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Hogg
Acclaimed winner of the William Whitehead Memorial Award for a lifetime's contribution to gay and lesbian literature, Samuel R. Delany wrote Hogg three decades ago. Since then it has been one of America's most famous 'unpublishable' novels. The subject matter of Hogg is our culture of sexual violence and degeneration. Delany explores his disturbing protagonist Hogg on his own turf--rape, pederasty, sexual excess--exposing an area of violence and sexual abuse from the inside. As such, it is a brave book.
268 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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9861 people want to read
About the author
Samuel R. Delany
289 books2,240 followersSamuel Ray Delany, also known as "Chip," is an award-winning American science fiction author. He was born to a prominent black family on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany, was a library clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany, Senior, ran a successful Harlem undertaking establishment, Levy & Delany Funeral Home, on 7th Avenue, between 1938 and his death in 1960. The family lived in the top two floors of the three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany's aunts were Sadie and Bessie Delany; Delany used some of their adventures as the basis for the adventures of his characters Elsie and Corry in the opening novella Atlantis: Model 1924 in his book of largely autobiographical stories Atlantis: Three Tales.
Delany attended the Dalton School and the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker met in high school, and were married in 1961. Their marriage lasted nineteen years. They had a daughter, Iva Hacker-Delany (b. 1974), who spent a decade working in theater in New York City.
Delany was a published science fiction author by the age of 20. He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as several prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and more recently in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). His eleventh and most popular novel, Dhalgren, was published in 1975. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was the Return to Nevèrÿon series, the overall title of the four volumes and also the title of the fourth and final book.
Delany has published several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a black, gay, and highly dyslexic writer, including his Hugo award winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water.
Since 1988, Delany has been a professor at several universities. This includes eleven years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo. He then moved to the English Department of Temple University in 2001, where he has been teaching since. He has had several visiting guest professorships before and during these same years. He has also published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In one of his non-fiction books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), he draws on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men, gay and straight, in New York City.
In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.
Delany attended the Dalton School and the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker met in high school, and were married in 1961. Their marriage lasted nineteen years. They had a daughter, Iva Hacker-Delany (b. 1974), who spent a decade working in theater in New York City.
Delany was a published science fiction author by the age of 20. He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as several prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and more recently in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). His eleventh and most popular novel, Dhalgren, was published in 1975. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was the Return to Nevèrÿon series, the overall title of the four volumes and also the title of the fourth and final book.
Delany has published several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a black, gay, and highly dyslexic writer, including his Hugo award winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water.
Since 1988, Delany has been a professor at several universities. This includes eleven years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo. He then moved to the English Department of Temple University in 2001, where he has been teaching since. He has had several visiting guest professorships before and during these same years. He has also published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In one of his non-fiction books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), he draws on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men, gay and straight, in New York City.
In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.
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June 18, 2010This is a book I can't give a star to. I need some sort of alternate system to rate it, and just sorting that out would take all day. It's both the worst book I've ever read and one of the best, but I'm not going to give it a three, because I think that's a cop out with this book.
Most people should not read this book. That's not a tease to get you to read it. It really is awful. This book is to sex and masculinity what the Exorcist is to horror: it's going to be too much for most people. Rape. Murder. Child exploitation. Dirty. DIRTY sex. I have one real squick with sex, and they hit it. Over. And over. And over.
But what this book shows to me is our culture's male archetype stripped to its bone. I kept thinking of Camille Paglia while I read this book and her insistence that men are by their nature raw and rough. I've always felt that is too simplistic, because not all men are; reading this book, I realized that this raw, rough, rude vision of masculinity is a cultural trope that we all swallow, and Hogg is its embodiment.
What we have here is a man so raw and vile that he rapes and murders for a living, and for fun he takes along a young man/boy who narrates the story and who we only know as cocksucker. Hogg is unapologetic. He is also creepily accepting of who and what he is. He isn't a sociopath. He isn't out for vengeance. He doesn't blame a bad upbringing (though you do get a hint of his past, which did seem to set him up for what he became). Hogg just is: he is the archetype of his name. He is a pig wallowing in the trough of life. He has no aim for power or control. He simply enjoys and takes and, like an animal, does what he needs to survive. There is no philosophy here. There is just Hogg, having as good a time as he can with absolutely no moral filter. He is male. He is raw. He is. And that's it.
Cocksucker, however, is another story. Cocksucker worships Hogg because of his rawness. Cocksucker is the boy archetype submitting to the man archetype of Hogg. He does what he is told. He follows. He allows the men to tell him what to do, who to be, what to engage in. Sometimes he seems to love the acts (most of which made me want to puke, many which would enrage most people), but mostly he seems to love the submission, the giving into this baseness. Nothing is too far in this book. Nothing is forbidden. Nothing. NOTHING.
I don't want to give away the end, but I will say that the conflict in the story is mostly the reader reading along to see just exactly how far this is going to go, to see what can possibly come next. It is a train wreck, and it ends that way. Delany successfully draws you along with cocksucker, and you become him too, if you keep reading. Maybe you hate it more than the boy, but you still read. And when you get to the resolution, when you see cocksucker's reaction, you realize that there's a Hogg and a cocksucker in all of us, that love it or hate it, embrace it or shun it, we are all pigs in our own way. We all want to go too far. Probably not like this. But we all love the edges. And like cocksucker, we aren't looking for redemption or love or sacrifice or meaning. Sometimes we are just looking for a ride.
I think the temptation is to view this book as voyeuristic. It isn't. It is, as its protagonist is, raw and unflinching. It isn't titillating. It is a peek inside the human psyche you might not want to see, and the biggest danger isn't want you learn about Hogg or cocksucker. It's what you might find out about humanity, and what you might learn about yourself.
Most people should not read this book. That's not a tease to get you to read it. It really is awful. This book is to sex and masculinity what the Exorcist is to horror: it's going to be too much for most people. Rape. Murder. Child exploitation. Dirty. DIRTY sex. I have one real squick with sex, and they hit it. Over. And over. And over.
But what this book shows to me is our culture's male archetype stripped to its bone. I kept thinking of Camille Paglia while I read this book and her insistence that men are by their nature raw and rough. I've always felt that is too simplistic, because not all men are; reading this book, I realized that this raw, rough, rude vision of masculinity is a cultural trope that we all swallow, and Hogg is its embodiment.
What we have here is a man so raw and vile that he rapes and murders for a living, and for fun he takes along a young man/boy who narrates the story and who we only know as cocksucker. Hogg is unapologetic. He is also creepily accepting of who and what he is. He isn't a sociopath. He isn't out for vengeance. He doesn't blame a bad upbringing (though you do get a hint of his past, which did seem to set him up for what he became). Hogg just is: he is the archetype of his name. He is a pig wallowing in the trough of life. He has no aim for power or control. He simply enjoys and takes and, like an animal, does what he needs to survive. There is no philosophy here. There is just Hogg, having as good a time as he can with absolutely no moral filter. He is male. He is raw. He is. And that's it.
Cocksucker, however, is another story. Cocksucker worships Hogg because of his rawness. Cocksucker is the boy archetype submitting to the man archetype of Hogg. He does what he is told. He follows. He allows the men to tell him what to do, who to be, what to engage in. Sometimes he seems to love the acts (most of which made me want to puke, many which would enrage most people), but mostly he seems to love the submission, the giving into this baseness. Nothing is too far in this book. Nothing is forbidden. Nothing. NOTHING.
I don't want to give away the end, but I will say that the conflict in the story is mostly the reader reading along to see just exactly how far this is going to go, to see what can possibly come next. It is a train wreck, and it ends that way. Delany successfully draws you along with cocksucker, and you become him too, if you keep reading. Maybe you hate it more than the boy, but you still read. And when you get to the resolution, when you see cocksucker's reaction, you realize that there's a Hogg and a cocksucker in all of us, that love it or hate it, embrace it or shun it, we are all pigs in our own way. We all want to go too far. Probably not like this. But we all love the edges. And like cocksucker, we aren't looking for redemption or love or sacrifice or meaning. Sometimes we are just looking for a ride.
I think the temptation is to view this book as voyeuristic. It isn't. It is, as its protagonist is, raw and unflinching. It isn't titillating. It is a peek inside the human psyche you might not want to see, and the biggest danger isn't want you learn about Hogg or cocksucker. It's what you might find out about humanity, and what you might learn about yourself.
November 4, 2025
Book #6 read for LGBTQ Pride Month, June 2025.
Samuel R. Delany is one of my favorite authors. I love his gender bending, wildly imaginative science fiction and dystopic literature.
I read this book because a friend told me that it was often paired with another iconic, transgressive piece of literature, the harrowing "Notice" by Heather Lewis.
Much has been written about the plot of "Hogg" online and other publications. The overall response is that it’s pornographic and “unpublishable”.
However, to formulate a true opinion of something that has been written about with such revulsion, I felt that I needed to have a sit down and read it for myself.
It took me three days to finish this novel. I was riveted. I was in awe of how a pornographic and LGBTQ themed novel like this could be published?
The young, unnamed narrator's odyssey of hell was so grotesque yet fascinating. It was truly the road to Hell for everyone he's met.
I will never forget the unholy trio of depraved men such as The W, the N and Denny. Then there's Big Sambo, Hawk and one vile policeman.
Finally, I'll never forget Hogg, the title character. Burly, smelly and utterly depraved- he's a human Jabba the Hutt who is probably the most hedonistic character I've read in my reading life. He is absolutely revolting, an unrepentant rapist-for-hire.
Hogg and his gang embark on a three day crime spree in 1969 that is chronologically the same time The Manson Family would murder Sharon Tate and her friends. It is also the same time in which the Stonewall Riots would take place in New York.
After I finished it, IT IS DEFINITELY NOT FOR EVERYONE. I repeat, NOT FOR EVERYONE.
YET- I loved this book. I truly loved how Delany didn't seem to care that there are many who would be repelled by his vision. I took it as the ultimate reminder that there is indeed truly evil depravity in the world that exists. Someone has got to write it. It's a courageous feat.
It is an exploration of how race, sexual violence, and human degradation intersect, and the use of sex at its most animalistic is a way to numb complicated feelings of trauma (as it happens to the Narrator) and how sex is a metaphor of how outsiders like Hogg and his gang are all trying to be seen and heard during the end of the turbulent 1960s.
I don't foresee another book like this to come out again in quite some time- but it is still literature, written by a master of the craft who made a decision to stick to a vision of Hell that is at once hypnotic and unfathomable. To me in Delany's eyes, it is indeed a possibility.
AGAIN, I repeat- if you do not like the idea of reading a novel with so much filth and sexual nastiness- do not read it.
For some context into the life of Samuel R. Delany and his work, I would seek out the documentary on his life called "The Polymath" which might give illuminating insight to his mind. I saw this documentary a few years ago. I kept thinking about it as I compulsively read "Hogg".
Link to a brief articles on "The Polymath" (2007)
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/...
https://variety.com/2008/film/reviews...
Samuel R. Delany is one of my favorite authors. I love his gender bending, wildly imaginative science fiction and dystopic literature.
I read this book because a friend told me that it was often paired with another iconic, transgressive piece of literature, the harrowing "Notice" by Heather Lewis.
Much has been written about the plot of "Hogg" online and other publications. The overall response is that it’s pornographic and “unpublishable”.
However, to formulate a true opinion of something that has been written about with such revulsion, I felt that I needed to have a sit down and read it for myself.
It took me three days to finish this novel. I was riveted. I was in awe of how a pornographic and LGBTQ themed novel like this could be published?
The young, unnamed narrator's odyssey of hell was so grotesque yet fascinating. It was truly the road to Hell for everyone he's met.
I will never forget the unholy trio of depraved men such as The W, the N and Denny. Then there's Big Sambo, Hawk and one vile policeman.
Finally, I'll never forget Hogg, the title character. Burly, smelly and utterly depraved- he's a human Jabba the Hutt who is probably the most hedonistic character I've read in my reading life. He is absolutely revolting, an unrepentant rapist-for-hire.
Hogg and his gang embark on a three day crime spree in 1969 that is chronologically the same time The Manson Family would murder Sharon Tate and her friends. It is also the same time in which the Stonewall Riots would take place in New York.
After I finished it, IT IS DEFINITELY NOT FOR EVERYONE. I repeat, NOT FOR EVERYONE.
YET- I loved this book. I truly loved how Delany didn't seem to care that there are many who would be repelled by his vision. I took it as the ultimate reminder that there is indeed truly evil depravity in the world that exists. Someone has got to write it. It's a courageous feat.
It is an exploration of how race, sexual violence, and human degradation intersect, and the use of sex at its most animalistic is a way to numb complicated feelings of trauma (as it happens to the Narrator) and how sex is a metaphor of how outsiders like Hogg and his gang are all trying to be seen and heard during the end of the turbulent 1960s.
I don't foresee another book like this to come out again in quite some time- but it is still literature, written by a master of the craft who made a decision to stick to a vision of Hell that is at once hypnotic and unfathomable. To me in Delany's eyes, it is indeed a possibility.
AGAIN, I repeat- if you do not like the idea of reading a novel with so much filth and sexual nastiness- do not read it.
For some context into the life of Samuel R. Delany and his work, I would seek out the documentary on his life called "The Polymath" which might give illuminating insight to his mind. I saw this documentary a few years ago. I kept thinking about it as I compulsively read "Hogg".
