language, to psychotic pettiness and cold indifference, to outright hatred toward other people, the status quo of capitalism and religion, the patriarchy, the “Institution”.
It’s great as far as extreme horror goes because it’s thought-provoking and made me feel like I was in the killer’s head, which was exhausting tbh. Up until the climax, the pacing is trudging in the way where “foot notes” abruptly tug us out of various hyper manic or violent moments throughout the book. It’s dense, for only being 150 pages, and heavy in nature. Each chapter, at first, almost feels like a vignette; a murder, a different part of the experiment, seeking answers to question at hand. “What makes a person a person?” Sometimes it’s a psychotic self-help book? A philosophic quandary on existence as humans in a capitalistic society? And then right back to horrible depictions of torturing and murdering “patients” or “subjects” in a lab for the sake of the experiment, and really more so, to take revenge on the university and people who wronged her there. It’s honestly funny as hell in many ways because of its abrupt absurdity at times. An extreme horror satire, experienced through a blood splattered, philosophical, and feminist lens. A scathing, thoughtful, misanthropically poetic, and overwhelmingly uncomfortable, well-written book. Fantastic climax, but I would highly recommend skipping the final section labeled “Appendix A” The ending without it was good. This boon isn’t for everyone and honestly wasn’t even really for me, but I glad I read it.
It’s great as far as extreme horror goes because it’s thought-provoking and made me feel like I was in the killer’s head, which was exhausting tbh. Up until the climax, the pacing is trudging in the way where “foot notes” abruptly tug us out of various hyper manic or violent moments throughout the book. It’s dense, for only being 150 pages, and heavy in nature. Each chapter, at first, almost feels like a vignette; a murder, a different part of the experiment, seeking answers to question at hand. “What makes a person a person?” Sometimes it’s a psychotic self-help book? A philosophic quandary on existence as humans in a capitalistic society? And then right back to horrible depictions of torturing and murdering “patients” or “subjects” in a lab for the sake of the experiment, and really more so, to take revenge on the university and people who wronged her there. It’s honestly funny as hell in many ways because of its abrupt absurdity at times. An extreme horror satire, experienced through a blood splattered, philosophical, and feminist lens. A scathing, thoughtful, misanthropically poetic, and overwhelmingly uncomfortable, well-written book. Fantastic climax, but I would highly recommend skipping the final section labeled “Appendix A” The ending without it was good. This boon isn’t for everyone and honestly wasn’t even really for me, but I glad I read it.
September 8, 2024
Violent Faculties By: Charlene Elsby. Published through CLASH Books.
What can I say about this book?
It's been quite an experience (especially before it arrived, one month later; checking my mailbox, every day to see if it arrived, nothing. Sometimes, I doubted myself if it would arrive or not. Sometimes, I thought it might be lost in the mail or worse - stolen. Until it came on February 14, 2024. SWEET JESUS, it felt like forever! So, when it did arrive in the mail, it was as if I was opening an early birthday present or even better-CHRISTMAS!!! Worth the wait!) I do not regret going through what I went through with this book. I don't trade that experience for anything. I'm just happy I lived through it! Thank you, Lord, thank you, thank you!
About the cover. Done by Joel Amat Guell.
If you are (Joel) reading this, my hat goes out to you. I will say that the cover for V.F. is out there. What do I mean by that? It is original, creative, esoteric, and dark - no, I take that back... it is DISTURBING! Just by the look of it, that chalk line work of a female (I think it is of one of the enigmatic professor's dehumanizing, experimental, human lab rats: Gillian.) sticking her tongue out while a pair of sheers slice away half her tip to keep her mouth shut while this guy (I forgot his name) comes in the lab and just screws her, not uttering a word, not a peep, just painful moans- disturbs the day lights out of me. Nice work! Sure, knows how to keep a person staying up at night. BRAVO!
The book is slim yet to the point.
