Electric Flesh

by Claro, Christophe Claro, Brian Evenson (Translator)

Howard Hordinary is convinced that he’s the bastard grandchild of Harry Houdini. An unemployed executioner with a fetish for electric chairs, Howard is tormented by multiple perversities and obsessed with schemes to restore his status as executioner and as Houdini’s legitimate heir. Cycling back and forth between Hordinary's paranoid present and Houdini’s fantastical past — teeming with freaks, carnies, scientists, con men, lunatics, and Houdini’s own obsessions — Electric Flesh is a sizzling blend of fact and fiction, penned by an exciting new voice in American fiction.

Genres: Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2006

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

greg would really like this. its for people who like pynchon and other writers who are smart but also stylistically experimental. i dont mind nonlinear, i dont mind split-narrative, but i do roll my eyes when the font gets all big and then gets all small and then moves about. so clever. but still a fine tale of sex and electricity and harry houdini.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book didn't make me want to fuck a light socket

I tried to explain to Karen today why I didn't get into this book. She thought that I would like it more than she did, but I think we both ended up liking it about the same amount. Why didn't I like it more? I don't know how to put it into words. It wasn't that the book was difficult, although there were some confusing moments in the book. I'm a fan of difficult books, bring me a gazillion characters, lots of plot lines, allusions to authors I may or may not know much about and stick the whole thing with some philosophical mumbo-jumbo and I'm all over it. It wasn't really the structure, because the dude is basically following the Richard Powers play book for the three story line historical / modern day intersecting narratives, something I'm pretty much a sucker for. I can't say that it's for the ambiguity, or the lack of resolution. Most of my favorite books end without an ending.

Now this book has all of these things, things that some people hate in books, but which I actually like. Give me some strict fucking formalism and I'll be all over it, I can appreciate an interesting form over content any day of the week. I think Karen is right in that I'm the target audience for a book like this, but I just couldn't really get into it. There wasn't anything that made me dislike the book, I just couldn't love it. This book should have made me want to know more about Houdini, it should have made me want to stick my cock into an electric socket because the book itself would have made it seem so fucking awesome that there would be no way I could imagine going through life without electrocuting myself through my genitals. This book should have elicited some kind of strong response from me on an intellectual level, but it didn't. Instead I felt kind of like I was being cheated, that the author maybe didn't quite know exactly what he was trying to achieve, or else maybe did but decided that the best way to obfuscate was by just withholding some key parts of the book from the reader. Too many parts of the book were crying out to be developed more, even too many themes and ideas were begging to be developed, instead of just being spat out quickly and then expected to just hang over the rest of the story where the reader could develop them on his or her own. There could have been some interesting things done here, especially on the ideas of desire and fetish in the late capitalist world we live in, and that theme runs sort of through the book, but it's only really treated in an interesting manner in a couple of sentences towards to beginning of the book and then kind of muddled together with a bunch of other themes that create a thematic mess.

Kind of like the mess that this review is.

[in8 · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...it was fantastically visceral, jarring, jolting...& it's only appropriate that Brian Evenson would translate it, as it is most akin to his work [especially his Brotherhood of Mutilation:], with more of a jaded Celinesque edge thrown in & maybe some Bataille for good measure...but rather than a treatise on self-mutilation, it's a treatise on self-electrocution...or the sexual juxtaposition of Houdini & the electric chair, the two twined obsessions of the protagonist, Howard Hordinary, who like Gary Gilmore thinks he's Houdini's bastard progeny...Howard Hordinary seeks a sort of cathartic liberation through electrocution, or by fantasizing about it & self-confinement, to escape one's one flesh, to transform into a state of pure energy/ecstasy...the writing itself is vivid enough to make you wonder if Claro is speaking from direct sensory experience, whether he did [electric:] field research for the book...me, i'd rather experience electrocution from a comfy armchair reading Claro's electrifying descriptions..."

Rest of my review:
http://www.5cense.com/09/BangTokDon/L...

[Richard]

From the beginning, in 1881, when an unemployed laborer, on a bet, attempts to copulate with an electricty generator, to the end, when an unemployed executioner who specialized in electric chairs fantasizes about electrically-enhanced sex with a prostitute, Electric Flesh runs an alternating current of language through the body of America.

The central protagonist of Electric Flesh, however, is Harry Houdini, both as the historical figure himself, and as an idea�specifically Howard Hordinary's conviction that he is the bastard grandchild of a rumored liaison between Houdini and Charmain London (Jack London's wife). Howard, tormented by multiple perversities�particularly sex and electricity�his unemployment and powerlessness, schemes to restore his status (as executionar, as Houdini grandchild). Cycling back and forth between Hordinary's present, and the fantastical Houdini past, populated by freaks, carnies, scientists, con men, lunatics. Momentarily confined by cages and straitjackets, Houdini ranges all over the world and, much has Hordinary is obsessed with Houdini, Houdini in turn is obsessed with *SZUSZU*, the enigmatic "Electric Girl," with whom he shared billing early in his career.

Combining the compressed violence of a Dennis Cooper novel, with the paranoid historical sweep of Pynchon and Vollman, and the linguistic experiments of Ben Marcus, Brian Evenson, and Matthew Derby, Claro is very much an American writer who will finally be discovered by his true audience.

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should I read this book twice? perhaps. This book is extremely confusing. I'm not 100% positive that Hordinary and Harry are actually different people. If they are the narrator doesn't seem to be aware of this. The book has a few plots. Houdini, Howard, and the guy who invents the electric chair. All of them are the same person and completely different people.

who is this bess person and why does no one love her? This book proves Bess shouldn't have married a crazy person I say it's her own fault.

[ds white · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must read!

[Bea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Rich Nash (who at the time was at Soft Skull Press) for turning me on to this killer book. Excellent translation by Brian Evenson. So many wonderful lines.