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The Consumer
This weird-press offering is both deliriously repulsive and very well-crafted. It's a collection of short pieces -- sort of like stories, but more like wild fantasies -- that take surrealistic organ distortions, drug-infused hallucinatory sexual nightmares and grotesque organic urban-machinery delusions, to whole new levels of "Whoa! Can't believe I'm actually eating lunch while reading this." Reminiscent of J. G. Ballard in his Crash/Atrocity Exhibition phase, or else J. K. Huysmans on an ether binge in Los Angeles.
233 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1995
209 people are currently reading
7270 people want to read
About the author
Michael Gira
10 books228 followersMichael Rolfe Gira is an American musician, author, and artist. He is the main force behind the New York City musical group Swans and fronts Angels of Light. He is also the founder of Young God Records.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 209 reviews
December 27, 2007
Darkity dark, dark, dark.
Dark like Goya's "Dog Buried In Sand" is dark. Dark like J.G. Ballard's "Atrocity Exhibition" or David Lynch's "Eraserhead". Dark like the place Nietzsche's mind went to while he watched that horse being flogged.
If you can find a copy of this long out-of-print collection of grotesques and you think you can handle a semi-permanent case of the creeping willies, by all means, read it! Preferably in a well lit room in the middle of the day.
Dark like Goya's "Dog Buried In Sand" is dark. Dark like J.G. Ballard's "Atrocity Exhibition" or David Lynch's "Eraserhead". Dark like the place Nietzsche's mind went to while he watched that horse being flogged.
If you can find a copy of this long out-of-print collection of grotesques and you think you can handle a semi-permanent case of the creeping willies, by all means, read it! Preferably in a well lit room in the middle of the day.
November 7, 2014
When the blurb on the back of a book features a quote from Nick Cave—the man who utilized exactly 236 different terms for vagina and masturbation in his wonderful novel The Death of Bunny Munro—calling your book repulsive, you know you have managed some kind of achievement…
The Consumer is a collection of grotesque and scatologically unsound vignettes written over a span of ten years by the cosmic guru of teeth-gnashing but melodious gothic drone, M. Gira. Like the music gifted to us by the band Swans (which Gira masterminds), the pieces in this collection tackle a wide range of topics guaranteed never to be uttered in any 19th century ladies’ salon, such as rape, incest, sodomy, murder, self-mutilation, torture,cannibalism, animal cruelty, pedophilia, necrophilia, coprophagia, gang bangs, masturbation, bestiality and probably a few other indecencies guaranteed to make the tender-hearted reader blush if he or she weren’t too busy squirming in their own vomit. But where Gira’s music has the boon of lush and magnificent musical arrangements and utterly ear-pleasing post-punk/rock/whatever aesthetics, all we get here is words on the page, which makes for a more precarious experience.
The first half of the collection is a series of short-story-ish pieces composed in the early to mid-90’s, and while several are particularly impressive pieces—such as the title story, “The Consumer, The Rotting Pig,”—all of the stories suffer from a heavy reliance on packing every sentence with disturbing imagery, which results in an over-kill of the preposition “like.” In general, every story is written in a clinically distant style and relay hallucinatory threads of narrative told (usually) from the 1st person perspective of a self-loathing, mentally and physically impotent male. And while one of Swans great attributes is their mastery of repetition, here it only works well some of the time, making it difficult to distinguish any of the stories between one another.
The real pleasure for me came from the second half of the book, entitled “Various Traps, Some Weaknesses, Etc,” which collects much shorter and less over-written snippets of prose penned ten years prior to the first half of the book. Many of the stories in this half feature the same titles as songs from Swans as well as lyrics, giving the impression that these writings were Gira’s brainstorms for material to be better realized in musical form. While still pretty much indistinguishable from one another, these pieces are much shorter (some barely longer than a page) and can be read through in a mad dash, which gives the writing a certain heft, like riding across the back of some horrible, galactic beast rutting its way through endless dimensions of flesh, viscera and filth.