I couldn't take it out and about all the time (even though it is lite-weight, portable, and a page turner. Can take it anywhere you want. You can use it as for anything as well. You can do anything with this book. You can use it as a fan, whenever you feel hot. You pull it out and fan yourself on a hot sunny day. You can stuff that book into another book; you know how it’s done in movies, where folks got the Bible, trying to fool their authority figure that they’re reading the good book, but actually they are reading something else. This book would be it.) I didn't want to frighten or concern anyone by this piece of work. Hell, when I do, I had to use a sticky note to cover those scissors while I am reading on the bus, sometimes out loud when no one is listening or paying attention due to the air vent noise. They wouldn't give a shite what I was reading because at that moment I am the least of their concerns. Too busy looking down at their cellphones. Something to keep 'em occupied as they wait for the next stop and stop after that. I was alright on the bus, I read page after another. I was on a roll until I had to stop, get up, and wait for the bus driver to open the door and off I went home to read some more.
The writing is rich and dark and concise.
It's an easy read (I don't mean the disturbing parts. Though everything about it is disturbing. It's not so easy, of course. You got folks getting sexually violated, mutilated, and more.) to follow through. Elsby (the author) manages to put philosophy, fiction, and transgression all in one slim book that is V.F. (Violent Faculties)
I write this, not as fan, nor a reader, a lover of books of all transgression and variety of genres, but as ( internet) friend to another, I can't thank her enough for allowing me to read this masterpiece of a book, and having the pleasure to review it, For Violent Faculties will go down as one of the most disturbing pieces of literature I have read so far. She is one of the greats. My hat goes out to you, Char.
Thank you!
AND CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PROMOTION AND TENURE! Dr. E sure have a ring to it.
Another note is that I am going off track here.
There were moments when I thought I was reading American Psycho, the way it is written, the flavor of the book, it feels like something Ellis would have pulled off, or not?
Just imagine Patrick Bateman, philosophy professor, giving lectures and whatnot, and you'll get violent faculty.
What can I say about this book?
It's been quite an experience (especially before it arrived, one month later; checking my mailbox, every day to see if it arrived, nothing. Sometimes, I doubted myself if it would arrive or not. Sometimes, I thought it might be lost in the mail or worse - stolen. Until it came on February 14, 2024. SWEET JESUS, it felt like forever! So, when it did arrive in the mail, it was as if I was opening an early birthday present or even better-CHRISTMAS!!! Worth the wait!) I do not regret going through what I went through with this book. I don't trade that experience for anything. I'm just happy I lived through it! Thank you, Lord, thank you, thank you!
About the cover. Done by Joel Amat Guell.
If you are (Joel) reading this, my hat goes out to you. I will say that the cover for V.F. is out there. What do I mean by that? It is original, creative, esoteric, and dark - no, I take that back... it is DISTURBING! Just by the look of it, that chalk line work of a female (I think it is of one of the enigmatic professor's dehumanizing, experimental, human lab rats: Gillian.) sticking her tongue out while a pair of sheers slice away half her tip to keep her mouth shut while this guy (I forgot his name) comes in the lab and just screws her, not uttering a word, not a peep, just painful moans- disturbs the day lights out of me. Nice work! Sure, knows how to keep a person staying up at night. BRAVO!
The book is slim yet to the point.
I couldn't take it out and about all the time (even though it is lite-weight, portable, and a page turner. Can take it anywhere you want. You can use it as for anything as well. You can do anything with this book. You can use it as a fan, whenever you feel hot. You pull it out and fan yourself on a hot sunny day. You can stuff that book into another book; you know how it’s done in movies, where folks got the Bible, trying to fool their authority figure that they’re reading the good book, but actually they are reading something else. This book would be it.) I didn't want to frighten or concern anyone by this piece of work. Hell, when I do, I had to use a sticky note to cover those scissors while I am reading on the bus, sometimes out loud when no one is listening or paying attention due to the air vent noise. They wouldn't give a shite what I was reading because at that moment I am the least of their concerns. Too busy looking down at their cellphones. Something to keep 'em occupied as they wait for the next stop and stop after that. I was alright on the bus, I read page after another. I was on a roll until I had to stop, get up, and wait for the bus driver to open the door and off I went home to read some more.
