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Sludge Utopia
In a kind of Catherine Millet meets Roland Barthes baring of life with hints of the work of Chris Kraus, Sludge Utopia by Catherine Fatima is an auto-fictional novel about sex, depression, family, shaky ethics, ideal forms of life, girlhood, and coaching oneself into adulthood under capitalism.
Using her compulsive reading as a lens through which to bring coherence to her life, twenty-five-year-old Catherine engages in a series of sexual relationships, thinking that desire is the key to a meaningful life. Yet, with each encounter, it becomes more and more clear: desire has no explanation; desire bears no significance.
From an intellectual relationship with a professor, a casual sexual relationship, to a serious love affair, to a string of relationships that takes Catherine from Toronto to France and Portugal and back again, Sludge Utopia presents, in highly examined, raw detail, the perspective of a young woman's punishing though intermittently gratifying sexuality and profound internalized misogyny, which causes her to bring all of life’s events under sexuality's prism.
Using her compulsive reading as a lens through which to bring coherence to her life, twenty-five-year-old Catherine engages in a series of sexual relationships, thinking that desire is the key to a meaningful life. Yet, with each encounter, it becomes more and more clear: desire has no explanation; desire bears no significance.
From an intellectual relationship with a professor, a casual sexual relationship, to a serious love affair, to a string of relationships that takes Catherine from Toronto to France and Portugal and back again, Sludge Utopia presents, in highly examined, raw detail, the perspective of a young woman's punishing though intermittently gratifying sexuality and profound internalized misogyny, which causes her to bring all of life’s events under sexuality's prism.
220 pages, Paperback
First published June 5, 2018
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379 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 30, 2018
Catherine Fatima writes:
You think that if you separate yourself from a feeling of conjointedness and mutual surveillance, you pry back from the world a life that is more authentically yours, but what truly happens is you’re just miserable again. One articulates so well when miserable. There’s such sharp thought in loneliness. Trouble is, it’s so sharp it’s scary, and it’s pathetic when there’s not even the promise of an audience. So people become artists. For the comfort of solitude with an audience.
and:
I just want to desire - and be gratified by my desire for - something both politically progressive and pragmatic. And I would like the desire of others near me to fall in line with my own. I want it to cooperate with school and work. I want to live cultivating an interpersonal ethic that works to change larger public ethics. I want a psyche that has sucked in so much garbage from outside to project itself back out, cleansed, onto the heart of the world, eliminating capitalism. Is that too much to ask?
You think that if you separate yourself from a feeling of conjointedness and mutual surveillance, you pry back from the world a life that is more authentically yours, but what truly happens is you’re just miserable again. One articulates so well when miserable. There’s such sharp thought in loneliness. Trouble is, it’s so sharp it’s scary, and it’s pathetic when there’s not even the promise of an audience. So people become artists. For the comfort of solitude with an audience.
and:
I just want to desire - and be gratified by my desire for - something both politically progressive and pragmatic. And I would like the desire of others near me to fall in line with my own. I want it to cooperate with school and work. I want to live cultivating an interpersonal ethic that works to change larger public ethics. I want a psyche that has sucked in so much garbage from outside to project itself back out, cleansed, onto the heart of the world, eliminating capitalism. Is that too much to ask?
January 16, 2020
This is a hard one to rate, because I can’t tell if I am projecting values onto a new author or not.
Sludge Utopia is written from an extremely isolated and isolating perspective.
Our narrator is a young woman from a nominally Christian background, beginning her undergraduate degree in Canada. Through the book, she charts her sexual experiences with and longings for men in a diary format, a chronology that follows parallel to her studies and gradual enlightenment in the realms of politics, philosophy, and a kind of pseudo, self-defined feminism (for lack of a better word).
This woman is inaccessible to me. I cannot think of a woman I have related to less, and that was really uncomfortable to sit with for the few hours I spent reading this.
On the one hand, we have a woman discovering the evils of capitalism through her education, and gradually becoming a communist, which — yes, welcome to the club, girl, we stan.