The overlying theme of this book is the way in which men and women yearn to consume one another—usually through extreme acts of sexual violence—in order to make up for their own moral and spiritual deficiencies, and Gira certainly goes about his objective correlative with a monomaniacal determination and without compromise. However, I can really only recommend this book for the most diehard of Swans fans (which, devoutly, I am) or for admirers of the most hardcore of transgressive fiction (I enjoy the occasional imbibing of the fucked-up). A profoundly unpleasant book—which is exactly the author’s intent.
BONUS FEATURES:
Of course I can’t pass up an opportunity to throw in some of my favorite songs by Swans!
”The Great Annihilator”
”A Little God in My Hands
”Mother of the World”
”I Am the Sun”
”Better Than You”
The Consumer is a collection of grotesque and scatologically unsound vignettes written over a span of ten years by the cosmic guru of teeth-gnashing but melodious gothic drone, M. Gira. Like the music gifted to us by the band Swans (which Gira masterminds), the pieces in this collection tackle a wide range of topics guaranteed never to be uttered in any 19th century ladies’ salon, such as rape, incest, sodomy, murder, self-mutilation, torture,cannibalism, animal cruelty, pedophilia, necrophilia, coprophagia, gang bangs, masturbation, bestiality and probably a few other indecencies guaranteed to make the tender-hearted reader blush if he or she weren’t too busy squirming in their own vomit. But where Gira’s music has the boon of lush and magnificent musical arrangements and utterly ear-pleasing post-punk/rock/whatever aesthetics, all we get here is words on the page, which makes for a more precarious experience.
The first half of the collection is a series of short-story-ish pieces composed in the early to mid-90’s, and while several are particularly impressive pieces—such as the title story, “The Consumer, The Rotting Pig,”—all of the stories suffer from a heavy reliance on packing every sentence with disturbing imagery, which results in an over-kill of the preposition “like.” In general, every story is written in a clinically distant style and relay hallucinatory threads of narrative told (usually) from the 1st person perspective of a self-loathing, mentally and physically impotent male. And while one of Swans great attributes is their mastery of repetition, here it only works well some of the time, making it difficult to distinguish any of the stories between one another.
The real pleasure for me came from the second half of the book, entitled “Various Traps, Some Weaknesses, Etc,” which collects much shorter and less over-written snippets of prose penned ten years prior to the first half of the book. Many of the stories in this half feature the same titles as songs from Swans as well as lyrics, giving the impression that these writings were Gira’s brainstorms for material to be better realized in musical form. While still pretty much indistinguishable from one another, these pieces are much shorter (some barely longer than a page) and can be read through in a mad dash, which gives the writing a certain heft, like riding across the back of some horrible, galactic beast rutting its way through endless dimensions of flesh, viscera and filth.
The overlying theme of this book is the way in which men and women yearn to consume one another—usually through extreme acts of sexual violence—in order to make up for their own moral and spiritual deficiencies, and Gira certainly goes about his objective correlative with a monomaniacal determination and without compromise. However, I can really only recommend this book for the most diehard of Swans fans (which, devoutly, I am) or for admirers of the most hardcore of transgressive fiction (I enjoy the occasional imbibing of the fucked-up). A profoundly unpleasant book—which is exactly the author’s intent.
BONUS FEATURES:
Of course I can’t pass up an opportunity to throw in some of my favorite songs by Swans!
”The Great Annihilator”
”A Little God in My Hands
”Mother of the World”
”I Am the Sun”
”Better Than You”
March 23, 2021
Only a few excerpts:
"My memories don't belong to me. They're as unknowable as a centipede fluttering its legs in the dark corner beneath the sink. When an image moves through my nervous system, it's with the predatory greed of an intruder. My body's laid open, transparent, defenseless. Each second of time is an individual insect feeding on my body."
"I can see my soul hovering there in front of me in the flood of light and colour, a swarm of demon insects, bad breath made visible. It's sucking into itself like light and matter retreating into the vortex of a black hole."
"Every thought that advances through the greased tunnels of my brain carries with it its own hungry negation. I'm flooded with empathy."