The writing is rich and dark and concise.
It's an easy read (I don't mean the disturbing parts. Though everything about it is disturbing. It's not so easy, of course. You got folks getting sexually violated, mutilated, and more.) to follow through. Elsby (the author) manages to put philosophy, fiction, and transgression all in one slim book that is V.F. (Violent Faculties)
I write this, not as fan, nor a reader, a lover of books of all transgression and variety of genres, but as ( internet) friend to another, I can't thank her enough for allowing me to read this masterpiece of a book, and having the pleasure to review it, For Violent Faculties will go down as one of the most disturbing pieces of literature I have read so far. She is one of the greats. My hat goes out to you, Char.
Thank you!
AND CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PROMOTION AND TENURE! Dr. E sure have a ring to it.
Another note is that I am going off track here.
There were moments when I thought I was reading American Psycho, the way it is written, the flavor of the book, it feels like something Ellis would have pulled off, or not?
Just imagine Patrick Bateman, philosophy professor, giving lectures and whatnot, and you'll get violent faculty.
February 12, 2024
God damn.
A sophisticated philosophical horror novel with soul, heart, and so much blood. Heady discourse from the likes of Plato and Aristotle[1] is juxtaposed with scathing derision, reflections on divinity and the soul, and focused ultraviolence.
In clinical yet deeply personal prose, a hallmark of her compelling style, Elsby contrasts elegant philosophical writings[2] with their respective experiments, each taking a particular theory, question, or supposition to the (gory) extreme. However, there is no switch; there is a through-line of a genius madness which brilliantly connects and confuses these distinctions from the very beginning-
“The question of how much space a human inhabits can be interpreted multifariously, and I use that word on purpose. How much space does a human seize? That seems like a practical question. How much space does a human occupy? That seems like another one. The focus of the present study is the latter, for the former might be answered by a practical experiment, while the latter might not be.
This is why I've taken Emily.”[3]
The format here is consistent for a while, but in the latter half of the book, that genius madness blooms- less and less do we encounter those clinical scholastic writings than the thoughtfully maniacal yet surprisingly spiritual musings and accounted acts of violence of one who would be “a being toward death itself”.
To say anymore would be to spoil this incredible work.
Although she is in a lane of her own, Elsby pushes the boundaries of any genre she may incorporate into her works of dark avant-garde brilliance.
4.25 stars rounded up.
[1] Not to say impenetrable. Though some arguments in the notes took me a few reads to understand or went over my head completely (I’ve never been big on Plato), much of the story-relevant philosophy is tactfully written.
[2] It’s worth noting that Charlene Elsby is a philosophy doctor and former professor. What’s more, is that in the acknowledgments at the end of the book, we learn that the eradication of the Phil. department within the story is very much based in truth.
[3] Excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter.
A sophisticated philosophical horror novel with soul, heart, and so much blood. Heady discourse from the likes of Plato and Aristotle[1] is juxtaposed with scathing derision, reflections on divinity and the soul, and focused ultraviolence.
In clinical yet deeply personal prose, a hallmark of her compelling style, Elsby contrasts elegant philosophical writings[2] with their respective experiments, each taking a particular theory, question, or supposition to the (gory) extreme. However, there is no switch; there is a through-line of a genius madness which brilliantly connects and confuses these distinctions from the very beginning-
“The question of how much space a human inhabits can be interpreted multifariously, and I use that word on purpose. How much space does a human seize? That seems like a practical question. How much space does a human occupy? That seems like another one. The focus of the present study is the latter, for the former might be answered by a practical experiment, while the latter might not be.