Link to a brief articles on "The Polymath" (2007)
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/...
https://variety.com/2008/film/reviews...
December 13, 2021
There’s something to be said about a book that is so physically debilitating, so mentally draining, piling on so much atrocity that such horrible things even soon become mechanic, dull, and unbearably tedious.
There’s something to be said about an exploration of depravity so vile that when the reader’s eyes dart around the page, trying to find any sort of narrative anchoring, they start to consider the humanity in monstrosity, the camaraderie in perversity, the comfort in violence.
There’s something to be said about a text that feels insane, that exists in the coldness of the wholly inhuman, as dystopian as it is naturalistic, as futuristic as it is timely and timeless, if only because of all the ugliness and shit it’s buried in which is not exclusive to any epoch.
There’s something to be said about Hogg, but I’m not sure I can ever find the right words.
There’s something to be said about an exploration of depravity so vile that when the reader’s eyes dart around the page, trying to find any sort of narrative anchoring, they start to consider the humanity in monstrosity, the camaraderie in perversity, the comfort in violence.
There’s something to be said about a text that feels insane, that exists in the coldness of the wholly inhuman, as dystopian as it is naturalistic, as futuristic as it is timely and timeless, if only because of all the ugliness and shit it’s buried in which is not exclusive to any epoch.
There’s something to be said about Hogg, but I’m not sure I can ever find the right words.
August 15, 2012
The most depraved, disgusting, brilliantly sickening perversion I have ever read. Although it is worth 5 stars for its brilliance, I cannot give it anything other than a ONE STAR. Yuck.
Before I begin my review, I would like to quickly share some information to those with closed minds with possibly limited understanding of the literal or alternative definitions of words in the English language.
Try to open your mind just a wee bit and understand that there are words in which we have given a specific value or definition. For example, Skinny versus scrawny; although they have similar meanings, we as a society see skinny as beautiful and acceptable, whereas scrawny is sickening skinny and ugly.
Every word has alternative, literal definitions. Keep in mind that regardless of whether you place a positive or negative note and feeling to the word, it is simply just that; a word choice. Get over it.
Ok! .. I shall rant and rave and begin… My apologies for the unorganized review … But I just want to get the damned thing over with.
SIDENOTE: Please, please, please, please! … Read this review in its entirety before assuming that this is just another book with mild forms of entertainment of perversion .. this is not a simple “they are raping her in the next room” book .. this is an erotic novel with constant descriptions of murder, homosexuality, child molestation, incest, coprophilia, coprophagia, urolagnia, sodomy, necrophilia and rape. If you don’t understand the warning above, grab a dictionary.
Hogg is by far the most incredible, the most amazing, the most erotically perverted and disgustingly abhorrent book I have *ever* read … and by *ever* .. I mean that in its most literal sense.
The first line of this book:
When I was eleven, I used to suck off a kid named Pedro behind the bottom landing of the stairs that went to the basement.
This book is written in first person by an eleven year old boy.
I have made a tremendous amount of notes that I had every intention of including in this review; then I realized … there is no way in HELL I could ever include those notes. Although they are extremely pertinent and important to parts of the story, they are downright graphic and puke worthy.
Unfortunately, below is one of the mildest of the notes I have prepared for you. A woman, who was being raped by a gang of hired serial rapists, fought back and managed to cut the man who has a fetish with knives.
He smiled. “You cut me, lady…” He licked his bloody palm. “You cut me, lady, and I’m going to cut you now.” His other hand brought the knife out of his pocket. “I’m going to cut a hole in your belly and f*** it, lady. I’m going to cut your leg up like a Virginia ham and fry the slices for lunch. I’m gonna hack out a piece of your gut, poke out the shit, and wear it for a ring…”
Hogg is a disgusting man who falls in love with the eleven year old boy who is telling the story. Here is his rambling logic about how it is acceptable for him to screw an eleven year old boy, rape women for money and his attempt to have others see that all of the socially unacceptable (talk about using a mild phrase for something so ungodly) is really “OK” and that “IT IS WHAT IT IS” and that we “ALL WANT IT BUT WON’T SEE IT’S OK” …
“You know what I think, Ray-?” That was Hogg again. Him and the bartender were ambling around the crowding bikers. “I think I ain’t never met a normal, I mean normal, man who wasn’t crazy! Loon crazy, takem ‘em off and put ‘em away crazy, which is what they would do if there wasn’t so many of them. Every normal man-I mean sexually normal, now-man I ever met figures the whole thing runs between two points: What he wants, and what he thinks should be. Every thought in his head is directed to fixing a rule-straight line between them, and he calls that line What Is.” ….
“I mean it, now: I think about things like that. And thinkin’ about it, I think I got it figured out. That’s what a normal man thinks is reality. On the other hand, every faggot or panty-sucker, or whip jockey, or SM freak, or baby-fu*ker, or even a motherfuc*er like me, we know-“ and his hands came down like he was pushing something away: “We know, man, that there is what we want, there is what should be, and there is what is: and don’t none of them got anything to do with each other unless-“…”unless we make it,” Hogg went on…
I am going to exclude my personal (Have I really managed that?) views and judgments (of the depravity in which you will undoubtedly read …) from this review and leave you with this:
There is absolutely nothing simple about this book. It is in length and by far the most outstanding (don’t assume the positive twist of meaning…) book I have ever read. If you are interested in reading a book that quite frankly will be incredibly memorable, a book of perversions brought to life .. this book is for you.
With that said:
( I have never said this …)
I do not recommend this book to anyone with a weak stomach, to anyone who would not wish to become enraged with remorse, to anyone who refuses to see that there are certain aspects in our world that we turn a blind eye to, and to anyone who does not wish to live alongside a worthless (get over my word choice .. it’s quite appropriate I assure you) eleven-year-old boy who is passed around a world that is filled with toes drowning in jam, asses oozing with slime beckoning attention.
I wish I had never read this book…
But it’s one hell of an eye opener.
I do not hope for happy reading… My last bit of advice:
If you so choose to experience Hogg, keep a trash can nearby for those paragraphs that will quite possibly make you puke.
Before I begin my review, I would like to quickly share some information to those with closed minds with possibly limited understanding of the literal or alternative definitions of words in the English language.
Try to open your mind just a wee bit and understand that there are words in which we have given a specific value or definition. For example, Skinny versus scrawny; although they have similar meanings, we as a society see skinny as beautiful and acceptable, whereas scrawny is sickening skinny and ugly.
Every word has alternative, literal definitions. Keep in mind that regardless of whether you place a positive or negative note and feeling to the word, it is simply just that; a word choice. Get over it.
Ok! .. I shall rant and rave and begin… My apologies for the unorganized review … But I just want to get the damned thing over with.
SIDENOTE: Please, please, please, please! … Read this review in its entirety before assuming that this is just another book with mild forms of entertainment of perversion .. this is not a simple “they are raping her in the next room” book .. this is an erotic novel with constant descriptions of murder, homosexuality, child molestation, incest, coprophilia, coprophagia, urolagnia, sodomy, necrophilia and rape. If you don’t understand the warning above, grab a dictionary.
Hogg is by far the most incredible, the most amazing, the most erotically perverted and disgustingly abhorrent book I have *ever* read … and by *ever* .. I mean that in its most literal sense.
The first line of this book:
When I was eleven, I used to suck off a kid named Pedro behind the bottom landing of the stairs that went to the basement.
This book is written in first person by an eleven year old boy.
I have made a tremendous amount of notes that I had every intention of including in this review; then I realized … there is no way in HELL I could ever include those notes. Although they are extremely pertinent and important to parts of the story, they are downright graphic and puke worthy.
Unfortunately, below is one of the mildest of the notes I have prepared for you. A woman, who was being raped by a gang of hired serial rapists, fought back and managed to cut the man who has a fetish with knives.
He smiled. “You cut me, lady…” He licked his bloody palm. “You cut me, lady, and I’m going to cut you now.” His other hand brought the knife out of his pocket. “I’m going to cut a hole in your belly and f*** it, lady. I’m going to cut your leg up like a Virginia ham and fry the slices for lunch. I’m gonna hack out a piece of your gut, poke out the shit, and wear it for a ring…”
Hogg is a disgusting man who falls in love with the eleven year old boy who is telling the story. Here is his rambling logic about how it is acceptable for him to screw an eleven year old boy, rape women for money and his attempt to have others see that all of the socially unacceptable (talk about using a mild phrase for something so ungodly) is really “OK” and that “IT IS WHAT IT IS” and that we “ALL WANT IT BUT WON’T SEE IT’S OK” …
“You know what I think, Ray-?” That was Hogg again. Him and the bartender were ambling around the crowding bikers. “I think I ain’t never met a normal, I mean normal, man who wasn’t crazy! Loon crazy, takem ‘em off and put ‘em away crazy, which is what they would do if there wasn’t so many of them. Every normal man-I mean sexually normal, now-man I ever met figures the whole thing runs between two points: What he wants, and what he thinks should be. Every thought in his head is directed to fixing a rule-straight line between them, and he calls that line What Is.” ….
“I mean it, now: I think about things like that. And thinkin’ about it, I think I got it figured out. That’s what a normal man thinks is reality. On the other hand, every faggot or panty-sucker, or whip jockey, or SM freak, or baby-fu*ker, or even a motherfuc*er like me, we know-“ and his hands came down like he was pushing something away: “We know, man, that there is what we want, there is what should be, and there is what is: and don’t none of them got anything to do with each other unless-“…”unless we make it,” Hogg went on…
I am going to exclude my personal (Have I really managed that?) views and judgments (of the depravity in which you will undoubtedly read …) from this review and leave you with this:
There is absolutely nothing simple about this book. It is in length and by far the most outstanding (don’t assume the positive twist of meaning…) book I have ever read. If you are interested in reading a book that quite frankly will be incredibly memorable, a book of perversions brought to life .. this book is for you.
With that said:
( I have never said this …)
I do not recommend this book to anyone with a weak stomach, to anyone who would not wish to become enraged with remorse, to anyone who refuses to see that there are certain aspects in our world that we turn a blind eye to, and to anyone who does not wish to live alongside a worthless (get over my word choice .. it’s quite appropriate I assure you) eleven-year-old boy who is passed around a world that is filled with toes drowning in jam, asses oozing with slime beckoning attention.
I wish I had never read this book…
But it’s one hell of an eye opener.
I do not hope for happy reading… My last bit of advice:
If you so choose to experience Hogg, keep a trash can nearby for those paragraphs that will quite possibly make you puke.
March 17, 2023
A novel which set new standards for degrading books
Review of Kindle edition
Publication date: June 2, 2015
Publisher: Open Road Media
Language: English
ASIN: B00W4LL4AS
219 abominable pages
Why would any more or less normal person read this novel? David Drake said of his horror story Smoky Joe, that he wouldn't want to meet a person who found it erotic. This book is worse, much worse. I don't want to meet anyone who even read it ALL the way through, much less found it erotic. Here is some general information about the book. Some of it from Wikipedia:
Samuel Delany wrote the book in San Francisco in 1968 or 1969. He revised it in 1973 in London. Understandably no one would publish it because of its graphic descriptions of violence, degradation, murder, child molestation, incest, coprophilia, coprophagia, urolagnia, anal-oral contact, necrophilia and rape. By 1995, standards of taste, civility and morality had declined enough that Black Ice Books finally published it.
From the A.V. Club:
The plot features a silent pre-adolescent boy (called only "cocksucker") sold into sexual slavery to a rapist named "Hogg" Hargus, who exposes him to the most extreme acts of deviancy imaginable.
— Chuck Klosterman, The A.V. Club, 2009
These acts include a substantial amount of "rape, violence, and murder", such as "scenes of Hogg and his gang brutally raping various women" and other "extensive scenes involving consumption of bodily waste." Every chapter in the novel contains graphic sexual and/or violent acts.
Many praise this novel for its brilliant writing. That is much the same as praising a serial killer or other violent criminal for the brilliance of his planing and execution of his crimes. It would be difficult to imagine a more disgusting book by a so-called main stream author considered by many to be a giant among science fiction writers.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019:
Amazon would not publish this review when I included terms and passages from the book, so I submitted an amended and shorter version to Amazon.
Amazon posted the revised review. I seem to have this occasional problem only with less than favorable reviews.
Review of Kindle edition
Publication date: June 2, 2015
Publisher: Open Road Media
Language: English
ASIN: B00W4LL4AS
219 abominable pages
Why would any more or less normal person read this novel? David Drake said of his horror story Smoky Joe, that he wouldn't want to meet a person who found it erotic. This book is worse, much worse. I don't want to meet anyone who even read it ALL the way through, much less found it erotic. Here is some general information about the book. Some of it from Wikipedia:
Samuel Delany wrote the book in San Francisco in 1968 or 1969. He revised it in 1973 in London. Understandably no one would publish it because of its graphic descriptions of violence, degradation, murder, child molestation, incest, coprophilia, coprophagia, urolagnia, anal-oral contact, necrophilia and rape. By 1995, standards of taste, civility and morality had declined enough that Black Ice Books finally published it.
From the A.V. Club:
The plot features a silent pre-adolescent boy (called only "cocksucker") sold into sexual slavery to a rapist named "Hogg" Hargus, who exposes him to the most extreme acts of deviancy imaginable.
— Chuck Klosterman, The A.V. Club, 2009
These acts include a substantial amount of "rape, violence, and murder", such as "scenes of Hogg and his gang brutally raping various women" and other "extensive scenes involving consumption of bodily waste." Every chapter in the novel contains graphic sexual and/or violent acts.
Many praise this novel for its brilliant writing. That is much the same as praising a serial killer or other violent criminal for the brilliance of his planing and execution of his crimes. It would be difficult to imagine a more disgusting book by a so-called main stream author considered by many to be a giant among science fiction writers.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019:
Amazon would not publish this review when I included terms and passages from the book, so I submitted an amended and shorter version to Amazon.
Amazon posted the revised review. I seem to have this occasional problem only with less than favorable reviews.
October 21, 2012
'tis the season...
13 TALES OF TERROR: BOOK 2
read during my Social Work Years
I Remember: a young lad's journey into the dark side... abuse & degradation, times a million... droolingly graphic depictions of rape, pederasty, blood, piss, shit, the whole kit & kaboodle... bikers & whores & drug addicts, oh my!... is that some form of Stockholm Syndrome or is this the kid's true destiny?... everything is so fuckin ugly... i feel sick... i suppose Delany had his reasons.
i later gave this to a colleague who loves Delany. he enjoyed the book a lot. he called it "tender" - at least near the end of the novel. apparently it was tender enough to bring a few tears to his eyes. huh. maybe i have a heart of steel. or a low threshold for such things.
ours is not to wonder why...
13 TALES OF TERROR: BOOK 2
read during my Social Work Years
I Remember: a young lad's journey into the dark side... abuse & degradation, times a million... droolingly graphic depictions of rape, pederasty, blood, piss, shit, the whole kit & kaboodle... bikers & whores & drug addicts, oh my!... is that some form of Stockholm Syndrome or is this the kid's true destiny?... everything is so fuckin ugly... i feel sick... i suppose Delany had his reasons.
i later gave this to a colleague who loves Delany. he enjoyed the book a lot. he called it "tender" - at least near the end of the novel. apparently it was tender enough to bring a few tears to his eyes. huh. maybe i have a heart of steel. or a low threshold for such things.
ours is not to wonder why...
Read
January 21, 2023How the fuck do you rate a book like Hogg? On the one hand it’s utterly repellent and disgraceful. On the other, it’s so singleminded it’s hard to ignore.
March 1, 2015
Re-read: (relevant to something I'm writing at the moment :D) major skimmage. So much of the novel's hook is wondering what depraved thing is going to happen next and how far Delany is going to go. Upon re-reading, with no surprises, the story is incredibly slow.
Original review:
In order of necessity, what I have to say about this book:
1. Have I ever felt so angry that I needed to write Hogg? Absolutely, but with almost none of the skill, and I’m endlessly thankful that I didn’t need to endure the writing process of this book.
2. If I had to choose to endure the violence of a victim from either American Psycho or Hogg, it would easily be American Psycho. Still, I feel that AP is excessive, and Hogg is necessary art. Hogg is unipolar throughout, and would only make its statement if it was driven to the absolute extreme (which it undoubtedly is- the most disgusting thing I can possibly think of is (disgusting imagery from the book hidden). If you can think of sicker, you have my pity, because Hogg at least exceeded the limits of my own imagination at its most twisted.)
3. The reading of this book that I would like to focus on, if it isn’t already clear, is that of homosexual frustration. I can’t begin to imagine how brave Delany had to be to write Hogg, and the message is just as true today, despite the much larger support of gay rights. My interpretation is that Hogg is the depraved world perceived by the homophobe once sexual deviance becomes commonplace. And it is completely ludicrous. It epitomises how we are made to feel by homophobes, as savages incapable of love, as pillagers and destroyers who carve out a hideous unlivable reality. In Hogg, I see that Delany has the vision and the self-belief to see that he is not a worm, a lower class citizen, but every bit as important as anyone else. I don’t know that I would have had that strength in the face of public opinion in the 60s, and I hugely admire Delany for this. To think that it was written so closely to the time of the Stonewall Riots, it is clearly a brilliantly-executed chunk of spirit representative of homosexual thought for the time.
4. In spite of how much I would love to celebrate the forward-thinking society I live in, so long as a wilfully ignorant individual exists, I will occasionally lose hours of sleep. Hogg is here to reassure me, and you.
5. I did not recommend this book to you. You should not read it. But you should be happy that it exists.
Original review:
In order of necessity, what I have to say about this book:
1. Have I ever felt so angry that I needed to write Hogg? Absolutely, but with almost none of the skill, and I’m endlessly thankful that I didn’t need to endure the writing process of this book.
2. If I had to choose to endure the violence of a victim from either American Psycho or Hogg, it would easily be American Psycho. Still, I feel that AP is excessive, and Hogg is necessary art. Hogg is unipolar throughout, and would only make its statement if it was driven to the absolute extreme (which it undoubtedly is- the most disgusting thing I can possibly think of is (disgusting imagery from the book hidden). If you can think of sicker, you have my pity, because Hogg at least exceeded the limits of my own imagination at its most twisted.)
3. The reading of this book that I would like to focus on, if it isn’t already clear, is that of homosexual frustration. I can’t begin to imagine how brave Delany had to be to write Hogg, and the message is just as true today, despite the much larger support of gay rights. My interpretation is that Hogg is the depraved world perceived by the homophobe once sexual deviance becomes commonplace. And it is completely ludicrous. It epitomises how we are made to feel by homophobes, as savages incapable of love, as pillagers and destroyers who carve out a hideous unlivable reality. In Hogg, I see that Delany has the vision and the self-belief to see that he is not a worm, a lower class citizen, but every bit as important as anyone else. I don’t know that I would have had that strength in the face of public opinion in the 60s, and I hugely admire Delany for this. To think that it was written so closely to the time of the Stonewall Riots, it is clearly a brilliantly-executed chunk of spirit representative of homosexual thought for the time.
4. In spite of how much I would love to celebrate the forward-thinking society I live in, so long as a wilfully ignorant individual exists, I will occasionally lose hours of sleep. Hogg is here to reassure me, and you.
5. I did not recommend this book to you. You should not read it. But you should be happy that it exists.
February 7, 2016
**Spoilers**
This book is very hard to rate. It's a nasty read, it describes in full detail everything that could possibly make a person squick.
This is written through the voice of an unnamed boy who we only know as 'Cocksucker.' The telling of horrible scenes is done with the stunted feelings of a child who has seen too much and can no longer work up surprise or fear. Or love. At one point, the boy misses Hogg and I thought perhaps he had become attached to the man who was kind to him in a way. Later you find that the boy is so disconnected that he doesnt even understand attachment.
Hogg is a disgusting character and yet, to show how well it is written, (SPOILER ALERT)in the last pages you feel disappointed that things don't end differently. I softened to Hogg because he, in his way, professed a love for 'Cocksucker' that you find will not be returned. I think Cocksucker no longer wanted to be near Hogg once he felt tenderness, as if it was more frightening than anything else.
Denny was a comical character to me. Even though his killing spree would be sinister if not in a fictional work. The fact that he scrawled 'All right' on the wall after each killing seemed like dark humor.
The story ends with the first mention of Cocksucker saying a word. To me this signaled a change in the relationship dynamic between Hogg and the boy. When Hogg professed his feelings, he changed in the boy's eyes. No longer bigger than life, no longer someone to worship. That word was the death knell of their 'relationship' and left me surprisingly sad for Hogg. The nasty man was actually thinking of settling down in his way, of making a life with the boy, but in confessing his shortcomings to the boy, he destroyed what made Cocksucker desire him.
This book is very hard to rate. It's a nasty read, it describes in full detail everything that could possibly make a person squick.
This is written through the voice of an unnamed boy who we only know as 'Cocksucker.' The telling of horrible scenes is done with the stunted feelings of a child who has seen too much and can no longer work up surprise or fear. Or love. At one point, the boy misses Hogg and I thought perhaps he had become attached to the man who was kind to him in a way. Later you find that the boy is so disconnected that he doesnt even understand attachment.
Hogg is a disgusting character and yet, to show how well it is written, (SPOILER ALERT)in the last pages you feel disappointed that things don't end differently. I softened to Hogg because he, in his way, professed a love for 'Cocksucker' that you find will not be returned. I think Cocksucker no longer wanted to be near Hogg once he felt tenderness, as if it was more frightening than anything else.
Denny was a comical character to me. Even though his killing spree would be sinister if not in a fictional work. The fact that he scrawled 'All right' on the wall after each killing seemed like dark humor.
The story ends with the first mention of Cocksucker saying a word. To me this signaled a change in the relationship dynamic between Hogg and the boy. When Hogg professed his feelings, he changed in the boy's eyes. No longer bigger than life, no longer someone to worship. That word was the death knell of their 'relationship' and left me surprisingly sad for Hogg. The nasty man was actually thinking of settling down in his way, of making a life with the boy, but in confessing his shortcomings to the boy, he destroyed what made Cocksucker desire him.
February 18, 2024
I struggled helplessly to read and finish this book.
What a load of vile and revolting rubbish, if there was any kind of story here... I couldn't find it!
It didn't shock me...it was just nasty and disgusted me to the core...it was just pure filth💩💩
1 COCKSUCKING...ARSE LICKING...PISSING...SHIT EATING... STAR ⭐ (It doesn't even deserve that😵)
And what the fuck is that front cover all about??? Erotic!!! My arse!!! The cover has nothing to do with the book at all...so please don't be fooled by it🤔
What a load of vile and revolting rubbish, if there was any kind of story here... I couldn't find it!
It didn't shock me...it was just nasty and disgusted me to the core...it was just pure filth💩💩
1 COCKSUCKING...ARSE LICKING...PISSING...SHIT EATING... STAR ⭐ (It doesn't even deserve that😵)
And what the fuck is that front cover all about??? Erotic!!! My arse!!! The cover has nothing to do with the book at all...so please don't be fooled by it🤔
October 22, 2019
Yuck, I shouldn't have cracked it open. Sheer bizarro from the start. Definitely not worth reading on. And the description should have 'hard porn' marker included instead of the 'explores his disturbing protagonist'.
PS. No, my opinion hasn't changed so far. Yuck!
PS. No, my opinion hasn't changed so far. Yuck!
August 2, 2015
Try-hard trash. I'm not opposed to someone writing filthy, perverted things, but at least make the story interesting. I wasn't repulsed or appalled; I was bored. Pedophilia, rotten teeth, and scat for almost three hundred pages. It's not a raw look into depraved minds—it's the result of a talentless author desperately trying to shock you. Go read The End of Alice if you want a well-written book that deals with dark subjects.
December 7, 2025
.5️⃣🌟, extreme child porn? CSAM? or simply just the best book ever written?
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
#️⃣6️⃣6️⃣6️⃣ Read & Reviewed in 2025 🧊🏔️
Date Read: Thursday, December 4, 2025 ☃️🌨️
6th read in "Its TIMEEEE!!!!! (to read more books)" December ❄️⛄
Damn I just realized that this is the 666th book I've read in 2025......coincidence? Also possibly the longest and the best review i've ever written in this world lol, you're in for a ride in here (⌐■-■)
Answering the question at the top of this review, this book wouldn't be classified as CSAM because of its inner experimental nature, which is also one of the reasons why this book cannot be replicated again. You can’t experiment and end up with the result of something like Hogg. The point of experimenting is not to create a thing that is already existed 😐. It's the first of its kind and nothing can do the same thing as this. As possibly writing a child rape book such as this one once again and using the excuse that “I am just experimenting” itttt…. Would be a weaker argument as that idea would just be an inspiration from Hogg, which is like — kinda NOT what “experimental fiction” is.
Anyways, this book follows an 11-year-old boy named 'cocksucker'.....yep that's what he's called in the book..... 😐 And yes I typed that age correctly. As he...progressively just get raped for the entire 300 pages 😶. It starts straight to the action and leaves us one of the most important lines of this book.
"This story is mostly Hogg's.
But first I have to tell you some about me.
When I was eleven, I used to suck off a kid named Pedro behind the bottom landing of the stairs that went to the basement."
Cocksucker is essentially the theatre backdrop for Hogg's story. That first line and the last line of this book is one of the most important pieces of this work of literature and what makes this one of the most genius and poetic references to the darkness that exists in this world. This story is a journey, a journey to all of the sexual limits and extremes of the human condition. Nothing is an exception, purely the most vile and fucked up scenes imaginable, the brutality, no remorse and just the absolute lack of any presence of a single drop of morality, it is what this book specializes in. It is shining light on the darkness that exists in society. It reveals aspects that are always present but are not talked about that much and removed from civilized thoughts. Sexual violence has always been a part of history but instead of hiding it, of limiting it's damage to people, this book embraces it, it is this book’s central theme.
Hogg is the rapist of cocksucker whom he bought. Cocksucker has been sold as a sex slave for Hogg to do everything to him. And after that — perhaps then the plot takes a toll and goes to the side. Nothing truly "eventful" happened after cocksucker was sold to Hogg. I would probably criticize it for not having a plot but this vignettes type book in which instead of normal everyday events, it's the worst possible thing to ever happen to a human being 😭😭😭😭😭.
There is also this lack of "justification" for the entire thing. Could this be an allegory for something perhaps? Maybe a satire of the inner workings and systems of society much like 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis De Sade? 120 Days of Sodom is very much comparable to this book, it is also a book where from the start to the finish, it's literally just child rape pornography... but that book at least ACHIEVED a certain goal, a narrative and a message to tell. Hogg on the other hand, is devoid of any meaning, devoid of any deeper explanation for everything. But when executed and really thought about..
"Lack of any meaning" is very much the reason that most dark events happen in real life. The book lacks a clear meaning — IS THE MEANING. Since most bad things that people do only exist to fulfill their inner dark desires, for their own selfish reasons. Much like how this book is possibly written. It's not written to give any ✨ inspirational messages✨. This book is not written for any altruistic purposes. It's gore for the sake of gore. Wait scratch that — it's porn for the sake of porn, child rape for the sake of child rape anyways.
Heck, this book can even just be possibly written because the author CAN. I don't know about you but that is like the riskiest form of using your free will 😭😭😭. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should…right? But the thing is no one has ever done this before, it's the first and only one of its kind. It's meant to break the limits of fiction.
“It's just fiction” yes, it is, but it intentionally uses that statement in its extreme, no matter how much you debate, even if this book can even feature harsher rape than it already has….it ain't real, it has never been real, and it will never be real, it's all up from the author's imagination. This book redefines what it means to be published, if truly “anything” can be published. Which is a sad moment now in the normal times because a little “problematic” here and another “problematic” there, it's actually reminding me of a popular book just on social media recently that got taken down from shelves.
“Daddy's Little Toy” by Lauren Tesolin-Mastrosa. Ok yeah im DEFINITELY taking this review too deeply sry 😔. And possibly the only thing that made it be taken down is because of it's marketing………. Daddy's Little Toy is literally marketed as romance and even has this very cute toddler toy, colored playing blocks as the cover…… If it were marketed as a splatterpunk book then it would just be swept under the radar because honestly that type of book is written like so many times already in the splatterpunk genre it ain't even unique anymore. Because in every single way, Hogg is a million times worse than Daddy's Little Toy because from the start to the finish it's clear just borderline child porn no exceptions you can't even make a loophole out of it. The problem that Daddy's Little Toy did is EXTREMELY POOR marketing.
Next point, this book also explores the concept of "Pornotopia". This is a term defined by Steven Marcus (yes i did research for this book uwu lol), it is the land where any situation can become rampantly sexual under the least increase in the pressure of attention, which i actually think is explored very well in here 👍👍👍👍👍👍.
But is this really not cocksucker’s story?. Is it really about Hogg's? As the first sentence suggests once again, "This story is mostly Hogg's. But first I have to tell you some about me." But why is it that somehow everything IS ACTUALLY about cocksucker…….Symbolisms — do your thing (⌐■-■). And also readers interpretation: This book can ACTUALLY be about Hogg’s story, or it could be about cocksucker’s story — and he’s simply only denying it, or this book is the story of both of them. But my interpretation is that this is cocksucker's story and he’s just denying the fact that it is actually his story and not Hogg’s.
And also when talking about symbolisms (possibly the only symbolisms that this book ever has is the first sentence and the last sentence…everything else is the "Lack of any meaning” point ☝️ i've been talking about seven paragraphs ago), the last sentence is….PEAK. like it honestly transcended my brain up to a different dimension because damn that's DEEEEEEEP
“Come on, cocksucker—” Hogg glanced at me again. Then a frown tried to fight its way in among the lines in his three-day stubble, into the lines around his close, green eyes. But a bigger smile kept it out. “Hey … is everything all right?” He looked at the road. “What’s the matter?”
I turned to watch the fleeing trees. “Nothin’.”
……..WHAT DO YOU MEAN NOTHING'S WRONG???????? Which leads me to my next point..
WHO’S WORSE??!???!?? (Morally speaking)
a. Hogg: the embodiment of darkness
b. Cocksucker: the ignorance that embraced everything it offers
Up to you babes 💓 💓 , cuz really…cocksucker didn't know anything better, we don't know anything about him or even just who he is. Heck, that isn't even his real name, that is just a nickname. It's purposely vague as possible because he represents a more general idea of youth and purity. Again embracing everything that it was offered because it doesn't know anything better.
It all leads up to this book being the most incredibly unique and rebellious piece of literature there is. There can be a million Hunger Games clones, so many romance books that do the exact same formula, fantasy books with the same world building. But there can be only one Hogg. Hogg is one of the most unreplaceable books to be written. It can't be reproduced once more. Many modern splatterpunk books tried to recreate the depravity of Hogg but almost everything is either not too gory and depraved enough, or even MORE depraved but at that point it's not even realistic or actually disturbing anymore, it is simply just laughable, like the silly violent comedy accidents on Looney Tunes. Hogg pioneered the perfect balance. Nothing can even come close to what Hogg achieved in the literary landscape. Like can you even imagine it? Someone wrote an entire child rape book and that's it, no filter no censorships no limitations. This book is essentially unpublishable when it was first written in 1969, it was only published in 1995, more than three entire decades later. Hogg is at the very top of its pedestal. A book that can come close to this is A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara but that book is at the top of another pedestal. It's not trying to do the same thing as Hogg. It's more about trauma rather than depictions of the world’s dark shadows.
Aand clearly, this book is explicitly stated to be violently pornographic. It's not as a simple erotica made for uh.....that purpose as most erotic fiction may entails. But if someone actually uses this book for that purpose then.. It's clearly a representation or a mirror of that type of person 😒. This book is a work that is created to destroy every single boundary of the reader. But honestly no one would even want to read this. This is like a test of your tolerance really 😭😭😭. No one wants to read child porn, let alone child rape for 300 pages straight, the depiction of all sexual depravity in this world condinsed in a book.
This is as extreme as splatterpunk books can be. It's the worst of the worst. And ok don't talk to me about Dark Romance because that genre is...too unserious. The darkest of the dark "Dark Romance" book cannot even be compared to the first page of this one. The splatterpunk literary movement has been the counterculture and the rebellious movement in the 1900s — I'll even say that the darkest dark romance book cannot compare to even a BEGINNER splatterpunk book 😐. YOU WANNA BE EDGY SO MUCH?
Spice Level 🌶️: 5️⃣, do you count constant child rape for the full 300 pages "spice" right¿¿¿ (´ . .̫ . `) The clear answer is yes 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Vibe ☘️: it's literally child porn what 'vibe' do you even need here (〒﹏〒)
Who'd Like This ❓👥: no one......(This literally has two stars average rating...) except for critics maybe 🤔, cuz literally only the critics like this book because of it's symbolisms, allegory and real life representation and application. And the thing is i am also a critic.. a pretty harsh one tbh
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
#️⃣6️⃣6️⃣6️⃣ Read & Reviewed in 2025 🧊🏔️
Date Read: Thursday, December 4, 2025 ☃️🌨️
6th read in "Its TIMEEEE!!!!! (to read more books)" December ❄️⛄
Damn I just realized that this is the 666th book I've read in 2025......coincidence? Also possibly the longest and the best review i've ever written in this world lol, you're in for a ride in here (⌐■-■)
Answering the question at the top of this review, this book wouldn't be classified as CSAM because of its inner experimental nature, which is also one of the reasons why this book cannot be replicated again. You can’t experiment and end up with the result of something like Hogg. The point of experimenting is not to create a thing that is already existed 😐. It's the first of its kind and nothing can do the same thing as this. As possibly writing a child rape book such as this one once again and using the excuse that “I am just experimenting” itttt…. Would be a weaker argument as that idea would just be an inspiration from Hogg, which is like — kinda NOT what “experimental fiction” is.
Anyways, this book follows an 11-year-old boy named 'cocksucker'.....yep that's what he's called in the book..... 😐 And yes I typed that age correctly. As he...progressively just get raped for the entire 300 pages 😶. It starts straight to the action and leaves us one of the most important lines of this book.
"This story is mostly Hogg's.
But first I have to tell you some about me.
When I was eleven, I used to suck off a kid named Pedro behind the bottom landing of the stairs that went to the basement."
Cocksucker is essentially the theatre backdrop for Hogg's story. That first line and the last line of this book is one of the most important pieces of this work of literature and what makes this one of the most genius and poetic references to the darkness that exists in this world. This story is a journey, a journey to all of the sexual limits and extremes of the human condition. Nothing is an exception, purely the most vile and fucked up scenes imaginable, the brutality, no remorse and just the absolute lack of any presence of a single drop of morality, it is what this book specializes in. It is shining light on the darkness that exists in society. It reveals aspects that are always present but are not talked about that much and removed from civilized thoughts. Sexual violence has always been a part of history but instead of hiding it, of limiting it's damage to people, this book embraces it, it is this book’s central theme.
Hogg is the rapist of cocksucker whom he bought. Cocksucker has been sold as a sex slave for Hogg to do everything to him. And after that — perhaps then the plot takes a toll and goes to the side. Nothing truly "eventful" happened after cocksucker was sold to Hogg. I would probably criticize it for not having a plot but this vignettes type book in which instead of normal everyday events, it's the worst possible thing to ever happen to a human being 😭😭😭😭😭.
There is also this lack of "justification" for the entire thing. Could this be an allegory for something perhaps? Maybe a satire of the inner workings and systems of society much like 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis De Sade? 120 Days of Sodom is very much comparable to this book, it is also a book where from the start to the finish, it's literally just child rape pornography... but that book at least ACHIEVED a certain goal, a narrative and a message to tell. Hogg on the other hand, is devoid of any meaning, devoid of any deeper explanation for everything. But when executed and really thought about..
"Lack of any meaning" is very much the reason that most dark events happen in real life. The book lacks a clear meaning — IS THE MEANING. Since most bad things that people do only exist to fulfill their inner dark desires, for their own selfish reasons. Much like how this book is possibly written. It's not written to give any ✨ inspirational messages✨. This book is not written for any altruistic purposes. It's gore for the sake of gore. Wait scratch that — it's porn for the sake of porn, child rape for the sake of child rape anyways.
Heck, this book can even just be possibly written because the author CAN. I don't know about you but that is like the riskiest form of using your free will 😭😭😭. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should…right? But the thing is no one has ever done this before, it's the first and only one of its kind. It's meant to break the limits of fiction.
“It's just fiction” yes, it is, but it intentionally uses that statement in its extreme, no matter how much you debate, even if this book can even feature harsher rape than it already has….it ain't real, it has never been real, and it will never be real, it's all up from the author's imagination. This book redefines what it means to be published, if truly “anything” can be published. Which is a sad moment now in the normal times because a little “problematic” here and another “problematic” there, it's actually reminding me of a popular book just on social media recently that got taken down from shelves.
“Daddy's Little Toy” by Lauren Tesolin-Mastrosa. Ok yeah im DEFINITELY taking this review too deeply sry 😔. And possibly the only thing that made it be taken down is because of it's marketing………. Daddy's Little Toy is literally marketed as romance and even has this very cute toddler toy, colored playing blocks as the cover…… If it were marketed as a splatterpunk book then it would just be swept under the radar because honestly that type of book is written like so many times already in the splatterpunk genre it ain't even unique anymore. Because in every single way, Hogg is a million times worse than Daddy's Little Toy because from the start to the finish it's clear just borderline child porn no exceptions you can't even make a loophole out of it. The problem that Daddy's Little Toy did is EXTREMELY POOR marketing.
Next point, this book also explores the concept of "Pornotopia". This is a term defined by Steven Marcus (yes i did research for this book uwu lol), it is the land where any situation can become rampantly sexual under the least increase in the pressure of attention, which i actually think is explored very well in here 👍👍👍👍👍👍.
But is this really not cocksucker’s story?. Is it really about Hogg's? As the first sentence suggests once again, "This story is mostly Hogg's. But first I have to tell you some about me." But why is it that somehow everything IS ACTUALLY about cocksucker…….Symbolisms — do your thing (⌐■-■). And also readers interpretation: This book can ACTUALLY be about Hogg’s story, or it could be about cocksucker’s story — and he’s simply only denying it, or this book is the story of both of them. But my interpretation is that this is cocksucker's story and he’s just denying the fact that it is actually his story and not Hogg’s.
And also when talking about symbolisms (possibly the only symbolisms that this book ever has is the first sentence and the last sentence…everything else is the "Lack of any meaning” point ☝️ i've been talking about seven paragraphs ago), the last sentence is….PEAK. like it honestly transcended my brain up to a different dimension because damn that's DEEEEEEEP
“Come on, cocksucker—” Hogg glanced at me again. Then a frown tried to fight its way in among the lines in his three-day stubble, into the lines around his close, green eyes. But a bigger smile kept it out. “Hey … is everything all right?” He looked at the road. “What’s the matter?”
I turned to watch the fleeing trees. “Nothin’.”
……..WHAT DO YOU MEAN NOTHING'S WRONG???????? Which leads me to my next point..
WHO’S WORSE??!???!?? (Morally speaking)
a. Hogg: the embodiment of darkness
b. Cocksucker: the ignorance that embraced everything it offers
Up to you babes 💓 💓 , cuz really…cocksucker didn't know anything better, we don't know anything about him or even just who he is. Heck, that isn't even his real name, that is just a nickname. It's purposely vague as possible because he represents a more general idea of youth and purity. Again embracing everything that it was offered because it doesn't know anything better.
It all leads up to this book being the most incredibly unique and rebellious piece of literature there is. There can be a million Hunger Games clones, so many romance books that do the exact same formula, fantasy books with the same world building. But there can be only one Hogg. Hogg is one of the most unreplaceable books to be written. It can't be reproduced once more. Many modern splatterpunk books tried to recreate the depravity of Hogg but almost everything is either not too gory and depraved enough, or even MORE depraved but at that point it's not even realistic or actually disturbing anymore, it is simply just laughable, like the silly violent comedy accidents on Looney Tunes. Hogg pioneered the perfect balance. Nothing can even come close to what Hogg achieved in the literary landscape. Like can you even imagine it? Someone wrote an entire child rape book and that's it, no filter no censorships no limitations. This book is essentially unpublishable when it was first written in 1969, it was only published in 1995, more than three entire decades later. Hogg is at the very top of its pedestal. A book that can come close to this is A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara but that book is at the top of another pedestal. It's not trying to do the same thing as Hogg. It's more about trauma rather than depictions of the world’s dark shadows.
Aand clearly, this book is explicitly stated to be violently pornographic. It's not as a simple erotica made for uh.....that purpose as most erotic fiction may entails. But if someone actually uses this book for that purpose then.. It's clearly a representation or a mirror of that type of person 😒. This book is a work that is created to destroy every single boundary of the reader. But honestly no one would even want to read this. This is like a test of your tolerance really 😭😭😭. No one wants to read child porn, let alone child rape for 300 pages straight, the depiction of all sexual depravity in this world condinsed in a book.
This is as extreme as splatterpunk books can be. It's the worst of the worst. And ok don't talk to me about Dark Romance because that genre is...too unserious. The darkest of the dark "Dark Romance" book cannot even be compared to the first page of this one. The splatterpunk literary movement has been the counterculture and the rebellious movement in the 1900s — I'll even say that the darkest dark romance book cannot compare to even a BEGINNER splatterpunk book 😐. YOU WANNA BE EDGY SO MUCH?
Spice Level 🌶️: 5️⃣, do you count constant child rape for the full 300 pages "spice" right¿¿¿ (´ . .̫ . `) The clear answer is yes 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Vibe ☘️: it's literally child porn what 'vibe' do you even need here (〒﹏〒)
Who'd Like This ❓👥: no one......(This literally has two stars average rating...) except for critics maybe 🤔, cuz literally only the critics like this book because of it's symbolisms, allegory and real life representation and application. And the thing is i am also a critic.. a pretty harsh one tbh
August 20, 2007
For connoisseurs of semen and semen related adjectives.
March 19, 2008
As a quick game take a moment to think of the most vile and perverse sex act you can. Really, push yourself. That sex act is in this novel somewhere.
(Corpses? Yes.)
A lot of the criticism or reviews I've seen for this novel, written way back in 1972 but never published until 1995 (and published by FC2, whose mission is "to publish books of high quality and exceptional ambition whose style, subject matter, or form push the limits of American publishing and reshape our literary culture"), spends a good amount of time confessing how harrowing the experience of reading it is, but that it's in the end so worth it, for the gift I guess we're given of a portrait so honest and revolutionary. Hogg, a rapist-for-hire who never bathes and regularly voids both bowels and bladder right in his crusty jeans, is—so the critics argue—repulsive and yet alluring, immoral and yet moral, hateful and yet capable of love. Delany, the point is, has found a way to make evil sympathetic.
I don't buy it, maybe because I don't buy the representation of evil in these pages. Surely I'm not the first person to read and write about this novel who has slid shamed eyes across the scattershot lines of gay pornographic fiction before, right? And Hogg's taken right out of good old raunchy gay porno. Yes, the critics allow this novel to be labeled as pornographic, but their attempts are to hoist the novel out of the gutter and into fine art.
To me, I think it just wants to wallow in the gutter. Who would read such a novel? Or, rather, who can enjoy such a novel? Men who violently and fiercely hate women, first and foremost, will find much to love here. Also certain scatophilic fetishists. I'll even admit to having been aroused by a sex scene or two, but was quickly put off by all the wretchedness that followed.
There's one other important demographic for the book, folks I'll call for lack of a better term Readers on the Wild Side. Reading this book reminded me of an entry I read recently on Stuff White People Like about the self-righteous joys of Having Gay Friends. Readers on the Wild Side love this book because it's so dangerous and because they feel their eyes are being opened to some difficult truth.
It's bullshit. The opposite is true. Hogg is Delany's silly but successful attempt to pull some pervy wool over the literary establishment's courageous eyes. It's such a trifling, bratty read. Everything in it is phonier than Juno.
(Corpses? Yes.)
A lot of the criticism or reviews I've seen for this novel, written way back in 1972 but never published until 1995 (and published by FC2, whose mission is "to publish books of high quality and exceptional ambition whose style, subject matter, or form push the limits of American publishing and reshape our literary culture"), spends a good amount of time confessing how harrowing the experience of reading it is, but that it's in the end so worth it, for the gift I guess we're given of a portrait so honest and revolutionary. Hogg, a rapist-for-hire who never bathes and regularly voids both bowels and bladder right in his crusty jeans, is—so the critics argue—repulsive and yet alluring, immoral and yet moral, hateful and yet capable of love. Delany, the point is, has found a way to make evil sympathetic.
I don't buy it, maybe because I don't buy the representation of evil in these pages. Surely I'm not the first person to read and write about this novel who has slid shamed eyes across the scattershot lines of gay pornographic fiction before, right? And Hogg's taken right out of good old raunchy gay porno. Yes, the critics allow this novel to be labeled as pornographic, but their attempts are to hoist the novel out of the gutter and into fine art.
To me, I think it just wants to wallow in the gutter. Who would read such a novel? Or, rather, who can enjoy such a novel? Men who violently and fiercely hate women, first and foremost, will find much to love here. Also certain scatophilic fetishists. I'll even admit to having been aroused by a sex scene or two, but was quickly put off by all the wretchedness that followed.
There's one other important demographic for the book, folks I'll call for lack of a better term Readers on the Wild Side. Reading this book reminded me of an entry I read recently on Stuff White People Like about the self-righteous joys of Having Gay Friends. Readers on the Wild Side love this book because it's so dangerous and because they feel their eyes are being opened to some difficult truth.
It's bullshit. The opposite is true. Hogg is Delany's silly but successful attempt to pull some pervy wool over the literary establishment's courageous eyes. It's such a trifling, bratty read. Everything in it is phonier than Juno.
Read
June 17, 2022Perverse, visceral, vascular.
Pushing a state of desensitization.
Depravity is subjective.
The world is corrupt.
Pushing a state of desensitization.
Depravity is subjective.
The world is corrupt.
July 12, 2023
I don't even know how to rate this book, I mean, it was exactly what it was supposed to be. Extremely dark, depraved and depressing. I won't suggest this book to anyone who didn't read a book by the Marquis de Sade, well I might just never recommend this book at all. If you're like me, a curious cat, an extreme book seeker, someone who just want to read anything that will push their boundaries, maybe think about it before reading this. It's not a regular story, it's written like an erotic book, 99% sex for 1% story. So ask yourself is it worth it ?
After all this time reading it, I can remember almost everything from this book and that is very special. I rated it 3 stars at first but now I'm able to give it a better rating. It was supposed to be disturbing and that's what I was looking for reading it. It worked.
After all this time reading it, I can remember almost everything from this book and that is very special. I rated it 3 stars at first but now I'm able to give it a better rating. It was supposed to be disturbing and that's what I was looking for reading it. It worked.
September 1, 2013
Incest, rape, murder, scat, watersports, lack of basic hygiene plus foul language can all be found in this book. Hogg is a rapist for hire who is into man/boy love. His attraction to an eleven year old boy is supposed to be shocking. The taboo of an eleven year old boy enjoying all the sexual depravities of Sodom and Gomorrah is supposed to be an erotic stroll through the gutter. This book is supposed to be the high classic literature with its gritty look at sexuality. For me, this book was boring.
First, I'm not a literature major nor do I care about the classics. What I do enjoy is a smoothly written story. The language used in this tale is annoying. For a commoner like me, using racist terminology and broken up speech doesn't impress me as high literature. It's a painful read. Sure the word choices were selected with negative connation to underline the darkness of this book. But who cares?
Second, one could say that I should be shocked with rape, murder and all the other sexual proclivities in this story. This would not be the case. I've read stories containing all the above and didn't blink. It bothers me not to read about a rapist for hire. Nor does it really bug me if adult males are into fucking eleven year old boys in the mouth and ass. None of the scenes were erotic for me because they were all poorly written. I found nothing endearing or sensual about it because the characters didn't. It was just wham bam and off to the next hole. The narrator of this story is "cock sucker" the eleven year old. He possesses no feelings. I'm not concerned if he has morals or not. The fact that he just goes along mindlessly makes the story oddly bland and apathetic. The only character who seems to really be passionate about anything is Daniel the seventeen year old serial killer.
Overall this book comes across as trying too hard to make a point which becomes lost in all the dirty drivel. If I was supposed to reach epiphany sloshing through this supposed hardcore porn, I missed it. Perhaps others will find the diamond in the rough whilst digging through the rubbish. For me, it isn't worth the time or effort.
*provided by BDSM Book Reviews
First, I'm not a literature major nor do I care about the classics. What I do enjoy is a smoothly written story. The language used in this tale is annoying. For a commoner like me, using racist terminology and broken up speech doesn't impress me as high literature. It's a painful read. Sure the word choices were selected with negative connation to underline the darkness of this book. But who cares?
Second, one could say that I should be shocked with rape, murder and all the other sexual proclivities in this story. This would not be the case. I've read stories containing all the above and didn't blink. It bothers me not to read about a rapist for hire. Nor does it really bug me if adult males are into fucking eleven year old boys in the mouth and ass. None of the scenes were erotic for me because they were all poorly written. I found nothing endearing or sensual about it because the characters didn't. It was just wham bam and off to the next hole. The narrator of this story is "cock sucker" the eleven year old. He possesses no feelings. I'm not concerned if he has morals or not. The fact that he just goes along mindlessly makes the story oddly bland and apathetic. The only character who seems to really be passionate about anything is Daniel the seventeen year old serial killer.
Overall this book comes across as trying too hard to make a point which becomes lost in all the dirty drivel. If I was supposed to reach epiphany sloshing through this supposed hardcore porn, I missed it. Perhaps others will find the diamond in the rough whilst digging through the rubbish. For me, it isn't worth the time or effort.
*provided by BDSM Book Reviews
September 16, 2015
Context here sheds useful light, but remains inadequate to actually dissipate the deep shadows around the incontrovertibly messed-up core of this very anomalous Delany novel.
The relevant context: after a prolific decade of sci-fi novels that enjoyed a surprising level of mainstream success given their often experimental devices and complicated aims, Delany closed out the decade with this relentless and "unpublishable" (until 1995, in fact) transgressive fiction, the first draft of which was complete just three days before the Stonewall Riots in 1969. So there's a potential source of vitriol fueling what I can only really describe as a libidinal dystopia, though that only scratches the surface. (Later, Dalgren's surface devastation actually maps a kind of Utopian counter-society by comparison -- or his East Village memoir Heavenly Breakfast). Certainly, there is plenty of broader social commentary mapped in the titular character's monologues to support a broad-based frustration.
And yet no amount of analysis seems likely to be adequate to explain away, intellectualize, or sterilize the sheer horror and revulsion this book seems necessarily to induce. Doubly so, since locked within a complicit (if an 11-year-old semi-hostage can be considered actually complicit) viewpoint that passively observes atrocities with minimal objection amid an unending parade of human ruin, there's a lot of room for ambiguity of intent. Even more so considering the literally pornographic detail, nearly all interactions mapped by pages-and-pages of unconventional (or worse) sex acts, a gratuity that seems to suggest either genuine erotic interest or sheer aggression towards the reader. Does this make it all the more successful as transgressive literature? Arguably?
Delany is nothing if not thoughtful in any form, leaving the more troubling content even harder to dismiss. Admittedly it's a tension that I find more consistently engaging in Dennis Cooper's work (and in that way, I suppose, "softer" and more digestible, though these are very relative terms, as any Cooper reader will attest). Cooper himself considers Hogg "tiresome and indulgent" but "a highly charged object", which I'd find difficult to argue with.
The most conclusive thing I can offer right now is that this should never be anyone's Delany starting point, but it's very interesting, if uncomfortable, in the larger context of his work and the social progression of the 60s and 70s.
The relevant context: after a prolific decade of sci-fi novels that enjoyed a surprising level of mainstream success given their often experimental devices and complicated aims, Delany closed out the decade with this relentless and "unpublishable" (until 1995, in fact) transgressive fiction, the first draft of which was complete just three days before the Stonewall Riots in 1969. So there's a potential source of vitriol fueling what I can only really describe as a libidinal dystopia, though that only scratches the surface. (Later, Dalgren's surface devastation actually maps a kind of Utopian counter-society by comparison -- or his East Village memoir Heavenly Breakfast). Certainly, there is plenty of broader social commentary mapped in the titular character's monologues to support a broad-based frustration.
And yet no amount of analysis seems likely to be adequate to explain away, intellectualize, or sterilize the sheer horror and revulsion this book seems necessarily to induce. Doubly so, since locked within a complicit (if an 11-year-old semi-hostage can be considered actually complicit) viewpoint that passively observes atrocities with minimal objection amid an unending parade of human ruin, there's a lot of room for ambiguity of intent. Even more so considering the literally pornographic detail, nearly all interactions mapped by pages-and-pages of unconventional (or worse) sex acts, a gratuity that seems to suggest either genuine erotic interest or sheer aggression towards the reader. Does this make it all the more successful as transgressive literature? Arguably?
Delany is nothing if not thoughtful in any form, leaving the more troubling content even harder to dismiss. Admittedly it's a tension that I find more consistently engaging in Dennis Cooper's work (and in that way, I suppose, "softer" and more digestible, though these are very relative terms, as any Cooper reader will attest). Cooper himself considers Hogg "tiresome and indulgent" but "a highly charged object", which I'd find difficult to argue with.
The most conclusive thing I can offer right now is that this should never be anyone's Delany starting point, but it's very interesting, if uncomfortable, in the larger context of his work and the social progression of the 60s and 70s.
September 8, 2021
If this book, written in 1969, had been published before 1995, then Splatterpunk would never have happened. I mean, what would’ve been the point? It would’ve been like vandalising the Statue of Liberty the day after 9/11.
July 26, 2023
This was just 95% pure filth with a 5% plot that didn't matter whatsoever. I will never recommend this book to anyone because it's just terrible.
Now, I'm a big fan of extreme horror, but most of what I read has a decent plot and normally has some characters that I can relate with. This vile, atrocious, despicable, disgusting (as many adjectives as you can imagine for trash) book deserves to be put in its proper place.... the nearest furnace to be burned.
Now, I'm a big fan of extreme horror, but most of what I read has a decent plot and normally has some characters that I can relate with. This vile, atrocious, despicable, disgusting (as many adjectives as you can imagine for trash) book deserves to be put in its proper place.... the nearest furnace to be burned.
June 29, 2022
A transgressive assault on the reader. I loved it, I hated it. I want to give it one star, I want to give it five stars. It's simply one of the most punishing things I've ever read.
May 5, 2020
(This book is honestly pointless to review. If you are able to finish it, you'll find every review unsatisfactory.)
Like the pain of staring into the sun, Hogg holds a conflation of the dazzling and the unsightly, the beautiful and the hideous. Throughout these Bacchic pages the intercourse between their gorgeous words and the nasty, brutish world they forge both confounds and enraptures. Hogg operates with the same underscoring theme of Plato's Phaedo, in which Socrates both plainly, in allusion and in metaphor returns to that strange thing that we call pleasure and its supposed opposite, pain. The experience of reading Hogg lead to me thinking of the words above from Plato's Socrates, and made me wonder how in both texts there is never a question about one or the other, but that the feeling's existence is the question itself, and its own answer. For both texts, I think that the primary object being examined are not any of these dualities, but the soul.
There were two books that I always told myself I would read by the age of 26. One was Spivak's translation of Of Grammatology (because she first read it, and probably started translating it at 26. Her preface is actually quoted at the beginning of Delany's Tales of Neveryon, coincidentally. Thats the only reason I mention it, hope I don't seem too obnoxious.), and Samuel Delany's Hogg. Delany likely started writing this at 26, and finished it at 27 allegedly on the same day as the Stonewall riots, probably a stone's throw from where he was writing in his Manhattan apartment. The most interesting thing about this serendipitous though apocryphal detail is that it is indicative of the pent up anger of the LGBT community in New York, and in America, reaching a breaking point. Of course the conditions of the possibility of Hogg being written occurred in the same city where one of the most important events in queer history was to occur moments later.
These are some of the most angry pages I've ever read. Other black American authors held good company when pouring their ire into their words, including Ishmael Reed, Toni Morrison, and Darius James, but Delany's writing always happened to take on a completely different tone when engaging with race and sexuality. The sexual preferences and alacrity and racial ambiguity are qualities of the unnamed kid that are awful similar to ol' Chip himself.
But don't let any of this fool you, this is still a coming of age tale, and boy does it put the dung in bildungsroman. The kid may be a passive observer, but we see him processing every seen that occurs in front of him. There isn't a moment where his thoughts are colored by judgement, this is the same kind of impressionable kid you'll see running around any half-as-honest young adult novel. And this is honesty. Hogg's world may be fucked up and vile, more vile than anything we'll ever know (thank god), but what we feel when reading through those episodes are feelings we get from the worst parts, and sometimes the best parts, of life. These are fantasies regarding our least fantastical interior (and exterior, especially posterior) moments. And just when the kid learns there is a way to be free and embraces the gang's too-much-ness, he's just about ready to move on. Aint that the truth.
And, with all that in mind, sometimes its just simply really fucking funny.
"What a strange thing, that which men call pleasure seems to be, and how astonishing the relation it has with what is thought to be its opposite, namely pain!"- Socrates, in the Phaedo
Like the pain of staring into the sun, Hogg holds a conflation of the dazzling and the unsightly, the beautiful and the hideous. Throughout these Bacchic pages the intercourse between their gorgeous words and the nasty, brutish world they forge both confounds and enraptures. Hogg operates with the same underscoring theme of Plato's Phaedo, in which Socrates both plainly, in allusion and in metaphor returns to that strange thing that we call pleasure and its supposed opposite, pain. The experience of reading Hogg lead to me thinking of the words above from Plato's Socrates, and made me wonder how in both texts there is never a question about one or the other, but that the feeling's existence is the question itself, and its own answer. For both texts, I think that the primary object being examined are not any of these dualities, but the soul.
There were two books that I always told myself I would read by the age of 26. One was Spivak's translation of Of Grammatology (because she first read it, and probably started translating it at 26. Her preface is actually quoted at the beginning of Delany's Tales of Neveryon, coincidentally. Thats the only reason I mention it, hope I don't seem too obnoxious.), and Samuel Delany's Hogg. Delany likely started writing this at 26, and finished it at 27 allegedly on the same day as the Stonewall riots, probably a stone's throw from where he was writing in his Manhattan apartment. The most interesting thing about this serendipitous though apocryphal detail is that it is indicative of the pent up anger of the LGBT community in New York, and in America, reaching a breaking point. Of course the conditions of the possibility of Hogg being written occurred in the same city where one of the most important events in queer history was to occur moments later.
These are some of the most angry pages I've ever read. Other black American authors held good company when pouring their ire into their words, including Ishmael Reed, Toni Morrison, and Darius James, but Delany's writing always happened to take on a completely different tone when engaging with race and sexuality. The sexual preferences and alacrity and racial ambiguity are qualities of the unnamed kid that are awful similar to ol' Chip himself.
But don't let any of this fool you, this is still a coming of age tale, and boy does it put the dung in bildungsroman. The kid may be a passive observer, but we see him processing every seen that occurs in front of him. There isn't a moment where his thoughts are colored by judgement, this is the same kind of impressionable kid you'll see running around any half-as-honest young adult novel. And this is honesty. Hogg's world may be fucked up and vile, more vile than anything we'll ever know (thank god), but what we feel when reading through those episodes are feelings we get from the worst parts, and sometimes the best parts, of life. These are fantasies regarding our least fantastical interior (and exterior, especially posterior) moments. And just when the kid learns there is a way to be free and embraces the gang's too-much-ness, he's just about ready to move on. Aint that the truth.
And, with all that in mind, sometimes its just simply really fucking funny.
May 23, 2012
Yikes!!!
Ok, I have to admit that I haven't read much Delany yet; I have a bunch of books on my shelf, tried to read Babel 17 once but sort of gave up (although it was pretty interesting and I vowed someday to return), and remember enjoying a number of short stories over the years. Still, I grabbed this because it was on a list of "unusual books", and while there wasn't any information given about it there, I figured, "Delany's pretty interesting; why not give this a try?"
The book opens with the narrator, a young boy of about eleven if I remember right, getting his cock sucked by an older kid. I thought this was just some kind of reminiscence about his "first time", initially, but we quickly move on to group sex, gang rape and the self-made man, hogg himself, truly one of the most vile and disgusting creatures to be spawned by the Beast of Literature.
But here, look, I know Delany's a smart man; I think he was driving at something with this book, and I think I might even know what it was, but the truth is that it just goes on, and on, and on with all this depravity and pederasty and love of ones own filthy body excretions and so on. I guess it's not a long book but it certainly feels endless. Skipping pages was mandatory for me and I still think I took in too much. Apparently Delaney wrote this book in the sixties but didn't get it published until much later, and I can see why, but also wonder if perhaps the point he was trying to make would have struck home a lot better forty+ years ago than it does now. The clue to what he's driving at, if it isn't obvious: at the end there's a sort of "soft" scene between Hogg and the nameless boy, where Hogg reflects on the nature of life, human relationships and so on (scratching his arse the entire time, of course). Throughout the book, the boy hasn't said a single word. IN the last paragraph, he utters one, and it's "nothing", or something equally trivial. That's how Delaney ends the novel. Throughout this entire work, the "I" that tells us the story has been ruthlessly and systematically objectified. He doesn't have a name, a history, a place....he's nothing more than a hole. I get that; a lot has been written about the depersonalisation of human beings due to pornography, prostitution and so on, and it's a real, disheartening phenomenon. Delaney seems to make this the whole thrust of this angry, semen-soaked, vile narrative though, and I'm not convinced it couldn't have been said with more depth, complexity, and in different shades. As it is, this is like a long and bitter diatribe; an experiment, perhaps; an attempt to make sex seem as un-sexy and flagrantly un-erotic as possible, and I don't for a moment only say that because I'm a straight man reading a book that's largely about queers drawn to complete depravity. Most often, I believe that the journey really is of greater importance than the destination, or at least, it makes the destination arrived at seem of greater significance. Here, I think I recognise where Delaney wanted to go, but the journey is a most unpleasing one, and anyway, this just isn't very profound and he should have aimed higher, or else maybe the crawling cess-pit really isn't for me.
Ok, I have to admit that I haven't read much Delany yet; I have a bunch of books on my shelf, tried to read Babel 17 once but sort of gave up (although it was pretty interesting and I vowed someday to return), and remember enjoying a number of short stories over the years. Still, I grabbed this because it was on a list of "unusual books", and while there wasn't any information given about it there, I figured, "Delany's pretty interesting; why not give this a try?"
The book opens with the narrator, a young boy of about eleven if I remember right, getting his cock sucked by an older kid. I thought this was just some kind of reminiscence about his "first time", initially, but we quickly move on to group sex, gang rape and the self-made man, hogg himself, truly one of the most vile and disgusting creatures to be spawned by the Beast of Literature.
But here, look, I know Delany's a smart man; I think he was driving at something with this book, and I think I might even know what it was, but the truth is that it just goes on, and on, and on with all this depravity and pederasty and love of ones own filthy body excretions and so on. I guess it's not a long book but it certainly feels endless. Skipping pages was mandatory for me and I still think I took in too much. Apparently Delaney wrote this book in the sixties but didn't get it published until much later, and I can see why, but also wonder if perhaps the point he was trying to make would have struck home a lot better forty+ years ago than it does now. The clue to what he's driving at, if it isn't obvious: at the end there's a sort of "soft" scene between Hogg and the nameless boy, where Hogg reflects on the nature of life, human relationships and so on (scratching his arse the entire time, of course). Throughout the book, the boy hasn't said a single word. IN the last paragraph, he utters one, and it's "nothing", or something equally trivial. That's how Delaney ends the novel. Throughout this entire work, the "I" that tells us the story has been ruthlessly and systematically objectified. He doesn't have a name, a history, a place....he's nothing more than a hole. I get that; a lot has been written about the depersonalisation of human beings due to pornography, prostitution and so on, and it's a real, disheartening phenomenon. Delaney seems to make this the whole thrust of this angry, semen-soaked, vile narrative though, and I'm not convinced it couldn't have been said with more depth, complexity, and in different shades. As it is, this is like a long and bitter diatribe; an experiment, perhaps; an attempt to make sex seem as un-sexy and flagrantly un-erotic as possible, and I don't for a moment only say that because I'm a straight man reading a book that's largely about queers drawn to complete depravity. Most often, I believe that the journey really is of greater importance than the destination, or at least, it makes the destination arrived at seem of greater significance. Here, I think I recognise where Delaney wanted to go, but the journey is a most unpleasing one, and anyway, this just isn't very profound and he should have aimed higher, or else maybe the crawling cess-pit really isn't for me.
November 18, 2022
The vilest book I have ever read and without a shadow of a doubt will ever read, just because I don’t think there’s any way you could write something more revolting than this. At the very least no other book from the ‘60s has this many vivid descriptions of foreskin. But still… there’s zero question to me this is great art, a book-length exploration of how far the American culture of sexual freedom and hedonism could be pushed before it becomes something inhuman. Hogg the character is the physical embodiment of every violent antisocial putrid urge buried in masculinity, just this massive horny stinky monster in piss-soaked jeans. (Fellas… we have ALL thought once or twice about going “Hogg mode” and parking our truck in a sunny spot and just pissing our pants for convenience/sexual gratification). Cannot imagine what the select few who read the first completed draft of this in 1969 must have thought of it considering that I, in the year 2022, got close to throwing up a couple times, but I do know if a pilgrim read one word of it they would instantly have a fatal aneurysm. Samuel Delany kind of a genius! Boggles the mind to think he voted for Pete Buttigieg 50ish years after writing this… what would Pete and Chasten think of Hogg…
June 22, 2021
Are you there God? It's me, Reece. I'm reading Hogg today. I'm so scared, God.
I'll start by quoting another reviewer (I believe from a separate website) as he wrapped it up PERFECTLY.
"I no longer fear going to Hell....because I just finished reading Hogg and lived it."
I cannot, in good conscience, give this book anything above a star.
Exactly a year ago, I was doing some research on transgressive fiction, trying to find a book I hadn't heard of before. Lo and behold, this book pops up. I read the synopsis of it (along with several warnings) and finally, one year later, I bought it on kindle and read it in less than 24 hours. I was an adrenaline junkie, searching for my next fix in literature. And much like the man who looks down the precipice of the Empire State Building with nothing but a 900 foot bungee cord attached to his ankles, I wavered, if only for a moment, after reading the first five pages. However, I couldn't stop now. It was a test of endurance. It was a test of courage. I jumped. I hit the book like a free fall down that building. And that is exactly what Hogg is; a 1200 foot free-fall off a skyscraper.
The book is a phantasmagoria of illicit and obscene material beyond the realm of any normal human psyche. I understand that this sounds like a resounding recommendation for any adrenaline literary junkie to read but it is not. Each page is filled with something more lurid and unleviticus than the next.
The only thing the reader can take solace in is the fact that it is so over the top, it becomes comical after a while. Comical as in Graphic Novel and comic books (you know where things that could never happen are seemingly happening). I was literally doing an eye roll on each page.
As a matter of fact, the only thing keeping me from putting it down after the first couple of pages and admitting defeat, was the reviews I had previously read that by the end of the novel there is this huge revelation. "Just wait til the end" and "It all becomes clear in the end..."
I don't buy it. I don't sympathize one bit with any of the characters in this novel. No...not even the narrator. And still, the story is captivating on a different level. Story wise, this book works! However it could just as well be a novella and be a five star book. Leave some of the grotesqueness in and cut it to 108 pages. Yes, the story itself could be done in 108 pages. That's right, there are (at my best estimation) about 200 pages of nothing but repetitive, superfluous, filth and nonsense that serves no other purpose than to desensitize the audience. By the last 100 pages, I was skipping over any scene of unprovoked sexual activity because it was all the same and served absolutely no purpose (a lesson I learned 188 pages too late).
Literary Merit?
I can cede to moments in the book actually reflecting on society. The radio and television broadcasts were most telling. Also, the juxtaposition of the moral characters and the immoral characters. The immoral characters (not all) have certain scenes where their true identity is hidden and that may be one of the most jarring portions of the book (e.g. the garbage men talking to their neighbors and the police officer sneaking back to the narrator before something is found in the lake). It is truly a conspiracy on how vile society and the people we are close to can be without us knowing it (or turning a blind eye to it).
The one positive of this book? (And maybe that was the point)
It made me want to be a better human. I finally realized it an hour after finishing it. And much like the adrenaline junkie who jumps off the Empire State Building and survives, I saw things differently after surviving.
I'll start by quoting another reviewer (I believe from a separate website) as he wrapped it up PERFECTLY.
"I no longer fear going to Hell....because I just finished reading Hogg and lived it."
I cannot, in good conscience, give this book anything above a star.
Exactly a year ago, I was doing some research on transgressive fiction, trying to find a book I hadn't heard of before. Lo and behold, this book pops up. I read the synopsis of it (along with several warnings) and finally, one year later, I bought it on kindle and read it in less than 24 hours. I was an adrenaline junkie, searching for my next fix in literature. And much like the man who looks down the precipice of the Empire State Building with nothing but a 900 foot bungee cord attached to his ankles, I wavered, if only for a moment, after reading the first five pages. However, I couldn't stop now. It was a test of endurance. It was a test of courage. I jumped. I hit the book like a free fall down that building. And that is exactly what Hogg is; a 1200 foot free-fall off a skyscraper.
The book is a phantasmagoria of illicit and obscene material beyond the realm of any normal human psyche. I understand that this sounds like a resounding recommendation for any adrenaline literary junkie to read but it is not. Each page is filled with something more lurid and unleviticus than the next.
The only thing the reader can take solace in is the fact that it is so over the top, it becomes comical after a while. Comical as in Graphic Novel and comic books (you know where things that could never happen are seemingly happening). I was literally doing an eye roll on each page.
As a matter of fact, the only thing keeping me from putting it down after the first couple of pages and admitting defeat, was the reviews I had previously read that by the end of the novel there is this huge revelation. "Just wait til the end" and "It all becomes clear in the end..."
I don't buy it. I don't sympathize one bit with any of the characters in this novel. No...not even the narrator. And still, the story is captivating on a different level. Story wise, this book works! However it could just as well be a novella and be a five star book. Leave some of the grotesqueness in and cut it to 108 pages. Yes, the story itself could be done in 108 pages. That's right, there are (at my best estimation) about 200 pages of nothing but repetitive, superfluous, filth and nonsense that serves no other purpose than to desensitize the audience. By the last 100 pages, I was skipping over any scene of unprovoked sexual activity because it was all the same and served absolutely no purpose (a lesson I learned 188 pages too late).
Literary Merit?
I can cede to moments in the book actually reflecting on society. The radio and television broadcasts were most telling. Also, the juxtaposition of the moral characters and the immoral characters. The immoral characters (not all) have certain scenes where their true identity is hidden and that may be one of the most jarring portions of the book (e.g. the garbage men talking to their neighbors and the police officer sneaking back to the narrator before something is found in the lake). It is truly a conspiracy on how vile society and the people we are close to can be without us knowing it (or turning a blind eye to it).
The one positive of this book? (And maybe that was the point)
It made me want to be a better human. I finally realized it an hour after finishing it. And much like the adrenaline junkie who jumps off the Empire State Building and survives, I saw things differently after surviving.
March 8, 2022
I wanted to read one of the most banned books in history according to US literature. This book has been deemed un-publishable by most houses. I got my wish and ugh. It’s weird to try and see people defend this book when really the only thing it’s got going for it is the fact that it’s famous for being famous. It’s not a book, it doesn’t read like one, there was a three page paragraph at one point, you never truly get to empathize or understand all the character’s motives, the universe is bland and predictable, 80% of the scenes are there merely for shock value.
This book has a pre-face by Rob Stevenson, imploring the reader to see through the grime and understand that there is some merit to the book. I think the book has very poetic descriptors at times, but it does not hold a deeper meaning in my eyes.
This novel does not feel like a novel, rather it’s a media icon for depravity. If you wanted to get the story told you didn’t need most of the elements this book has chosen, and that’s the very reason why the book has chosen the ages, races, sexes, and themes. The book is an icon to the stance that we are free to write anything I GUESS. This book is simply written not to necessarily be a novel, it’s written almost like a middle finger to censorship and what we expect from literature.
The book pushes the limits of what the reader can accept, from corrupting childhood innocence, to corrupting family ties, to community, to race relations, equal rights, and so forth. You have to almost remove yourself from the book entirely because it’s written from the perspective of an 11-year-old who is thrown into the world of sexual depravity and no morality. The 11 year old writes from the perspective that everything is as normal. This book is a fantasy, and a fetish book pretty much. God help the person who likes this kind of thing please seek therapy.
If the author truly wanted to get their point across, (what their point is I’m not entirely sure other than for the sake of writing a book that’s depraved), they could’ve done so in a more cohesive manner rather than a barely held together story with massive sexual assault scenes in between. But that's the point? BS
With harsh language throughout, pretty much no one is given a name, it’s always just a curse word, to really drive home the lack of morality and that human beings are simply fixtures and sleeves in this universe. Sexual acts where no thoughts are given to the recipients, its all from an outside impartial view.
—-
Stuff I can’t unread: Defecating on someone during coitus, and urinating on them. Performing sexual acts on a corpse. Performing sexual acts on a child. Parental incest. Parental incest that leads to a child that is then also a victim of incest. Gang bangs. Child hookers
—-
The plot you may ask? Blonde boy is taken from a basement life of sex acts by Hogg to join in his business. Hogg is hired to sexually assault and rape women for cash, that's how they met. For one gig, Hogg brings in friends, they are paid off by a somewhat anonymous rich man. One of the friends gets an infection, not really an excuse to go crazy but he goes crazy afterward and shoots up a bar and proceeds to go on a killing spree. Blonde and Hogg are separated mostly because the blonde will go and do anything anyone asks of him. After a brief stint with the police Blonde sees that the anonymous rich man has been in a car accident and may die. Police become involved, Hogg finds Blonde again. Denny, the killer, sneaks in the truck and Hogg helps him escape. The book ends with Denny skipping state, Blonde thinking about leaving Hogg and running away to be with other men, and Hogg saying he appreciates Blonde's company.
Sigh.
--
The book has a kind of reader's club questionnaire at the beginning. Let me take a crack at some of the questions.
What is the most disturbing thing in the book? Absolutely everything I cannot pinpoint one thing.
What is good or moral in the universe? Probably the very minor side glances that some characters give the children, but other than that no one seems to care about anyone and no real illegal activity is taken seriously. There is no beckon of hope, no one is redeemed, there is no satisfying ending. I kind of wanted Blonde to kill Hogg but alas we get a serial killer side plot instead.
Do the characters change? Not really but kind of. Hogg doesn’t kill Denny, despite all the trouble he has caused, he has grown close to him I guess (despite Hogg killing another man for less). Hogg admits that he likes Blonde. Blonde grows tired of Hogg despite missing him for like 2 chapters.
Is there feminism in this book? Why the hell would there be.
How does race factor into this book? I would say that every character has something mean said about their race, titular white male character defecates in his own pants so that’s not really saying much. The constant n-word spamming and slurs to non-whites make the reader know the kid hates everyone but Hogg.
Is this book humorous at certain opportunities? To be perfectly honest it did make me laugh once when they described a sexual act like chocolate.
What is the book’s viewpoints on violence? I’d say the book is pretty chill with all kinds of violence. A guy got away with murdering nearly 30 people and the cops were quite incompetent to catch him. I’d say it’s a universe where the rules don’t apply to these people.
It’s weird that the author/editor/introducer tried to defend this book being written in the 60's before Stonewall like that makes it okay? What are we as the audience supposed to interpret from that statement? This book is horrendous: depicting women as objects, gay men as monsters and molesters, racism for the sake of it, etc etc. Its not a "book" its a child molestation and rape fantasy about grime, it wasn't published by many (any) because of this. Trying to sugar coat it into saying its deeper than what you read is like saying paint smears by an elephant prove its as smart as a human, sometimes the puddle is only an inch deep okay. But I encourage people to throw this book at censors trying to rid libraries of Harry Potter or Love Simon, give them a REAL banned book to be mad at.
—
“In a sense, pornography is the most political form of fiction, dealing with how we use and exploit each other, and the most urgent and ruthless way.” - J G Ballard (Crash)
Okay book...weird quote to pick honesty.
Pornography by definition is "printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual activity, designed to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings". Using that definition I would not say this book is not pornography, I would rather say it is designed to "astound", as in arouse a shock or a great surprise. There is nothing sexually titillating about this book, rape is an act of violence not sex. Children can’t consent, thus it is molestation not sex. Ergo, there is no sex in this book via those descriptors. I feel like this should be more well-known. Its not an "astounding" book, its a book designed to offend and astound, not titillate or impress.
This book has a pre-face by Rob Stevenson, imploring the reader to see through the grime and understand that there is some merit to the book. I think the book has very poetic descriptors at times, but it does not hold a deeper meaning in my eyes.
This novel does not feel like a novel, rather it’s a media icon for depravity. If you wanted to get the story told you didn’t need most of the elements this book has chosen, and that’s the very reason why the book has chosen the ages, races, sexes, and themes. The book is an icon to the stance that we are free to write anything I GUESS. This book is simply written not to necessarily be a novel, it’s written almost like a middle finger to censorship and what we expect from literature.
The book pushes the limits of what the reader can accept, from corrupting childhood innocence, to corrupting family ties, to community, to race relations, equal rights, and so forth. You have to almost remove yourself from the book entirely because it’s written from the perspective of an 11-year-old who is thrown into the world of sexual depravity and no morality. The 11 year old writes from the perspective that everything is as normal. This book is a fantasy, and a fetish book pretty much. God help the person who likes this kind of thing please seek therapy.
If the author truly wanted to get their point across, (what their point is I’m not entirely sure other than for the sake of writing a book that’s depraved), they could’ve done so in a more cohesive manner rather than a barely held together story with massive sexual assault scenes in between. But that's the point? BS
With harsh language throughout, pretty much no one is given a name, it’s always just a curse word, to really drive home the lack of morality and that human beings are simply fixtures and sleeves in this universe. Sexual acts where no thoughts are given to the recipients, its all from an outside impartial view.
—-
Stuff I can’t unread: Defecating on someone during coitus, and urinating on them. Performing sexual acts on a corpse. Performing sexual acts on a child. Parental incest. Parental incest that leads to a child that is then also a victim of incest. Gang bangs. Child hookers
—-
The plot you may ask? Blonde boy is taken from a basement life of sex acts by Hogg to join in his business. Hogg is hired to sexually assault and rape women for cash, that's how they met. For one gig, Hogg brings in friends, they are paid off by a somewhat anonymous rich man. One of the friends gets an infection, not really an excuse to go crazy but he goes crazy afterward and shoots up a bar and proceeds to go on a killing spree. Blonde and Hogg are separated mostly because the blonde will go and do anything anyone asks of him. After a brief stint with the police Blonde sees that the anonymous rich man has been in a car accident and may die. Police become involved, Hogg finds Blonde again. Denny, the killer, sneaks in the truck and Hogg helps him escape. The book ends with Denny skipping state, Blonde thinking about leaving Hogg and running away to be with other men, and Hogg saying he appreciates Blonde's company.
Sigh.
--
The book has a kind of reader's club questionnaire at the beginning. Let me take a crack at some of the questions.
What is the most disturbing thing in the book? Absolutely everything I cannot pinpoint one thing.
What is good or moral in the universe? Probably the very minor side glances that some characters give the children, but other than that no one seems to care about anyone and no real illegal activity is taken seriously. There is no beckon of hope, no one is redeemed, there is no satisfying ending. I kind of wanted Blonde to kill Hogg but alas we get a serial killer side plot instead.
Do the characters change? Not really but kind of. Hogg doesn’t kill Denny, despite all the trouble he has caused, he has grown close to him I guess (despite Hogg killing another man for less). Hogg admits that he likes Blonde. Blonde grows tired of Hogg despite missing him for like 2 chapters.
Is there feminism in this book? Why the hell would there be.
How does race factor into this book? I would say that every character has something mean said about their race, titular white male character defecates in his own pants so that’s not really saying much. The constant n-word spamming and slurs to non-whites make the reader know the kid hates everyone but Hogg.
Is this book humorous at certain opportunities? To be perfectly honest it did make me laugh once when they described a sexual act like chocolate.
What is the book’s viewpoints on violence? I’d say the book is pretty chill with all kinds of violence. A guy got away with murdering nearly 30 people and the cops were quite incompetent to catch him. I’d say it’s a universe where the rules don’t apply to these people.
It’s weird that the author/editor/introducer tried to defend this book being written in the 60's before Stonewall like that makes it okay? What are we as the audience supposed to interpret from that statement? This book is horrendous: depicting women as objects, gay men as monsters and molesters, racism for the sake of it, etc etc. Its not a "book" its a child molestation and rape fantasy about grime, it wasn't published by many (any) because of this. Trying to sugar coat it into saying its deeper than what you read is like saying paint smears by an elephant prove its as smart as a human, sometimes the puddle is only an inch deep okay. But I encourage people to throw this book at censors trying to rid libraries of Harry Potter or Love Simon, give them a REAL banned book to be mad at.
—
“In a sense, pornography is the most political form of fiction, dealing with how we use and exploit each other, and the most urgent and ruthless way.” - J G Ballard (Crash)
Okay book...weird quote to pick honesty.
Pornography by definition is "printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual activity, designed to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings". Using that definition I would not say this book is not pornography, I would rather say it is designed to "astound", as in arouse a shock or a great surprise. There is nothing sexually titillating about this book, rape is an act of violence not sex. Children can’t consent, thus it is molestation not sex. Ergo, there is no sex in this book via those descriptors. I feel like this should be more well-known. Its not an "astounding" book, its a book designed to offend and astound, not titillate or impress.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 8, 2021
The power, brutality and extent of disgust possible in literature: A Hogg case study
[WARNING: This book is NSFL (Not Safe For Life). If you wouldn't like your day ruined don't read this review. I don't go in depth into what happens but I skirt around the outskirts of what this book is about.]
I often think I'm someone with a strong constitution for shocking material. Going through your teenage years in group chats where other lads send in random gore makes you grow a thick skin quickly. It's rare, but I'll occasionally come across something that I find genuinely upsetting. Hogg is something I find genuinely upsetting but it is so for good enough reasons. This novel makes the reader experience a stream of events and actions which are so constantly disgusting or upsetting that you become numb to it like the characters in the novel itself. You think "I'm nothing like these people" and yet Delany brings you down to their level by making you witness their acts.
Hogg is a defiantly strange novel which is obscene on nearly every page. Reading it is like dunking your head into a trough of pigshit, gasping for air only leaves you choking on filth. A constant procession of rape, incest, paedophilia, coprophilia, urolagnia, necrophilia, can you tell why I'm using the more detached terms for these acts? I'm doing so due to how grotesque the text is. This novel sparks an odd debate we rarely have in literature about disgust. What's the use in reading something like this which is so uncomfortable to read? Am I reading this for pleasure or as an endurance test? I honestly don't know why I did other than to see if the books reputation is accurate. Delany writes well, his descriptions are almost too good given the content. Our narrator is never named but is called "Cocksucker" due to the acts Hogg and others commit upon him. His mouth may as well be a urinal for the amount of piss and semen he swallows. He becomes Hogg's sexual slave and somewhat of an accomplice as the novel trudges on. He does so willingly at every point. When he is shouted at to do some degrading sex act he does so of his own accord at every point in the narrative and enjoys his own degradation. I think that's another way this novel is disturbing, the narrator in no way denies his own sexual pleasure from the abuse of others and that's quite disturbing to experience as a reader. It's rare to read such an emotionally detached viewpoint which narrates such horrific events from the standpoint of a witness and then participant.
As a reader you almost feel complicit for witnessing the onslaught of rape in the novel. The titular Hogg works as a truck driver but we mainly focus on his exploits in his job where he rapes people, primarily women, to inflict psychological harm. Hogg is kind of the apotheosis of rapists in media, he is the hicks in "Deliverance", he is the rapists in "I Spit On Your Grave", he is every rapist you have watched or read but even worse. He is a product of his environment, we hear about his childhood from the horses mouth and I only thought "no fucking wonder". No wonder he lives how he does. He pisses himself for the pleasure of it. He rapes and murders like another person would scratch themselves, this means nothing to him other than pure hedonistic schadenfreude laden pleasure.
There isn't really a plot here but instead a series of increasingly grim violent sexual scenarios. Your brain goes numb at a certain point while reading about penises going in and out of hands and orifices. It's fascinating really, it continually rises in intensity but you become desensitized to it all. Another act of rape or violence occurs but for characters like Hogg and his other rape artists it's entirely quotidian and by an accumulation of brutality Delany makes you feel the same as his characters as the novel goes on. These characters know what they do is wrong and that's why they do it. One character attempts to explain his reasons for wanting the women he paid to be raped to be attacked by Hogg and his gang, Hogg is disgusted by the mere possibility of applying reason to rape. To Hogg, rape is merely a way to get his rocks off and collect his pay check and to apply morality debases the purity of the debasement in an ironic manner. To Hogg the impure should remain pure and without conditions, the acts themselves are the reason for committing them.
While there have been numerous authors who write grotesque material for ages, De Sade and Batailles spring to mind, Delany takes sexual brutality within a literary context to it's end point. I haven't and probably will never read anything this disgusting or repulsive again. For that I commend Delany and I want to investigate his less controversial novels as even in the unremitting stink and filth the writing here is great. This is brutality without limits, without fear of "what will my publisher or audience think". Delany went as far as you can to show how brutal life can be. It's not as though the events described here are entirely divorced from reality, they aren't. That's why the text is worthwhile to me even in its shocking content, it reflects real abusers for whom sex is a form of control and careless abandon which destroys others. Someone had to write this novel and I'm glad it's not me. If you think "it can't be that bad" then like I was before reading, you are incredibly naïve.
A great article about this book which helped me form an opinion other than one of utter disgust was written by Liz Janssen for the LARB: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/u...
[WARNING: This book is NSFL (Not Safe For Life). If you wouldn't like your day ruined don't read this review. I don't go in depth into what happens but I skirt around the outskirts of what this book is about.]
I often think I'm someone with a strong constitution for shocking material. Going through your teenage years in group chats where other lads send in random gore makes you grow a thick skin quickly. It's rare, but I'll occasionally come across something that I find genuinely upsetting. Hogg is something I find genuinely upsetting but it is so for good enough reasons. This novel makes the reader experience a stream of events and actions which are so constantly disgusting or upsetting that you become numb to it like the characters in the novel itself. You think "I'm nothing like these people" and yet Delany brings you down to their level by making you witness their acts.
Hogg is a defiantly strange novel which is obscene on nearly every page. Reading it is like dunking your head into a trough of pigshit, gasping for air only leaves you choking on filth. A constant procession of rape, incest, paedophilia, coprophilia, urolagnia, necrophilia, can you tell why I'm using the more detached terms for these acts? I'm doing so due to how grotesque the text is. This novel sparks an odd debate we rarely have in literature about disgust. What's the use in reading something like this which is so uncomfortable to read? Am I reading this for pleasure or as an endurance test? I honestly don't know why I did other than to see if the books reputation is accurate. Delany writes well, his descriptions are almost too good given the content. Our narrator is never named but is called "Cocksucker" due to the acts Hogg and others commit upon him. His mouth may as well be a urinal for the amount of piss and semen he swallows. He becomes Hogg's sexual slave and somewhat of an accomplice as the novel trudges on. He does so willingly at every point. When he is shouted at to do some degrading sex act he does so of his own accord at every point in the narrative and enjoys his own degradation. I think that's another way this novel is disturbing, the narrator in no way denies his own sexual pleasure from the abuse of others and that's quite disturbing to experience as a reader. It's rare to read such an emotionally detached viewpoint which narrates such horrific events from the standpoint of a witness and then participant.
As a reader you almost feel complicit for witnessing the onslaught of rape in the novel. The titular Hogg works as a truck driver but we mainly focus on his exploits in his job where he rapes people, primarily women, to inflict psychological harm. Hogg is kind of the apotheosis of rapists in media, he is the hicks in "Deliverance", he is the rapists in "I Spit On Your Grave", he is every rapist you have watched or read but even worse. He is a product of his environment, we hear about his childhood from the horses mouth and I only thought "no fucking wonder". No wonder he lives how he does. He pisses himself for the pleasure of it. He rapes and murders like another person would scratch themselves, this means nothing to him other than pure hedonistic schadenfreude laden pleasure.
There isn't really a plot here but instead a series of increasingly grim violent sexual scenarios. Your brain goes numb at a certain point while reading about penises going in and out of hands and orifices. It's fascinating really, it continually rises in intensity but you become desensitized to it all. Another act of rape or violence occurs but for characters like Hogg and his other rape artists it's entirely quotidian and by an accumulation of brutality Delany makes you feel the same as his characters as the novel goes on. These characters know what they do is wrong and that's why they do it. One character attempts to explain his reasons for wanting the women he paid to be raped to be attacked by Hogg and his gang, Hogg is disgusted by the mere possibility of applying reason to rape. To Hogg, rape is merely a way to get his rocks off and collect his pay check and to apply morality debases the purity of the debasement in an ironic manner. To Hogg the impure should remain pure and without conditions, the acts themselves are the reason for committing them.
While there have been numerous authors who write grotesque material for ages, De Sade and Batailles spring to mind, Delany takes sexual brutality within a literary context to it's end point. I haven't and probably will never read anything this disgusting or repulsive again. For that I commend Delany and I want to investigate his less controversial novels as even in the unremitting stink and filth the writing here is great. This is brutality without limits, without fear of "what will my publisher or audience think". Delany went as far as you can to show how brutal life can be. It's not as though the events described here are entirely divorced from reality, they aren't. That's why the text is worthwhile to me even in its shocking content, it reflects real abusers for whom sex is a form of control and careless abandon which destroys others. Someone had to write this novel and I'm glad it's not me. If you think "it can't be that bad" then like I was before reading, you are incredibly naïve.
A great article about this book which helped me form an opinion other than one of utter disgust was written by Liz Janssen for the LARB: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/u...
November 26, 2025
Edit: I’m coming back to make this a 3 star to 5 star. While this book is horrific, it took guts for the author to write this. So I feel it’s only fair to give it 5 stars.
This was my first extreme horror read…and I don’t know what I was thinking starting with Hogg. This wasn’t just horror, it was straight-up psychological warfare. Page after page of filth, cruelty, and the most disturbing acts you can imagine, all with no break, no humanity, no point of light.
The men in this story are monstrous. There’s no real plot, no redemption, just violence, abuse, and degradation for the sake of it. It’s just…hell on paper.
Would I recommend it? Not a chance. Not even as a curiosity read (which is what I did). This book isn’t for the faint of heart. Hell, I’m not even sure it’s for anyone.
This was my first extreme horror read…and I don’t know what I was thinking starting with Hogg. This wasn’t just horror, it was straight-up psychological warfare. Page after page of filth, cruelty, and the most disturbing acts you can imagine, all with no break, no humanity, no point of light.
The men in this story are monstrous. There’s no real plot, no redemption, just violence, abuse, and degradation for the sake of it. It’s just…hell on paper.
Would I recommend it? Not a chance. Not even as a curiosity read (which is what I did). This book isn’t for the faint of heart. Hell, I’m not even sure it’s for anyone.
September 10, 2021
Clearly setting out to be as edgy as possible, some good value in it and definitely extremely gross out. I sort of get the impression it thinks it's saying a lot of things that have been said already, but Delany is writing it more to rise up to the challenge of those other books and saying "yeah, I can be an edgy rapemeister too, it's easy. I can be shocking. Check me out. Wowzer." Still, not a bad read but think it's all been done slightly better and more subtly in loads of other books. Maybe the last year has just made a bit desensitized.
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