"Like a drugged priest holding up a chalice of Christ's intoxicating blood, he raised up his bottle of codeine-laced cough syrup in both hands and sucked the liquid in. It crawled down his trachea and sat in his stomach like molasses. He caressed the roof of his mouth with his tongue. The orifice was a sticky cherry red wound gouged out of his pulpy flesh."
... I mean.
"My memories don't belong to me. They're as unknowable as a centipede fluttering its legs in the dark corner beneath the sink. When an image moves through my nervous system, it's with the predatory greed of an intruder. My body's laid open, transparent, defenseless. Each second of time is an individual insect feeding on my body."
"I can see my soul hovering there in front of me in the flood of light and colour, a swarm of demon insects, bad breath made visible. It's sucking into itself like light and matter retreating into the vortex of a black hole."
"Every thought that advances through the greased tunnels of my brain carries with it its own hungry negation. I'm flooded with empathy."
"Like a drugged priest holding up a chalice of Christ's intoxicating blood, he raised up his bottle of codeine-laced cough syrup in both hands and sucked the liquid in. It crawled down his trachea and sat in his stomach like molasses. He caressed the roof of his mouth with his tongue. The orifice was a sticky cherry red wound gouged out of his pulpy flesh."
... I mean.
November 3, 2022
Swans’ frontman M. Gira’s short story collection, The Consumer, is a dark, wet compendium of every atrocity imaginable (rape, incest, pedophilia, scatological hijinks of all manners, etc., etc., etc.), half-heartedly molded into words on the page in a seemingly perfunctory way, or maybe some kind of transgressive divination, the author hoping to glean sense and meaning off the shit and cum on the walls.
However, though most of the over 40 stories featured here only fizzle, gnashing fake teeth, giving airs of unintentional comedy and edgelord journal scribblings, I do believe the collection boasts one truly impressive feature: Its sincere recognition of the technique and craft behind transgressive fiction.
You see, I paused my reading of this book for about a year because I could not make sense of it before. It read to me only as cindery, scorched words that served their incendiary purpose decades ago and now lay abandoned, in the indefinite oblivion of “out of print” (reading about how the quality of the stories was a big driving factor in Gira’s decision to never republish this was certainly not encouraging).
Now with a year gone by—a year bloated with over a hundred aggressively disturbing books read throughout—I’d like to believe I’ve returned to this collection somewhat wiser, more acclimated to the tradition Gira pays homage to. Though at first, the recalcitrant ethics of a noise band frontman would lead one to believe we’re in for relentless iconoclasm and miserable, self-hating confessional poetry with unconventional form, instead, after studying the tradition of transgression myself, I see Gira as a fully competent writer who understood (back then at least) and knew through and through the gleeful turns of phrase that demarcate violence, the wondrous exploration of the grime behind the curtain, and of the constant need to traverse taboos and boundaries and see what, if anything, is reflected in that grime—in short, someone accustomed to this devilish art of shock and outrage, with a firm grasp on its history and sense of style, guided by a heart full of rotted debauchery to spare.
It was alright. 3.5 stars.
However, though most of the over 40 stories featured here only fizzle, gnashing fake teeth, giving airs of unintentional comedy and edgelord journal scribblings, I do believe the collection boasts one truly impressive feature: Its sincere recognition of the technique and craft behind transgressive fiction.
You see, I paused my reading of this book for about a year because I could not make sense of it before. It read to me only as cindery, scorched words that served their incendiary purpose decades ago and now lay abandoned, in the indefinite oblivion of “out of print” (reading about how the quality of the stories was a big driving factor in Gira’s decision to never republish this was certainly not encouraging).
Now with a year gone by—a year bloated with over a hundred aggressively disturbing books read throughout—I’d like to believe I’ve returned to this collection somewhat wiser, more acclimated to the tradition Gira pays homage to. Though at first, the recalcitrant ethics of a noise band frontman would lead one to believe we’re in for relentless iconoclasm and miserable, self-hating confessional poetry with unconventional form, instead, after studying the tradition of transgression myself, I see Gira as a fully competent writer who understood (back then at least) and knew through and through the gleeful turns of phrase that demarcate violence, the wondrous exploration of the grime behind the curtain, and of the constant need to traverse taboos and boundaries and see what, if anything, is reflected in that grime—in short, someone accustomed to this devilish art of shock and outrage, with a firm grasp on its history and sense of style, guided by a heart full of rotted debauchery to spare.