On the other, this is a woman who is so completely disconnected from women that I cannot really fathom it. The amount of influence wielded by men in her life is shocking and so extreme that I have to assume it is deliberately amplified to demonstrate the isolating impact of living in a world that is made for and defined in language that exclusively benefits patriarchy — which would not be a surprising motive, given the narrator’s increasingly anti-capitalist leanings. Every single relationship that she ruminates on at length is one with a man she is sleeping with, but who she is consistently unsatisfied with. Relationships with female friends, while mentioned, are never centred, and always peripheral to her concerns. The entirety of her world view, even as she moves further left, is framed exclusively by male authors.
The one woman with whom she has a significant relationship is her selfish writing supervisor (at the university which only teaches male perspectives) who “pushes” her into an intimate relationship with her brother — ladies, is it gay to have a tumultuous and destructive sexual relationship with the brother of the only female authority you recognize in life? Sludge Utopia can’t answer that, because the concept of queerness does not exist in this capitalist, patriarchal hellscape, nor, remarkably, does it exist in the communist, patriarchal “utopia” our narrator builds with a bunch of French socialists, and if communism sounds like a soulless husk without queerness (not to mention anybody poor or from the global south), yeah, that’s approximately correct.
Ultimately, I am going to fall back on the title for the benefit of my doubts and say that this communist utopia, crafted in the image of a bunch of white dudes for the salvation of a woman who frankly, does not like men at all (however much she objectively loves sex with them), is intentionally sludgy. It is complete and utter shit. And the reason why it is so unfulfilling, so reminiscently unsatisfying as her relationships with men is precisely because, just like the capitalist patriarchy she is attempting to wrest herself from, it is not a utopia that was made for her. It did not take into account the way patriarchy and capitalism impacted her lived experiences as a girl, or a young woman. It was not crafted from the perspective of others like her, nor of less privileged perspectives than her own. It is a communism completely devoid of any relationship to the civil rights movements of the 60s, where the voices of women, people of colour, and the queer community demanded to be seen and heard. And so, this utopia is doomed to be just as isolating as the hellscape, created as it is, by the same voices.
On these conditions, then — drag them, kween.
Sludge Utopia is written from an extremely isolated and isolating perspective.
Our narrator is a young woman from a nominally Christian background, beginning her undergraduate degree in Canada. Through the book, she charts her sexual experiences with and longings for men in a diary format, a chronology that follows parallel to her studies and gradual enlightenment in the realms of politics, philosophy, and a kind of pseudo, self-defined feminism (for lack of a better word).
This woman is inaccessible to me. I cannot think of a woman I have related to less, and that was really uncomfortable to sit with for the few hours I spent reading this.
On the one hand, we have a woman discovering the evils of capitalism through her education, and gradually becoming a communist, which — yes, welcome to the club, girl, we stan.
On the other, this is a woman who is so completely disconnected from women that I cannot really fathom it. The amount of influence wielded by men in her life is shocking and so extreme that I have to assume it is deliberately amplified to demonstrate the isolating impact of living in a world that is made for and defined in language that exclusively benefits patriarchy — which would not be a surprising motive, given the narrator’s increasingly anti-capitalist leanings. Every single relationship that she ruminates on at length is one with a man she is sleeping with, but who she is consistently unsatisfied with. Relationships with female friends, while mentioned, are never centred, and always peripheral to her concerns. The entirety of her world view, even as she moves further left, is framed exclusively by male authors.
The one woman with whom she has a significant relationship is her selfish writing supervisor (at the university which only teaches male perspectives) who “pushes” her into an intimate relationship with her brother — ladies, is it gay to have a tumultuous and destructive sexual relationship with the brother of the only female authority you recognize in life? Sludge Utopia can’t answer that, because the concept of queerness does not exist in this capitalist, patriarchal hellscape, nor, remarkably, does it exist in the communist, patriarchal “utopia” our narrator builds with a bunch of French socialists, and if communism sounds like a soulless husk without queerness (not to mention anybody poor or from the global south), yeah, that’s approximately correct.