This is why I've taken Emily.”[3]
The format here is consistent for a while, but in the latter half of the book, that genius madness blooms- less and less do we encounter those clinical scholastic writings than the thoughtfully maniacal yet surprisingly spiritual musings and accounted acts of violence of one who would be “a being toward death itself”.
To say anymore would be to spoil this incredible work.
Although she is in a lane of her own, Elsby pushes the boundaries of any genre she may incorporate into her works of dark avant-garde brilliance.
4.25 stars rounded up.
[1] Not to say impenetrable. Though some arguments in the notes took me a few reads to understand or went over my head completely (I’ve never been big on Plato), much of the story-relevant philosophy is tactfully written.
[2] It’s worth noting that Charlene Elsby is a philosophy doctor and former professor. What’s more, is that in the acknowledgments at the end of the book, we learn that the eradication of the Phil. department within the story is very much based in truth.
[3] Excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter.
July 22, 2025
Extreme horror + philosophy. I cannot explain to you little people in my phone what this book means to me.
A few warnings off the bat: I would not read this book if you are squeamish with torture, big T, no holds barred, no orifice unrazed. I also wouldn’t recommend reading this book if you’re not well-versed in philosophy. I’ve got a degree in it and I needed a slow, careful read. I took notes, I spent time thinking about these arguments. You CAN read past the more complex parts, but that would be doing this work (like all works of philosophy) a disservice. It’s evil and it’s genius—half earnest philosophy research paper, half mutilation manual. And she gets creative. This is metaphysics, baby, not ethics.
My favorite part was the beginning. The first few essays read convincingly as real philosophical studies. As the story progresses, the narrator gets progressively more unhinged. The terms are less defined, the conclusions less connected to the (increasingly bloody) methods. We also begin to piece together the narrator’s story—an all-too-familiar one: Humanities programs get gutted. She was the first organ out.
Nevertheless, she’s still teaching: I thoroughly enjoyed the footnotes from Aristotle, Plato, and some contemporary philosophers that tied this tale back to its pedagogical roots. I learned, I was sickened, I was angry, I loved every goddamn word. This book was written for philosophy majors and professors, a big fuck you to a society that doesn’t value that essential discipline. It rages against universalization, against capitalism, against cave shadows and the stupid fucks watching them.
There was much talk of telos in this book. One thing is certain: Dr. Elsby has found hers.
A few warnings off the bat: I would not read this book if you are squeamish with torture, big T, no holds barred, no orifice unrazed. I also wouldn’t recommend reading this book if you’re not well-versed in philosophy. I’ve got a degree in it and I needed a slow, careful read. I took notes, I spent time thinking about these arguments. You CAN read past the more complex parts, but that would be doing this work (like all works of philosophy) a disservice. It’s evil and it’s genius—half earnest philosophy research paper, half mutilation manual. And she gets creative. This is metaphysics, baby, not ethics.
My favorite part was the beginning. The first few essays read convincingly as real philosophical studies. As the story progresses, the narrator gets progressively more unhinged. The terms are less defined, the conclusions less connected to the (increasingly bloody) methods. We also begin to piece together the narrator’s story—an all-too-familiar one: Humanities programs get gutted. She was the first organ out.
Nevertheless, she’s still teaching: I thoroughly enjoyed the footnotes from Aristotle, Plato, and some contemporary philosophers that tied this tale back to its pedagogical roots. I learned, I was sickened, I was angry, I loved every goddamn word. This book was written for philosophy majors and professors, a big fuck you to a society that doesn’t value that essential discipline. It rages against universalization, against capitalism, against cave shadows and the stupid fucks watching them.
There was much talk of telos in this book. One thing is certain: Dr. Elsby has found hers.
August 25, 2023
Another mesmerizing ride from Charlene Elsby! The voice both is this book and in Hexis is so distinctive and engaging, it makes reading Elsby’s work a pleasure to behold.
Violent Faculties follows a former philosophy professor through a series of grisly experiments conducted in her home. The narrator’s POV is so cold, calculating, and immersed in philosophical thought, it makes for an experience equally grisly and fascinating.