It was alright. 3.5 stars.
November 30, 2020
Got sooooooo excited to hear this talked about on the QUIET PLACE podcast, one of my all time favorite (or at least most challenging and memorable) transgressive story collections. Michael Gira is a genius and SWANS will always be his most important artistic contribution to mankind, but this book shows that his well of creativity and willingness to push it applies in all forms of art he practices.
February 2, 2018
Absolute crap. Thought there could have eventually been some reason behind the graphic depictions of incest, paedophilia, murder, and feces but no. I quit reading half way. Gira tries to shock with his overly descriptive ramblings, but only succeeds in revealing his psychopathy and his need to be neutered, Haldolled up, diapered, and institutionalized. I've never been for censorship but am rethinking my position on that. Don't read it. It is disgusting, while still somehow being boring.
On a positive note, if you do own this book, it could be useful as kindling, toilet paper, confetti for parties, or in crafts like papier mâché.
On a positive note, if you do own this book, it could be useful as kindling, toilet paper, confetti for parties, or in crafts like papier mâché.
Read
March 20, 2017so overwrought and boring. Gross for the sake of being gross. Everything seemed to be written just for the shock value and I don't feel like forcing myself to continue. DNF at about 40%
April 4, 2012
Best to be honest and say I read this because I'm a Swans fan. And the thing is, yeah, Gira can't really write - I think the way he's disowned the book and writes it off entirely as juvenalia is a little much, but yeah the actual content isn't by any stretch good writing. It is a really good look into how he translates the Swans aesthetic into a different medium, and the writing does have the atmosphere of violence and negativity that's so intense in the band's work. So really this is for Swans/Gira fanatics interested in his total body of work as an artist, and not something that I'd necessarily read entirely on its own merits. It isn't absolutely terrible though, or even hard to get through, and there are some inspired moments that might stick with you. Also, I like to put on the Ecstatic Peace tape of him reading from this to make people uncomfortable at parties.
August 15, 2021
This book was definitely something, and by something, I mean a hellhole. Seriously, don’t read it if you have some kind of self-respect, because it’s not worth it.
There are two parts to this book, which marks two time periods of when the stories were made.
The first part was straight-up awful, both content and writing-wise. One of the topics that Mr. Gira loved to revisit was children and rape, most of the time the two in the same story. Other than that I felt like it’s an edgelord’s attempt at sounding poetic. The writing style made it super hard to concentrate but to be honest, maybe it’s for the better that I didn’t understand a few of the stories.
The second part was slightly better. While the contents were still dark and twisted, the writing style was easier to read, while still being raw and shoving it into your face. There were also stories that were clearly inspired by his own life. Such as the story “The Young Boy”.
I don’t know what I expected when stumbling upon this book, but it was definitely worse than my expectations. I think it’s quite overrated and made me ask if the people who rated it 4 and 5 stars really thought it was that good or if they are just fans of the Swans and they just want to support the author. Whichever is the case, please learn from my mistake and don’t go near this book. You will probably regret it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find a fluffy and cute story to cleanse my palette and just so I can sleep at night.
You can find my reaction as I read this book at:
https://ohnobooks.wordpress.com/2021/...
There are two parts to this book, which marks two time periods of when the stories were made.
The first part was straight-up awful, both content and writing-wise. One of the topics that Mr. Gira loved to revisit was children and rape, most of the time the two in the same story. Other than that I felt like it’s an edgelord’s attempt at sounding poetic. The writing style made it super hard to concentrate but to be honest, maybe it’s for the better that I didn’t understand a few of the stories.
The second part was slightly better. While the contents were still dark and twisted, the writing style was easier to read, while still being raw and shoving it into your face. There were also stories that were clearly inspired by his own life. Such as the story “The Young Boy”.
