The Aristocracy of Weak Nerves

by Justin Isis

This 84-page-book contains two stories by Justin Isis: “The Aristocracy of Weak Nerves” and “Destroying Sacred Objects with Sexual Fluids” on religious and philosophical themes. Architectural eroticism, a pessimistic zoo, and obscure transubstantiation.

84 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2025

About the author

Justin Isis //primary succession psychic automatism citizens of teh universe publishing industry intransitive cauliflower !! Shizuka Muto's brand "Rady# is recommended International law must properly be regarded as another branch of fantastic literature

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slim collection of two somewhat longform short stories that can easily be read in a sitting or two. The first (and title) story concerns itself with a narrator who works at a place known simply as the Zoo, which in turn is run by a man named the Impresario (a confession: whenever I see the word "Impresario," I instantly think of the FINAL FANTASY VI character who also sported that label, which is where I first heard the word . . . like a lot of boys who grew up in the 90s, I suppose). The exhibits one can find in this Zoo are not animals but human beings, of the pessimistic or nihilistic philosophical variety, organized into groups such as the Argumentatives and the Depressives. Over the course of the story, the narrator provides some details about the eccentric inhabitants of the Zoo, people like the Tobacco Creeper, the Unperson, the Extreme Case, and the Romanian Reflective (the latter of whom is clearly based on E.M. Cioran). The Zoo also has a Euthanasia Booth, which reminded me of the Lethal Chambers found in Robert W. Chambers' "The Repairer of Reputations." The story itself builds to something of an amusing anticlimax.

The second (and longer, and far more sexual) story is "Destroying Sacred Objects with Sexual Fluids." This story actually has a bit of sentimental and nostalgic value for me, as it was the very first piece of Justin Isis fiction I ever read: he sent it to me on February 3, 2015, just two days after we had begun privately corresponding at Thomas Ligotti Online. I really dug it, and remembered thinking, "Shit, he's not just a pretty face, dude can actually write. The bastard!" So it was fun to revist this one, now in proper book form. As the title implies, the narrator is a guy who gets off destroying religious artifacts with his sexual fluids. As a child, he has an experience in a church where he perceives that a monstrance is a gateway to a "world outside time," and in an attempt to access this world, he applies an erotic annihilation to sacred objects, such as when he drags his penis over a Sefer Torah scroll. "I longed to violate the Torah in a place unknown to the Kabbalists." Oo-er, how rude! One can imagine no less than Mishima appreciating the whole "destroying beauty to achieve apotheosis" literary angle, and certainly the blasphemous aspects of the story would have appealed to that old mountain man, Edward Alexander. I suppose people of the faith might be put off from this story for this very reason, but luckily I am not a gloomy Lutheran but rather a Roman Catholic, and we tend to find the humor/be less uptight about such things. Also, unlike most people who attempt blasphemy or sacrilege but who limit themselves only to utilizing vaguely Christian iconography (this is known as "playing it safe"), the narrator of this story is VERY equal opportunity when it comes to transgressing against pretty much ALL of the major Abrahamic belief systems. Actually, I would not even consider the story anti-religious, but more about someone who attempts to achieve a genuine religious experience, albeit via an extremely unorthodox and eyebrow-raising methodology.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Justin Isis’s most transgressive work yet! This nicely-designed volume contains a pair of twisted tales: The first is a surreal satirical piece involving a human zoo in which exhibits are classified by their energy levels; the second depicts a man’s out-of-control sexual obsession with religious objects. The escalatingly outrageous deeds depicted in the book are the sort of thing that would have resulted in a blasphemy court case in ‘80s Britain. A scintillating evening’s reading!

[Fergus Nm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Come for the crooked and wry parable/esoteric shaggy dog joke of the title story, stay for the truly batshit antinomian psychedelia that is "Destroying Sacred Objects with Sexual Fluids".

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Justin Isis's most daring publication so far, the reader is asked to tour a philosophical zoo and peer into an abyss—not a void, but a liminal space populated by undisclosed presences and imbued with esoteric forces. The two long tales exemplify a depth of subtext and an often baffling hint toward the numinous.
The shimmering polish of the writing is something I've come to expect from the author's work. Told in a first person, yet distant perspective, the tales are exclusively narration. Characters are more bodies in motion than personalities here.
In the disturbing second tale, the narrator's burgeoning hierophilia underlies compulsions toward destruction rooted in a penchant for discovering what is beyond the aura of divinity radiated by certain arbitrary objects. Some readers may not appreciate the thought-provoking nuance woven through the brutality of these outsiders dismantling society's strictures to unearth universal secrets. Their manic behavior is laden with a disdain for readily accepted answers and blindly swallowed doctrines. Their culminating experience is an awakening toward higher consciousness and a revelation of their own inner natures. Aching to express the ineffable, like performance art of the most aggressive stripe, they enact their angry hunger upon a public saint whose mysterious powers beckon them toward the discovery of inner vastnesses. His patent artificiality suggests that outward appearances of sanity and popular support are nothing more than candy-coated layers concealing abstract intents. A kernel of darkness swathed in light. Faces are like masks made of meat. One might even strip mine the brain in search of consciousness, but like subatomic particles, we can only assume their existence via a swarm of potentialities, since photons are too large to render them observable.
The lush setting and superb storytelling crystallize around the lattice of the author's mastery of sentence architecture. Adornments of social commentary merely enhance the savor of the decidedly rich aesthetic of this book.
Breathlessly, I await the author's next work.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fuck did I just read