Ultimately, I am going to fall back on the title for the benefit of my doubts and say that this communist utopia, crafted in the image of a bunch of white dudes for the salvation of a woman who frankly, does not like men at all (however much she objectively loves sex with them), is intentionally sludgy. It is complete and utter shit. And the reason why it is so unfulfilling, so reminiscently unsatisfying as her relationships with men is precisely because, just like the capitalist patriarchy she is attempting to wrest herself from, it is not a utopia that was made for her. It did not take into account the way patriarchy and capitalism impacted her lived experiences as a girl, or a young woman. It was not crafted from the perspective of others like her, nor of less privileged perspectives than her own. It is a communism completely devoid of any relationship to the civil rights movements of the 60s, where the voices of women, people of colour, and the queer community demanded to be seen and heard. And so, this utopia is doomed to be just as isolating as the hellscape, created as it is, by the same voices.
On these conditions, then — drag them, kween.
September 19, 2018
reading this book was just like having a friend in my pocket. this book is so funny and yet reminded me of old sadnesses that I thought were gone for good. everyone should read this book. i myself have been reading it so incredibly slowly over the past few months, a few paragraphs at a time, as it is rich enough to warrant such attention and i am hoping too that it will never end. it is a true earthly delight.
May 16, 2020
Lecture laborieuse, on avance à tâtons dans la tête de Catherine, la narratrice/diariste, elle n’écrit pas pour nous ménager ni pour qu’on la trouve sympathique, elle n’écrit pas non plus pour qu’on comprenne mieux ce qu’elle veut, « dans le fond », même si on sent qu’une part d’elle aimerait bien qu’on la trouve tout simplement géniale, et basta. Quatre étoiles, parce que c’est un livre qui va au bout de son propre projet.
November 7, 2023
I don't think this is necessarily a terrible book, hence two instead of one star, but this definitely wasn't for me, and I wanted it over as soon as possible. Couple funny moments though!
October 26, 2024
I tried really hard to enjoy this book but it got repetitive. I love the authors tone of voice and how personal this book feels but the themes started to overlap with one another after a while.
Read
June 4, 2019This was a too informal, unstructured, and unfocused for me, and I tend to like informal books. Thirty pages in it was clear that I was reading an over-intellectualizing 25-year-old woman's diary. Having been an over-intellectualizing 25-year-old woman with a rigorous diary, it was hard to read without cringing. I also wished this book had owned being a diary-style text (the prose often referred to previous "entries" without any such visible structure, just occasional line breaks), or been rewritten so that the underlying structure of journals it was cribbed from wasn't so transparent. Hard not to compare this to Heidi Julavits' excellent The Folded Clock. There were some good moments, though, where Catherine-the-narrator/author was brilliant without reversing herself in the next paragraph. My favorite:
"Thought when secretly devising a stand-up set that, OK, the primary ethical conundrum of a woman's sexual life is how to take the reality of a world that does not work in her favour--a world of desire that subjugates her--and learn to get off on this, while behaving in a manner that is ethical such that, perhaps, you might change the landscape of sexual desire for women who come up after you. You must allow for a better future while getting off on its present. Just needs a punchline."
"Thought when secretly devising a stand-up set that, OK, the primary ethical conundrum of a woman's sexual life is how to take the reality of a world that does not work in her favour--a world of desire that subjugates her--and learn to get off on this, while behaving in a manner that is ethical such that, perhaps, you might change the landscape of sexual desire for women who come up after you. You must allow for a better future while getting off on its present. Just needs a punchline."
March 12, 2023
Personnellement je trouve la protagoniste détestable et c’est dur d’aimer l’histoire en arrière.