I don’t know what I expected when stumbling upon this book, but it was definitely worse than my expectations. I think it’s quite overrated and made me ask if the people who rated it 4 and 5 stars really thought it was that good or if they are just fans of the Swans and they just want to support the author. Whichever is the case, please learn from my mistake and don’t go near this book. You will probably regret it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find a fluffy and cute story to cleanse my palette and just so I can sleep at night.
You can find my reaction as I read this book at:
https://ohnobooks.wordpress.com/2021/...
May 16, 2019
So, I read this partially because I fell in love with Swans as a band. It’s outta print but PDFs are everywhere online, so I’d say it’s worth checking out if only for the first few.
There is one huge problem: Every other sentence is some in-depth metaphor. It’s cool for the first five stories and some of the shorter ones, but it becomes pretentious and suffocating on stories like “The Consumer, Rotting Pig” and “The Young Man That Hid His Body inside a Pig.” Honestly, I got bored during both of these and often lost track of what the hell was going on. Even during the shorter short stories, it sometimes became overwhelming reading some of his metaphors/ similes. The abuse of “like” became exhausting.
Some of the stories are r/trashyboners material, but most of them are sick, disgusting, and vile. Some made me feel a little disturbed, others just made me feel empty, and a handful were just sad. Unfortunately, The first five are amazing, but it slowly becomes not so interesting from there, especially in the second half of the book. The stories become only a page or so long and it’s like Gira ran out of ideas. They get a little boring and stupid after Raping a Slave. Starting with The Money’s Flesh, I only kept reading because I had made it that far and loved the first five
My final rating is 1.5 stars because I enjoyed reading it and love the first five short stories. The rest aren’t good at all. If you read this, don't buy an overpriced version online and just read the first five. The rest aren't worth it.
Here are some of the examples that best show his weird imagery. They’re somewhat funny to read because they’re so over the top.
“"Oh Baby! Oh Baby! Do it!" someone demanded of the screen. "I yam! I yam!"
came the mock-reply, followed by a horrible liquid squishing, as if a hundred greased orifices were farting at once.”
“The trucks shook the earth down through the cliffs to the beach, migrating along the road like a thundering diaspora of stricken prehistoric beasts, roaring their agony up at the sinking sky.”
“The cold air brought mucus to his nose. It expanded out from his nostrils like a child's bubble gum stretched further with each breath and finally rested on his upper lip - fresh larvae generated by an industrious insect.”
There is one huge problem: Every other sentence is some in-depth metaphor. It’s cool for the first five stories and some of the shorter ones, but it becomes pretentious and suffocating on stories like “The Consumer, Rotting Pig” and “The Young Man That Hid His Body inside a Pig.” Honestly, I got bored during both of these and often lost track of what the hell was going on. Even during the shorter short stories, it sometimes became overwhelming reading some of his metaphors/ similes. The abuse of “like” became exhausting.
Some of the stories are r/trashyboners material, but most of them are sick, disgusting, and vile. Some made me feel a little disturbed, others just made me feel empty, and a handful were just sad. Unfortunately, The first five are amazing, but it slowly becomes not so interesting from there, especially in the second half of the book. The stories become only a page or so long and it’s like Gira ran out of ideas. They get a little boring and stupid after Raping a Slave. Starting with The Money’s Flesh, I only kept reading because I had made it that far and loved the first five
My final rating is 1.5 stars because I enjoyed reading it and love the first five short stories. The rest aren’t good at all. If you read this, don't buy an overpriced version online and just read the first five. The rest aren't worth it.
Here are some of the examples that best show his weird imagery. They’re somewhat funny to read because they’re so over the top.
“"Oh Baby! Oh Baby! Do it!" someone demanded of the screen. "I yam! I yam!"
came the mock-reply, followed by a horrible liquid squishing, as if a hundred greased orifices were farting at once.”
“The trucks shook the earth down through the cliffs to the beach, migrating along the road like a thundering diaspora of stricken prehistoric beasts, roaring their agony up at the sinking sky.”
“The cold air brought mucus to his nose. It expanded out from his nostrils like a child's bubble gum stretched further with each breath and finally rested on his upper lip - fresh larvae generated by an industrious insect.”
September 13, 2022
A drug induced psychosis and some nightmares.
Beautiful, dark, ugly, disturbing, filthy and poetic. Nothing I could say can really explain how is "The Consumer". It's like walking alone in a street at night, you don't know where you are and you're afraid. It's like sleeping in a disgusting motel, the mattress is filthy and yellow and there's syringes needles under your bed. This entire book is a vibe, a darkness and filth covering you, and swallowing you whole.
Beautiful, dark, ugly, disturbing, filthy and poetic. Nothing I could say can really explain how is "The Consumer". It's like walking alone in a street at night, you don't know where you are and you're afraid. It's like sleeping in a disgusting motel, the mattress is filthy and yellow and there's syringes needles under your bed. This entire book is a vibe, a darkness and filth covering you, and swallowing you whole.
August 7, 2022
pretentious af
December 14, 2022
Easily the most grotesque and horrific writing I have ever experienced. And not for a single sentence does a single one of these stories let up. Nearly every sentence is a short and brutal "I" statement describing the hateful things the given character is doing or dreams of doing. The things described in the book often verge and cross over into the realm of the entirely absurd. But it doesn't matter because the book weaponizes your own head voice against you. By painting such horrific pictures in the first person, the visceral images lodge themselves in your brain and stay there long enough to feel like you imagined them. What a nightmare.
December 28, 2018
Full Review
The Consumer is a dark and disturbing read, but an incredibly poetic and amazingly crafted one. The book is incredibly rare, but worth tracking down. People who are already fans of Swans should certainly read this, but I also highly recommend this to anyone seeking well-written transgressive literature.
The Consumer is a dark and disturbing read, but an incredibly poetic and amazingly crafted one. The book is incredibly rare, but worth tracking down. People who are already fans of Swans should certainly read this, but I also highly recommend this to anyone seeking well-written transgressive literature.
May 15, 2007
Michael Gira from Swans and Angels of Light with his collection of short grotesqueries. If you are of the faint of heart you are bound to mutter phrases like "why, I never" and give up after the first story (if you even make it that far). One of my very favorites.
July 6, 2011
It's uneven--the second section of the book is comprised of writings that seem more tentative and sketch-like--but the first section contains some of the best transgressive short fiction I've ever read. Get it bound in the skin of an ex-lover and keep it in a shrine by the bed.
August 7, 2021
Was this gross? Yes. Was this shocking? Yes. Was this transgressive? Yes. But it wasn’t much more than that. After six or so stories it all kind of melted together into a shallow sludge of schlock. The vocabulary feels really derivative of Bataille (or at least Bataille’s translator), every character’s internality is the same, and most stories are so short there’s no plot. Just slightly different flavors of ew. It’s cheap. It’s boring. I wanted more from Gira ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
October 7, 2007
People love this book or hate it.
I love it because it's in-your-face. It's repugnant, it's vile. It's honest. And because it can evoke such strong emotions in people, I think it deserves a strong rating.
Also, about half way through the book you can tell when the author switched from coke to smack. Good times.
I love it because it's in-your-face. It's repugnant, it's vile. It's honest. And because it can evoke such strong emotions in people, I think it deserves a strong rating.
Also, about half way through the book you can tell when the author switched from coke to smack. Good times.
November 8, 2023
it’s one of the most darkest books i‘ve ever read, very much expected from gira.
although i like his bataillesque writing style, the stories are mostly just edgy shock value and have usually the same plot.
i absolutely hated evey second of reading it, yet did i devoure this piece in less than 24 hours? yes.
although i like his bataillesque writing style, the stories are mostly just edgy shock value and have usually the same plot.
i absolutely hated evey second of reading it, yet did i devoure this piece in less than 24 hours? yes.
March 27, 2017
Hmm... okay...?
So, $500-1000 for an used paperback copy? And Henry Rollins was the guy behind its publishing? "Just this time, I will judge a cult by its price", I thought. And this was the way I came to know The Consumer. I didn't know Michael Gira or Swans prior reaching the existence of the book (actually, it all came in a single package -- must say I got really impressed by Swans, especially with most recent works). Then I checked on the cult closely. Readers gleefully descripting this work as an unstoppable flow of really awful things in a raw writing style. A light on the obscure face of human nature, bare naked in front of your eyes. Bold and beautiful at the same time.
All this previous explanation is to justify my 2/5 rating. After reading the reviews, I expected literature par with Japanese cyberpunk from the 80s. Before reading The Consumer's first pages, I rewinded the stomach-turning experience I had first time watching Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible. So I didn't get shocked or feel disgusted by what someone of more delicate tastes would describe as "gratuitious display of shocking things", because I was prepared for it.
Thing is, writing is bad. Both parts of the book feel like a juvenile writing rant after discovering underground avant-garde culture, being the second part substantially worse than the first. It could be only a raw writing style, sure, but it cannot send any message. If the intent was to shock, or to make us look at the socially concealed human nature, or anything, the writing does not deliver. The author’s style makes all those taboo themes opaque -- and at some times, almost cartoonish -- in a way it is even hard to keep focus while reading. The Consumer experience feels like receiving layers upon layers of empty discourse. And it only gets worse when one realizes the short stories repeat it selves in content and structure, killing any anticipation.
So, $500-1000 for an used paperback copy? And Henry Rollins was the guy behind its publishing? "Just this time, I will judge a cult by its price", I thought. And this was the way I came to know The Consumer. I didn't know Michael Gira or Swans prior reaching the existence of the book (actually, it all came in a single package -- must say I got really impressed by Swans, especially with most recent works). Then I checked on the cult closely. Readers gleefully descripting this work as an unstoppable flow of really awful things in a raw writing style. A light on the obscure face of human nature, bare naked in front of your eyes. Bold and beautiful at the same time.
All this previous explanation is to justify my 2/5 rating. After reading the reviews, I expected literature par with Japanese cyberpunk from the 80s. Before reading The Consumer's first pages, I rewinded the stomach-turning experience I had first time watching Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible. So I didn't get shocked or feel disgusted by what someone of more delicate tastes would describe as "gratuitious display of shocking things", because I was prepared for it.
Thing is, writing is bad. Both parts of the book feel like a juvenile writing rant after discovering underground avant-garde culture, being the second part substantially worse than the first. It could be only a raw writing style, sure, but it cannot send any message. If the intent was to shock, or to make us look at the socially concealed human nature, or anything, the writing does not deliver. The author’s style makes all those taboo themes opaque -- and at some times, almost cartoonish -- in a way it is even hard to keep focus while reading. The Consumer experience feels like receiving layers upon layers of empty discourse. And it only gets worse when one realizes the short stories repeat it selves in content and structure, killing any anticipation.
May 23, 2019
Vile to the point of concerning, expected nothing less from Gira as he delves into the straight ugly nature of human begins and his own twisted mind. At times repetitive, there’s still no one else I’d rather have take me by the hand and walk the streets of violent despair than him.
October 25, 2021
Nefret ediyorum senden hayatımı mahvettin aptal kitap.
April 23, 2021
From a Swans fan:
Not worth the paper it’s written on, and I read it on a pirated PDF. Go figure.
Not worth the paper it’s written on, and I read it on a pirated PDF. Go figure.
Read
July 30, 2024Struggle to even put a rating on this. Due to how uncompromising these short stories are I could only stomach 1 or 2 at a time. But I was stuck waiting on a coach this weekend so smashed through the last 100 or so pages to get it over with which left me emotionally exhausted. I'm not sure if I enjoyed this or hated it, but I can't deny how effective Gira is in creating an overwhelming sense of bleakness in a couple of these stories.
October 17, 2024
I don’t want to talk about this book at all. You don’t need to read this.
May 7, 2021
An underground classic for fedora-wearing incels, this work of "transgressive" fiction is not worth the price tag; we should all be grateful it went out of print.
The book is divided into two sections. The first is focused on slightly longer short stories. all of which deal with dark themes of incest, cannibalism, rape, child molestation, etc., etc. There are some decent ideas and, honestly, a few of these stories (if you can set aside their edgelord bullshit) come close to persuading you that a more competent writer could pull it off. Gira has a weakness for simile, however, and this eventually derails your engagement with the prose.
Part Two, however, is borderline unreadable. These are short, single page or one or two paragraph long sketches, usually following the repetitive script of someone being fucked half to death, then tortured, then cannibalized. And...scene. There's semen, shit and blood galore; unfortunately, there's no reason to engage and it all comes to seem a little boring. Once you get past the shock value, there is no "there," there, it's just a bunch of proto-4chan shock prose about bloody orifices, rotting flesh, and sub-Elliot Rodgers level philosophizing about the inherently degrading nature of human sexual attraction.
You have better things to do with your time, don't you?
The book is divided into two sections. The first is focused on slightly longer short stories. all of which deal with dark themes of incest, cannibalism, rape, child molestation, etc., etc. There are some decent ideas and, honestly, a few of these stories (if you can set aside their edgelord bullshit) come close to persuading you that a more competent writer could pull it off. Gira has a weakness for simile, however, and this eventually derails your engagement with the prose.
Part Two, however, is borderline unreadable. These are short, single page or one or two paragraph long sketches, usually following the repetitive script of someone being fucked half to death, then tortured, then cannibalized. And...scene. There's semen, shit and blood galore; unfortunately, there's no reason to engage and it all comes to seem a little boring. Once you get past the shock value, there is no "there," there, it's just a bunch of proto-4chan shock prose about bloody orifices, rotting flesh, and sub-Elliot Rodgers level philosophizing about the inherently degrading nature of human sexual attraction.
You have better things to do with your time, don't you?
March 31, 2021
Reading this book felt like looking at a contemporary art piece made of offal, fecal matter, blood and tears of 10,000 infants. It made no sense. And even though I love transgressive art, the shock value was very cheap here. Like a dollar store glue. It might get you high only if you have no tolerance to that shit. And don't get me even started about his writing. It is little godawful like, like, likelike, and like,like,likeinmyhandslikelikelikelikelikeasiflikelikeOHSHIT&BLOOOODFOREVERLOVE!!!! Okay, I'm leaving meaning here, but I still believe public castration is a good idea.
PS: From now on I'm going to picture 90s Gira as a mutant who uses crying infants as a boxing glove. Don't ask me how, ask him.
PS: From now on I'm going to picture 90s Gira as a mutant who uses crying infants as a boxing glove. Don't ask me how, ask him.
September 4, 2025
an endless (feeling) collection of juvenile "wouldn't it be fucked up if..." prompts haphazardly cloaked by cloying, amateurish purple prose. rarely been so tempted to not finish a book because it was making me so sleepy.
February 18, 2009
A collection of short stories that examine the dark side of humanity, this book is not for the squeamish or easily offended. The author's writing style is fluid and beautiful, serving to intensify the images of violence, rape and incest he carefully constructs. He spins possession and fear in an erotic and horrifying manner, and you find yourself empathizing with the twisted side of humanity, as you are a meth head crawling into the corpse of a horse that you have just disemboweled, for safety.
May 25, 2016
A glorious ...filthy...heart stammering,lip biting....eyes strewn with cathartic tears...sometimes hauntingly beautiful and sinuous...oft deeply scarring glimpse into the darkest dankest corners and excrement strewn gutters of the human psyche..A one of a kind tome.
Nothing like Giras The Consumer exists,
truly unique and utterly visceral...the words on these pages will dwell within my mind forever..
A MUST READ!
Also of note! Gira is an incredible musician ,singer and artist as well...SWANS are absolutely one pf my favorite musicians of all time,so read this and listen ;)
Nothing like Giras The Consumer exists,
truly unique and utterly visceral...the words on these pages will dwell within my mind forever..
A MUST READ!
Also of note! Gira is an incredible musician ,singer and artist as well...SWANS are absolutely one pf my favorite musicians of all time,so read this and listen ;)
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