This is extreme horror at its finest: sharp, uncomfortable, unflinching. Minds the CWs but highly recommend this to fans of the genre.
Violent Faculties follows a former philosophy professor through a series of grisly experiments conducted in her home. The narrator’s POV is so cold, calculating, and immersed in philosophical thought, it makes for an experience equally grisly and fascinating.
This is extreme horror at its finest: sharp, uncomfortable, unflinching. Minds the CWs but highly recommend this to fans of the genre.
July 27, 2023
A disturbing, thought-provoking text. Complex and challenging in ways both rewarding and not, but overall worth the read.
April 20, 2024
Charlene Elsby is a force to be fucking reckoned with.
August 24, 2025
4.5 really!
TW: SA, body horror
A Room of One’s Own meets House of Leaves meets total mind-fuck. This was so well-done, and I still find myself thinking of the different chapters and how they were discussed and reasoned. I even enjoyed the last chapter (the appendix) potentially being written by a student. However, I did find myself getting more confused towards the end and feeling like I couldn’t follow all the points. From the God chapter to Ally is where I was lost, getting back to the whole thing in Ally’s chapter. Very possibly on me here and if I reread it I will revisit this section and see if I’m still confused.
TW: SA, body horror
A Room of One’s Own meets House of Leaves meets total mind-fuck. This was so well-done, and I still find myself thinking of the different chapters and how they were discussed and reasoned. I even enjoyed the last chapter (the appendix) potentially being written by a student. However, I did find myself getting more confused towards the end and feeling like I couldn’t follow all the points. From the God chapter to Ally is where I was lost, getting back to the whole thing in Ally’s chapter. Very possibly on me here and if I reread it I will revisit this section and see if I’m still confused.
June 22, 2025
Video review https://youtu.be/skINg4BKRT8
September 2, 2023
Edit: Splatterpunk is the category I was looking for! Body horror without limits or reasoning.
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The only book I've read comparable to this would be Psychosomatic. There's a genre of books, like American Psycho turned up to 100, that keep the world interesting and fresh. Horror doesn't quite cut it. Gore noir? Vantablack academia? These books are hard to rate because any positive review can be misconstrued as endorsement of the subject matter, but a low rating is unfair to the very talented writers putting content out.
This was not for me by any means, but this book was incredibly well written and thought out.
Thank you to Edelweiss for the ARC!
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The only book I've read comparable to this would be Psychosomatic. There's a genre of books, like American Psycho turned up to 100, that keep the world interesting and fresh. Horror doesn't quite cut it. Gore noir? Vantablack academia? These books are hard to rate because any positive review can be misconstrued as endorsement of the subject matter, but a low rating is unfair to the very talented writers putting content out.
This was not for me by any means, but this book was incredibly well written and thought out.
Thank you to Edelweiss for the ARC!
August 25, 2023
Dark academia but make it pitch black, the format is something I've never encountered in a book before, its written like a thesis, the overall professional academic tone is interspersed with graphic violence thats described so casually its incredibly jarring, there is commentry throughout on ethics, philosophy, humanity and women in society, this was an extremely thought provoking and unsettling read, Charlene is one of my favourite authors her books are just absolute magic, I'm really excited for everyone to read this, it feels very special!
August 23, 2023
I don't think I was smart enough to read this book but damn did I leave this book having learn a bunch of facts and the way Elsby tied it to all the fucked up shit the main character was doing brought a dark satirical element to it.
A philosophy professor gets defunded but she has experiments to run, and that's not going to stop her. Dark academia but make it horror - a first of its kind!!
Charlene Elsby, I'll read your grocery list.
A philosophy professor gets defunded but she has experiments to run, and that's not going to stop her. Dark academia but make it horror - a first of its kind!!
Charlene Elsby, I'll read your grocery list.
October 19, 2024
Jesus Christ.
March 24, 2025
i would have defunded ur department too weirdo
June 3, 2024
This book is not for the faint of heart. From the pov of a disturbed former philosophy professor, Violent Faculties is a front row seat to a series of gruesome murders she commits. As senseless as this ultraviolence might seem, it’s not without its reasons. Oh, there are reasons!
Charlene Elsby, an accomplished academic herself, balances extreme graphic horror with serious philosophical inquiry. This is a book concerned with questions about bodies, the spaces they inhabit, and what it means to be a human being. Elsby takes a scalpel to the human soul and she doesn’t flinch.
Violent Faculties resembles a thesis paper, with citations to Aristotle and Plato. This is a book for fans of extreme horror and those who can appreciate the sprawling dysfunction of academia and are willing to laugh at its absurdity in the same breath.
As becomes increasingly clear (perhaps too clear in the addition of the Appendix that epilogues the novel) the unnamed narrator is murdering people involved in her former philosophy department.
In gruesome detail, the philosophical and bodily distinctions between internal and external are explored. For the most part, each chapter follows a new inquiry and a new experiment where the narrator tortures and murders another person in bizarre and horrifying ways. I think I would have preferred if each chapter didn’t focus on a new victim and a new method. While the new torturous experiments added shocking variety and cruel ingenuity, I feel there’s something lost in not pursuing the opportunity for the narrator to focus on one or only a couple of victims. Lowering her kill count would have allowed more narrative suspense and tension to build between the main character and her victims. I would be curious to see how Violent Faculties would read if it took a page from Misery, but the way it is offers no shortage of scares and is thoroughly complete as is.
This book is as bombastically fun as it is horrendous and gut-wrenching.
“Get it together, bitch! It’s time to kill God,” the narrator concludes, channeling Nietzsche.
There is a ton of creativity on display. Elsby is clearly in her element and her writing is as riveting as it is sublime. There are so many clever, fun and disgusting details. Parts feel like satire with how rigidly the narrator follows philosophical inquiries to their bloodiest conclusions, parodying the self-defeating bureaucracy of higher education departments and the discipline of philosophy in general, but that just adds to the fun!
The ending crumbles and dissolves in delicious surreal and explosive flair a la Jenny Hval’s Girls Against God or The End of Evangelion.
CLASH has put out another hardcore horror banger.
5/5 stars!
Charlene Elsby, an accomplished academic herself, balances extreme graphic horror with serious philosophical inquiry. This is a book concerned with questions about bodies, the spaces they inhabit, and what it means to be a human being. Elsby takes a scalpel to the human soul and she doesn’t flinch.
Violent Faculties resembles a thesis paper, with citations to Aristotle and Plato. This is a book for fans of extreme horror and those who can appreciate the sprawling dysfunction of academia and are willing to laugh at its absurdity in the same breath.
As becomes increasingly clear (perhaps too clear in the addition of the Appendix that epilogues the novel) the unnamed narrator is murdering people involved in her former philosophy department.
In gruesome detail, the philosophical and bodily distinctions between internal and external are explored. For the most part, each chapter follows a new inquiry and a new experiment where the narrator tortures and murders another person in bizarre and horrifying ways. I think I would have preferred if each chapter didn’t focus on a new victim and a new method. While the new torturous experiments added shocking variety and cruel ingenuity, I feel there’s something lost in not pursuing the opportunity for the narrator to focus on one or only a couple of victims. Lowering her kill count would have allowed more narrative suspense and tension to build between the main character and her victims. I would be curious to see how Violent Faculties would read if it took a page from Misery, but the way it is offers no shortage of scares and is thoroughly complete as is.
This book is as bombastically fun as it is horrendous and gut-wrenching.
“Get it together, bitch! It’s time to kill God,” the narrator concludes, channeling Nietzsche.
There is a ton of creativity on display. Elsby is clearly in her element and her writing is as riveting as it is sublime. There are so many clever, fun and disgusting details. Parts feel like satire with how rigidly the narrator follows philosophical inquiries to their bloodiest conclusions, parodying the self-defeating bureaucracy of higher education departments and the discipline of philosophy in general, but that just adds to the fun!
The ending crumbles and dissolves in delicious surreal and explosive flair a la Jenny Hval’s Girls Against God or The End of Evangelion.
CLASH has put out another hardcore horror banger.
5/5 stars!
July 7, 2023
Violent Faculties by Charlene Elsby slots right in there with all my other treasured, sexually confusing and I’m not smart enough to be reading this books. Although its physical release isn’t for a wee whiles away, I know once my copy arrives that it will sit proudly along my shelves with the likes of Sade, Bataille, Yeager and Hagemann.
Elsby manages to hit everything I look for in a book, surprisingly in under 200 pages. It’s thought provoking, viscerally uncomfortable & left me feeling sensitive in a lot more ways than I thought. One of my main takeaways is the extreme satisfaction I get when reading fictional books that pass to be non-fictional, be it a person's diary, texts, notes, mindless thoughts, whatever the likes it passes as, I gobble that type of narrative down like it’s my last meal. (Shoutout to the footnotes which I cherish in novels.)
Along with the book very quickly pulling me into its pages, Elsby gives the reader their own tasks to do while reading, by gently coaxing our minds to fill out the spaces of story that weren’t as descriptive or bold, which in turn was extremely more horrifying to conjure. I have a specific highlight from my annotating which states “Are their holes actually being…” And yes, yes they were. My brain was 1080p quality of semen, cock and holes where holes shouldn’t be. A hole’s a hole though, right?
Come February 2024, be prepared to witness the decline and madness of our nameless professor and the horrors of her theories on philosophy, of life & death, and the icky things between.
Thank you to the author / CLASH books for allowing me the privilege of reading this repulsive little book early in exchange for an honest review.
Twitter | Bookstagram
Elsby manages to hit everything I look for in a book, surprisingly in under 200 pages. It’s thought provoking, viscerally uncomfortable & left me feeling sensitive in a lot more ways than I thought. One of my main takeaways is the extreme satisfaction I get when reading fictional books that pass to be non-fictional, be it a person's diary, texts, notes, mindless thoughts, whatever the likes it passes as, I gobble that type of narrative down like it’s my last meal. (Shoutout to the footnotes which I cherish in novels.)
Along with the book very quickly pulling me into its pages, Elsby gives the reader their own tasks to do while reading, by gently coaxing our minds to fill out the spaces of story that weren’t as descriptive or bold, which in turn was extremely more horrifying to conjure. I have a specific highlight from my annotating which states “Are their holes actually being…” And yes, yes they were. My brain was 1080p quality of semen, cock and holes where holes shouldn’t be. A hole’s a hole though, right?
Come February 2024, be prepared to witness the decline and madness of our nameless professor and the horrors of her theories on philosophy, of life & death, and the icky things between.
Thank you to the author / CLASH books for allowing me the privilege of reading this repulsive little book early in exchange for an honest review.
Twitter | Bookstagram
April 17, 2024
half academic thesis, half extreme horror, this book is vile, dense, and terrifyingly inhuman in all the best ways. i found myself cringing at multiple points, which is tough to do at this point in my extreme horror journey. elsby's way of presenting this novel as an academic text was striking and while it may not be for everyone, especially those swayed by heavy, purple prose, i was definitely the target audience and wasn't disappointed.
March 12, 2024
Not for me, I felt it hard to understand the plot line or the philosophical conundrums explored here.
July 29, 2024
3.5/5
Not a bad book by any means but this was horrific and difficult for me to read. I am not usually queasy and love horror novels but this was really rough. Such an interesting premise and definitely explores the underbelly of academia and its pressures.
Not a bad book by any means but this was horrific and difficult for me to read. I am not usually queasy and love horror novels but this was really rough. Such an interesting premise and definitely explores the underbelly of academia and its pressures.
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