August 11, 2023
The parts that were good were very good
July 9, 2019
I felt about this book similar to how Catherine felt about her relationship with Max, vacillating between attraction and repulsion. I felt simultaneously connected to, and alienated from, this work. It successfully articulates the self-indulgent contemplations of an academically and philosophically inclined, somewhat (self-identified) neurotic woman in her early twenties who feels many intense things as she attempts to navigate becoming in relation to others. I generally enjoy very interior texts, especially from women contemplating gender, identity, desire, power, and relationships. But this didn't quite satisfy me as I thought it might, and I can't quite put my finger on it yet. Maybe it's because I related with the character -- at least from some former version of myself -- but I'm no longer that person, and I do not want to go back to that time and place.
February 13, 2022
An intriguing little novel about desire, femininity, and navigating selfhood through sexual relationships. Seems gossipy at first (I.e. I slept with this person and then this person and then this person....) but then you realise it is very reflexive—Catherine, author & protagonist, is figuring out who she is and who she wants to be through this process.
January 9, 2019
Sludge Utopia, by Catherine Fatima, is a weirdly compelling book with a fabulous title and very little plot to speak of.
In some ways it reminds me of Elif Batuman's The Idiot, only without the structure of the academic year, a much vaguer backdrop (making it therefore a more theoretical experience?). The narrator has her own Ivan and a summer abroad. She is more sexually experienced than the eponymous idiot, and for that perhaps she is more frustrated. From my more experienced perspective they are equally naive, and while I empathized with Selin, I desperately want to shake Catherine out of her own head.
I could almost write a book in response to this book, paragraph by paragraph. (Hmm, a book-length response on a relatively micro level to a book that makes you want to scream at it and throw it across the room...]
It's about being in relation to an other, especially sexually. And being in relation to one's own sexuality. It's about confusing sensual pleasure with sexual pleasure. It also touches on the role of porn. The narrator (a 25-year-old woman) masturbates regularly (at some point, daily), and uses porn as an aid.
So there's some stuff to unpack here about pornography, patriarchy, and normalized behaviours/expectations. And it may have something to do with the quantity and quality of sexual encounters in the real world today.
The book is labeled an "auto-fictional novel". One blurb calls Fatima a female 21st-century Henry Miller. Definitely there's a similar frankness and an overlap in subject matter. It's been a while since I read Miller, but I think Fatima intellectualizes more than Miller does (both psychoanalyzing and philosophizing).
It's at times a frustrating read — 25-year-old Catherine is just plain wrong about so many things, says the 49-year-old — but it's unputdownable and both emotionally and intellectually provocative.
In some ways it reminds me of Elif Batuman's The Idiot, only without the structure of the academic year, a much vaguer backdrop (making it therefore a more theoretical experience?). The narrator has her own Ivan and a summer abroad. She is more sexually experienced than the eponymous idiot, and for that perhaps she is more frustrated. From my more experienced perspective they are equally naive, and while I empathized with Selin, I desperately want to shake Catherine out of her own head.
I could almost write a book in response to this book, paragraph by paragraph. (Hmm, a book-length response on a relatively micro level to a book that makes you want to scream at it and throw it across the room...]
It's about being in relation to an other, especially sexually. And being in relation to one's own sexuality. It's about confusing sensual pleasure with sexual pleasure. It also touches on the role of porn. The narrator (a 25-year-old woman) masturbates regularly (at some point, daily), and uses porn as an aid.
So there's some stuff to unpack here about pornography, patriarchy, and normalized behaviours/expectations. And it may have something to do with the quantity and quality of sexual encounters in the real world today.
The book is labeled an "auto-fictional novel". One blurb calls Fatima a female 21st-century Henry Miller. Definitely there's a similar frankness and an overlap in subject matter. It's been a while since I read Miller, but I think Fatima intellectualizes more than Miller does (both psychoanalyzing and philosophizing).
It's at times a frustrating read — 25-year-old Catherine is just plain wrong about so many things, says the 49-year-old — but it's unputdownable and both emotionally and intellectually provocative.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews