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Медленная смерть
Банда социально амбициозных скинхедов устраивает беспорядки в лондонском арт-мире, интригами провоцируя возрождение и жестокую гибель эфемерного авангардного арт-движения. Потакая массовому читателю, "Медленная смерть" использует непристойности, черный юмор и повторения во имя иронической деконструкции. Животный секс всегда нагляден, а традиционные представления о литературном вкусе и глубине отброшены ради греховной эстетики, вдохновленной столь разными авторами, как Гомер, де Сад, Клаус Тевеляйт, и культовый писатель семидесятых Ричард Аллен.
254 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
1 person is currently reading
130 people want to read
About the author
Stewart Home
95 books288 followersStewart Home (born London 1963) is an English writer, satirist and artist. He is best known for novels such as the non-narrative "69 Things to Do With A Dead Princess" (2002), his re-imagining of the 1960s in "Tainted Love" (2005), and more recent books such as "She's My Witch" (2020) that use pulp and avant-garde tropes to parody conventional literature.
Home's unusual approach to writing is reflected in the readings he gives from his novels: he recites from memory, utilises ventriloquism, stands on his head and declaims his work and even shreds his own books.
Home's first book "The Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War" (Aporia Press and Unpopular Books, London, 1988) is an underground art history sketching continuations of dadist and surrealist influences on post-World War II fringe radical art.
Home's first novel "Pure Mania" was published 1989 (Polygon Books), and details a violent neo-punk subculture. Unmistakenly postmodern but nfluenced by surrealism and the nouveau roman, it pushes the appropriation of pulp tropes and use of repetition found within historical avant-garde fiction to such an extreme that some critics mistook it for a piece of low-brow writing.
Home continued in much the same vein with his next four novels, starting with "Defiant Pose" (Peter Owen, 1991) and continuing with "Red London" (AK Press 1994), "Blow Job" (published in 1997 but written in 1994) and Slow Death (Serpent's Tail 1996).
All Home’s early fiction collages in large amounts of prose from a wide variety of sources – and while it is often close in spirit to the work of ‘postmodern extremists’ such as Kathy Acker, the appropriated material is much more heavily reworked than in the latter’s books.
The novels Home wrote after the mid-nineties featured less subcultural material than his earlier books and focus more obviously on issues of form and aesthetics. Home’s sixth novel "Come Before Christ And Murder Love" (Serpent's Tail 1997) featured a schizophrenic narrator whose personality changed every time he had an orgasm. This was the first novel Home wrote in the first person, and much of the fiction he wrote after this utilised the device of an unreliable first-person narrator.
"Cunt" (Do Not Press 1999) is a postmodern take on the picaresque novel. "69 Things to Do With A Dead Princess" (Canongate 2002) mixes porn with capsule reviews of dozens of obscure books as well as elaborate descriptions of stone circles, while in "Down and Out In Shoreditch & Hoxton" (Do Not Press 2004) every paragraph is exactly 100 words long. "Tainted Love" (Virgin Books) is based on the life of the author's mother, who was part of the London subcultural scene in the 1960s. "Memphis Underground" (Snow Books 2007) has a long conventional literary opening that is slowly unravelled.
Home’s 2010 novel "Blood Rites of the Bourgeois" (Book Works) is to date his only work written in the second person. The plot – as far as there is one - concerns an artist hacking the computers of London’s cultural elite to infect them with modified penis enlargement spam. Reviewing Home’s incredibly weird campus novel "Mandy, Charlie & Mary-Jane" (Penny-Ante Editions 2013) for The Guardian, Nicholas Lezard observes: “I think one of the great virtues of Home's work is the way it forces us to address our own complacency.”
"The 9 Lives of Ray The Cat Jones" (Test Centre 2014) is a fictional exploration of the life of one of the author's more infamous criminal relatives. "She's My Witch" (London Books 2020), is a love story exploring an unlikely relationship between a fitness instructor and a heroin addicted witch. "Art School Orgy" (New Reality Records, 2023) is a 'BDSM extravaganza'. Before this Home published his collected poems "SEND CA$H" (Morbid Books 2018) and a book about martial arts films "Re-Enter The Dragon: Genre Theory, Brucesploitation & The Sleazy Joys of Lowbrow Cinema" (Ledatape 2018).
Home's unusual approach to writing is reflected in the readings he gives from his novels: he recites from memory, utilises ventriloquism, stands on his head and declaims his work and even shreds his own books.
Home's first book "The Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War" (Aporia Press and Unpopular Books, London, 1988) is an underground art history sketching continuations of dadist and surrealist influences on post-World War II fringe radical art.
Home's first novel "Pure Mania" was published 1989 (Polygon Books), and details a violent neo-punk subculture. Unmistakenly postmodern but nfluenced by surrealism and the nouveau roman, it pushes the appropriation of pulp tropes and use of repetition found within historical avant-garde fiction to such an extreme that some critics mistook it for a piece of low-brow writing.
Home continued in much the same vein with his next four novels, starting with "Defiant Pose" (Peter Owen, 1991) and continuing with "Red London" (AK Press 1994), "Blow Job" (published in 1997 but written in 1994) and Slow Death (Serpent's Tail 1996).
All Home’s early fiction collages in large amounts of prose from a wide variety of sources – and while it is often close in spirit to the work of ‘postmodern extremists’ such as Kathy Acker, the appropriated material is much more heavily reworked than in the latter’s books.
The novels Home wrote after the mid-nineties featured less subcultural material than his earlier books and focus more obviously on issues of form and aesthetics. Home’s sixth novel "Come Before Christ And Murder Love" (Serpent's Tail 1997) featured a schizophrenic narrator whose personality changed every time he had an orgasm. This was the first novel Home wrote in the first person, and much of the fiction he wrote after this utilised the device of an unreliable first-person narrator.
"Cunt" (Do Not Press 1999) is a postmodern take on the picaresque novel. "69 Things to Do With A Dead Princess" (Canongate 2002) mixes porn with capsule reviews of dozens of obscure books as well as elaborate descriptions of stone circles, while in "Down and Out In Shoreditch & Hoxton" (Do Not Press 2004) every paragraph is exactly 100 words long. "Tainted Love" (Virgin Books) is based on the life of the author's mother, who was part of the London subcultural scene in the 1960s. "Memphis Underground" (Snow Books 2007) has a long conventional literary opening that is slowly unravelled.
Home’s 2010 novel "Blood Rites of the Bourgeois" (Book Works) is to date his only work written in the second person. The plot – as far as there is one - concerns an artist hacking the computers of London’s cultural elite to infect them with modified penis enlargement spam. Reviewing Home’s incredibly weird campus novel "Mandy, Charlie & Mary-Jane" (Penny-Ante Editions 2013) for The Guardian, Nicholas Lezard observes: “I think one of the great virtues of Home's work is the way it forces us to address our own complacency.”
"The 9 Lives of Ray The Cat Jones" (Test Centre 2014) is a fictional exploration of the life of one of the author's more infamous criminal relatives. "She's My Witch" (London Books 2020), is a love story exploring an unlikely relationship between a fitness instructor and a heroin addicted witch. "Art School Orgy" (New Reality Records, 2023) is a 'BDSM extravaganza'. Before this Home published his collected poems "SEND CA$H" (Morbid Books 2018) and a book about martial arts films "Re-Enter The Dragon: Genre Theory, Brucesploitation & The Sleazy Joys of Lowbrow Cinema" (Ledatape 2018).
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 3, 2022
Photo catching the spirit of the novel's main character - John Hodges, skinhead and leader of a London gang.
“Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.” British author Stewart Home undoubtedly recognized the truth in this Elizabeth Lowell quote since, after all, Stewart vowed never to work another day in his life following three months as a factory worker at age sixteen.
My aim is to expand my literary horizons in 2018. To this end I'll be reading and reviewing a number of books published in the 80s and 90s by High Risk Books/Serpent's Tail. Here's what one reviewer had to say about Slow Death: "This is the kind of book that gives mindless violence and sexual degradation a bad name." Whoa! Immediately makes it to number one on my list.
Show Death, among his fifteen published anti-novels listed on Stewart Home’s website – and that’s anti-novel as in refusing to be part of or have anything to do with banal or traditional or conventional "novels.”
Slow Death, published as part of the High Risk Books/Serpent’s Tail list to takes its place among the transgressive, edgy American prose of William Burroughs and Kathy Acker. If you are among the fans of either Burroughs or Acker, you are primed for Slow Death.
Slow Death pinballs back and forth between skinheads lead by boot boy John Hodges aka Johnny Aggro on one side and members of the hip contemporary London art scene on this other. Just so happens Johnny’s crash pad on the twenty-third floor of a post-war blighted building overlooking Chrisp Steet Market is separated by the thinnest of walls from the studio of two Andy Warhol wannabes, a man and a women who like to be called Aesthetics and Resistance.
This quick shift of focus – skinheads to art scene, art scene to skinheads – kicks Stewart Home’s anti-novel into high gear. Did I say kick? Many are the hairy creeps and Marxist bozos who have their teeth and ribs kicked in by boot boy’s boots. Serves them right for attending a hippie concert or hawking their subversive newspapers on street corners.
Slow Death makes for fast reading. None of that Irvine Welsh mauling of the English language into regional or local dialect. Every single sentence is clear and crisp. No need to consult a dictionary; no being slowed down by ornamental, flowery prose - Stewart Home wrote to be read at a brisk pace.
Oodles and oodles of explicit sex and extreme violence but all of it the Dell comic book variety. One scene has Johnny jumping out an upper story window to swoop down on five brawny Marxists, beat their faces to bloody pulps, breaks ribs with his boots. I could easily see a one-word balloon in each of the comic book frames: Whack! Wham! Smash! Pow!
As readers we stand back at a good distance to take it all in: the characters have no depth to speak of or endearing qualities or even a past they are obliged to deal with. Nor do their actions, even when destructive or lethal to the max, have any real consequences. And when it comes to messy stuff like parents or teachers, brothers or sisters, spouses or babies – completely nonexistent. Who needs trash like that when you are a sexually charged skinhead or genius artist on the rise to fame?
All the disgusting skinhead sex and violence is hardly restricted to lower class blokes. Even an educated professional gets in on the action. One of the main characters, thirty-year-old respected physician Dr. Maria Walker seeks out Johnny to satisfy her animal desires, an unending hunger for sadistic, grungy debasement.
One of the funniest bits of Slow Death is communist art critic Jock Graham turning Christian fundamentalist. “Graham drew strength from his newly discovered faith in the Christian religion and thus fortified, set out on a mission to save the world from evil conspirators.” According to our new crusader for Christ, the prime evil conspirators are those demonic artists displaying their art and flaunting their Satanic ideas under the banner of Neoism in order to destroy civilization.
Slow Death satirizes the whole contemporary London art scene as one big con job comprised of no-talent glory hounds using esoteric theories to justify their production of sheer rubbish. Artists, gallery owners, financial backers, art collectors - all set bleeding from the barbs of Stewart Home’s caustic lampoons.
What are we to make of Slow Death? My sense is those months as a sensitive teenager forced into grimy, grungy factory work made its impression on the author. As art historian Ananda Coomarasway observed: “Industry without art is brutality.” If factory work is brutalizing and dehumanizing, where do we turn to see work that is the free flowering of the greatest and most inspiring of human activity? Why, the work of artists. But what if it turns out artists lack the skill or inclination to create art worthy of serious engagement and only produce crap? We then can say: Art without art is brutality. An entire culture of degradation without end. No wonder there is such an easy crossover between skinhead Johnny and the art world.
"New Neoism exhibition. The Thumbprint Gallery looked as if a bomb had hit it. Paint was splattered over the walls, floor and ceiling, torn posters had been hung around the space at crazy angles, and the floor was littered with broken computers. Although most of the hardware had simply died from over-use, the exhibiting artists planned to inform anyone who'd listen that they'd been destroyed by Neoist computer viruses." Stewart Home, Slow Death. Photo of the British author born 1963
June 24, 2017
Slow Death is the fourth novel by Stewart Home that I've read, and it's my least favorite. The most compelling for me remains Come Before Christ, and Murder Love. The other two that I have reviewed are 69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess and Mandy, Charlie and Mary-Jane, which I reviewed here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., respectively. Although Slow Death was written chronologically first in that group, for me it was the fourth and as such, I found the style a bit tired. Experimental, yes, but experimental in the same way as most of his others, establishing a pattern that I'm hoping he will break from in his next work. CBCAML takes a different tack in some ways, which is perhaps one reason it remains my favorite.
In the case of Slow Death the familiar aspect of the story, for anyone who has read Home before, is his use of anti-realist cardboard characters and cliched pornographic sex scenes (that come across as cribbed directly from Penthouse Forum letters) interspersed with avant-garde critical theory. In this case, the critical theory addresses primarily various obscure cult art movements (that entangle with the Situationist movement, if you're familiar) as well as faux-Marxist working class youth movements. As is typical, Home is a satirist, in this case, attacking the world of gallerists and celebrity artists as little more than self-obsessed money-hungry bullies out for nothing but wealth and fame. Marxist youth are brainwashed puppets, hippies are spoiled trustfund wimps, and skinheads are violent self-centered idiots. Every character in this book is reprehensible and none are sympathetic. Although, I did to some extent, think the main character, despite his uber-violence, to be the most appreciated by the author for his independence of mind...even so, I found his attacks on "those who deserved it" to be disgusting and inexcusable.
I find a flaw in one aspect of Home's experimental style, in his use of intentionally stereotypical and unrealistic characters to subvert the classic approach to fictional realism. The contradiction I question is, if attempting character realism is bourgeois sentimentality then how is the construction of a comprehensible plot any less bourgeois? If you want to truly subvert the literary establishment then you need to go whole hog like Williams S. Burroughs and his cut-up method of writing that utterly defamiliarizes the experience of a novel.
I found the stereotypical characters to unfortunately also create an unavoidable female objectification, when conjoined with the plagiarized porn scenes. He may be objectifying men as well but the power dynamic in society will always cause the issue to be treating women as sex objects and in this particular book, Home can't avoid that conflict and that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Well, this does appear to be one of his first novels, so he's done better since. Move along.
In the case of Slow Death the familiar aspect of the story, for anyone who has read Home before, is his use of anti-realist cardboard characters and cliched pornographic sex scenes (that come across as cribbed directly from Penthouse Forum letters) interspersed with avant-garde critical theory. In this case, the critical theory addresses primarily various obscure cult art movements (that entangle with the Situationist movement, if you're familiar) as well as faux-Marxist working class youth movements. As is typical, Home is a satirist, in this case, attacking the world of gallerists and celebrity artists as little more than self-obsessed money-hungry bullies out for nothing but wealth and fame. Marxist youth are brainwashed puppets, hippies are spoiled trustfund wimps, and skinheads are violent self-centered idiots. Every character in this book is reprehensible and none are sympathetic. Although, I did to some extent, think the main character, despite his uber-violence, to be the most appreciated by the author for his independence of mind...even so, I found his attacks on "those who deserved it" to be disgusting and inexcusable.
I find a flaw in one aspect of Home's experimental style, in his use of intentionally stereotypical and unrealistic characters to subvert the classic approach to fictional realism. The contradiction I question is, if attempting character realism is bourgeois sentimentality then how is the construction of a comprehensible plot any less bourgeois? If you want to truly subvert the literary establishment then you need to go whole hog like Williams S. Burroughs and his cut-up method of writing that utterly defamiliarizes the experience of a novel.
I found the stereotypical characters to unfortunately also create an unavoidable female objectification, when conjoined with the plagiarized porn scenes. He may be objectifying men as well but the power dynamic in society will always cause the issue to be treating women as sex objects and in this particular book, Home can't avoid that conflict and that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Well, this does appear to be one of his first novels, so he's done better since. Move along.
September 27, 2012
This novel should suck according to the standards of contemporary "literary fiction": there's no concern for the humanist pieties of psychological interiority, character development, epiphany; no concern for the realist shibboleths of verisimilitude and the matching of style to subject; no concern for the "fine writing" that will confer a spurious halo of distinction on high-end book consumers. And that's the point: the novel is brilliantly, strategically "bad," in a way that calls out literary fiction as a total fraud. It's a parodic account of the Art World written in the crassest of pulp idioms, with hilariously formulaic fight and sex scenes in every chapter, and if you're thinking of reading the new Ian McEwan do yourself a favor and get this instead.
July 25, 2007
all about how skinheads might intervene in the process of art historification, and why race isn't real but is experienced as real because of racism.....
Read
August 25, 2025Smart, still relevant as ever regarding university Marxism being classist. Also interesting takes on porn and eroticism, and the hypocrisy of 80s anti-porn advocates who were also quite sexually repressive towards women.
August 1, 2014
One of the 3 funniest books I've ever read (the others are Home's "Cunt" & Nigel Williams' "Fortysomething".
Do you want to enter the "art" world & be a success? Well, follow this novel like a bible & you'll certainly get there. HA HA HA. Loved the disrespectful attitude towards "art" & its acolytes whether "artists", dealers, gallery owners--& the sheep who actually believe that performing cult-like rituals will get one somewhere. Well, I guess if you want fame, fortune & fucks--that method is as good as any. SNORT!
What a great, deadpan novel with its brilliant attitude towards the cast of almost-thousands. It should be one of the pantheon of so-called literary classics that every person aspiring to be well-read should peruse.
Do you want to enter the "art" world & be a success? Well, follow this novel like a bible & you'll certainly get there. HA HA HA. Loved the disrespectful attitude towards "art" & its acolytes whether "artists", dealers, gallery owners--& the sheep who actually believe that performing cult-like rituals will get one somewhere. Well, I guess if you want fame, fortune & fucks--that method is as good as any. SNORT!
What a great, deadpan novel with its brilliant attitude towards the cast of almost-thousands. It should be one of the pantheon of so-called literary classics that every person aspiring to be well-read should peruse.
Read
April 29, 2013i can't get through this but i know stewart home is meant to be an interesting writer & it's high risk, which usually means something good.
if you want it, email me & i'll mail it to you.
if you want it, email me & i'll mail it to you.
November 26, 2008
Stewart Home has the art world pinned down! His brilliant book had me laughing all the way. I passed it on to Mark Flood and hope that he enjoys it as much as I did.
December 27, 2011
There is more about this book here: http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/cha...
November 26, 2022
This is so bad, that after a while you find it interesting. I do not regret that i finished this book, never read something like this. Sarcastic description of art-scene just hit me in a nerve: it is so many frauds, stupid marketing and manipulations in this micro world, that I just can’t take contemporary art seriously anymore.
August 28, 2015
i described this to a friend as "a lot of really badly written heterosexual sex and making fun of the art world"
fun to read if you know a little about art history. also pokes fun at the futility of various political movements.
@ home please save yourself from those dialogue tags tho!! it's ok to use the word "said", i promise.
fun to read if you know a little about art history. also pokes fun at the futility of various political movements.
@ home please save yourself from those dialogue tags tho!! it's ok to use the word "said", i promise.
January 29, 2008
Not exactly top notch, but really fun and pretty hot. One of the funniest sex scenes I've ever read is in here.
July 28, 2011
Terrible writing, extreme and uncalled for raunchiness...but still liked it for some reason; read it straight through in one sitting. Go figure.
February 24, 2017
Hilarious. The funniest thing I ever read.
May 8, 2014
FUCKIN SHIT, IM CUM
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews