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69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess
This is where the novel has a nervous breakdown. Anna Noon is a twenty-year-old student with a taste for perverse sex involving an enigmatic older man and a ventriloquist's dummy. Anna lives in Aberdeen, Scotland, and her sex life revolves around the ancient stone circles in the region. The sublime grandeur of the stones provides a backdrop against which Anna is able to act out her provocative psychodramas.
This is a book about the body in which the carnal is a manifestation of consciousness: a book in which it is virtually impossible to distinguish the ancient from the postmodern. Drawing on literary and continental philosophy, as well as pulp appropriations, 69 Things suggests that schizophrenia may well be the only sane response to capitalism.
This is a book about the body in which the carnal is a manifestation of consciousness: a book in which it is virtually impossible to distinguish the ancient from the postmodern. Drawing on literary and continental philosophy, as well as pulp appropriations, 69 Things suggests that schizophrenia may well be the only sane response to capitalism.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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501 people want to read
About the author
Stewart Home
95 books283 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 - 30 of 58 reviews
March 24, 2020
Brief but trenchant literary and cultural critiques of obscure books. Detailed travelogues of prehistoric stone circles in Northern Scotland. And Penthouse Forum pornography. Yes, that rather sums up this surprisingly funny avant-garde novel.
I’ve read one other book by Stewart Home, Come Before Christ and Murder Love, which is a favorite of mine. This was not quite as enjoyable, but it still got my rocks off. So to speak. I guess I like being challenged (and moderately tortured.) Home seems to be trying to explode the possibilities of the novel in a variety of ways. In this case, as in his other book, he has no interest in creating realistic believable characters. It’s impossible to determine if the words he puts in his characters’ mouths equate to his own views, but one character talks about how he prefers “decentering the bourgeoisie subject” to any irritatingly “realistic” novel. And I think that rings true here. Home is cutting up or disassembling literature, like Burroughs did, and the idea of the self all at the same time. You might even think of this as collage.
So…the story. If it can be called that. Revolves around a female (unconvincingly female–in fact, unconvincingly a real person…and quite intentionally so) who meets a guy (who sounds much like her), and she starts becoming him by reading his books. He may or may not be the man who wrote a book called 69 Things To Do With a Dead Princess and then changed his own identity. Or maybe not. Anyway, she starts reading his books, and they exchange withering critiques of obscure books. Much of their critiques are so brief one could hardly know if they are valid or not. And likely almost no one has read most of the books discussed. (Reminds me of literature professors who write papers about other literary papers in journals that only other literature professors read.) Whilst doing so, these “characters” attempt to retrace the footsteps of the author of 69 Things To Do With a Dead Princess who supposedly toured the ancient stone circles of Northern Scotland with the dead body of Princess Diana who didn’t actually die in a car crash but elsewhere and….and this book is nonfiction. So…this girl and this guy “character” are touring the stone circles with a ventriloquist dummy weighed down with bricks in an attempt to see if there is even any outside possibility that 69 Things To Do With a Dead Princess was true. Oh, and they have the most clichéd, obnoxious and unbelievable pornographic sex with each other, their friends, and absolute strangers along the way.
So, what’s the result? Now, I’m weird, and I like weird books. So take it with a grain of salt. The instant shifts from purely pornographic sex description without a hint of literary effort to abstract literary criticism is what I would call “decon-fucking-structively” hilarious. Yes, you may (or may not) find bits of it erotic, but what that mostly demonstrates is how easy it is to trigger the sex urge, even with the most stereotypical descriptions. It shows the hilarious devaluation and absurdity of both sex and theoretical criticism. He may not intend this, but it also makes me think that analyzing a book is like having sex with it—get under it, get into it. And having sex is like trying to understand a book. That is, an attempt to understand an idea. Or maybe criticism and sex are really about forgetting meaning, because meaning only comes as a gestalt and not in weird little bits. Perhaps he’s making fun of us for trying to understand this book…or anything. And then…
Then there are bits of this book that are so detailed and mundane that they are boring. And intentionally so, I would again suggest. Home is challenging and irritating the “subject.” That is us, the reader. Near the end, a character (or perhaps the author) notes, “The body of a dead princess is like a metaphor for literature.” The main characters are dragging a simulacrum of a dead princess around in order to test the veracity of a book (this book). So one meaning I get out of this read is that literature is an eternal and pointless pursuit of truth. It is never true and nothing is. But we drag our carcasses around life (and literature) in the hopes of proving that, well maybe, something might turn out to have the outside chance of having some truth to it. Maybe.
Or perhaps literature just is a dead princess. Stick a fork in it, she’s done.
I’ve read one other book by Stewart Home, Come Before Christ and Murder Love, which is a favorite of mine. This was not quite as enjoyable, but it still got my rocks off. So to speak. I guess I like being challenged (and moderately tortured.) Home seems to be trying to explode the possibilities of the novel in a variety of ways. In this case, as in his other book, he has no interest in creating realistic believable characters. It’s impossible to determine if the words he puts in his characters’ mouths equate to his own views, but one character talks about how he prefers “decentering the bourgeoisie subject” to any irritatingly “realistic” novel. And I think that rings true here. Home is cutting up or disassembling literature, like Burroughs did, and the idea of the self all at the same time. You might even think of this as collage.
So…the story. If it can be called that. Revolves around a female (unconvincingly female–in fact, unconvincingly a real person…and quite intentionally so) who meets a guy (who sounds much like her), and she starts becoming him by reading his books. He may or may not be the man who wrote a book called 69 Things To Do With a Dead Princess and then changed his own identity. Or maybe not. Anyway, she starts reading his books, and they exchange withering critiques of obscure books. Much of their critiques are so brief one could hardly know if they are valid or not. And likely almost no one has read most of the books discussed. (Reminds me of literature professors who write papers about other literary papers in journals that only other literature professors read.) Whilst doing so, these “characters” attempt to retrace the footsteps of the author of 69 Things To Do With a Dead Princess who supposedly toured the ancient stone circles of Northern Scotland with the dead body of Princess Diana who didn’t actually die in a car crash but elsewhere and….and this book is nonfiction. So…this girl and this guy “character” are touring the stone circles with a ventriloquist dummy weighed down with bricks in an attempt to see if there is even any outside possibility that 69 Things To Do With a Dead Princess was true. Oh, and they have the most clichéd, obnoxious and unbelievable pornographic sex with each other, their friends, and absolute strangers along the way.
So, what’s the result? Now, I’m weird, and I like weird books. So take it with a grain of salt. The instant shifts from purely pornographic sex description without a hint of literary effort to abstract literary criticism is what I would call “decon-fucking-structively” hilarious. Yes, you may (or may not) find bits of it erotic, but what that mostly demonstrates is how easy it is to trigger the sex urge, even with the most stereotypical descriptions. It shows the hilarious devaluation and absurdity of both sex and theoretical criticism. He may not intend this, but it also makes me think that analyzing a book is like having sex with it—get under it, get into it. And having sex is like trying to understand a book. That is, an attempt to understand an idea. Or maybe criticism and sex are really about forgetting meaning, because meaning only comes as a gestalt and not in weird little bits. Perhaps he’s making fun of us for trying to understand this book…or anything. And then…
Then there are bits of this book that are so detailed and mundane that they are boring. And intentionally so, I would again suggest. Home is challenging and irritating the “subject.” That is us, the reader. Near the end, a character (or perhaps the author) notes, “The body of a dead princess is like a metaphor for literature.” The main characters are dragging a simulacrum of a dead princess around in order to test the veracity of a book (this book). So one meaning I get out of this read is that literature is an eternal and pointless pursuit of truth. It is never true and nothing is. But we drag our carcasses around life (and literature) in the hopes of proving that, well maybe, something might turn out to have the outside chance of having some truth to it. Maybe.
Or perhaps literature just is a dead princess. Stick a fork in it, she’s done.
March 24, 2025
2.5 stars rounded up
The Times review said that here Home does for the novel what Viz did for the comic strip. It is certainly an anti-novel and I think is deliberately badly written. It is also an attack on modernism and literary fiction. A mash up of many forms, from Penthouse to archaeological study. There are plenty of references to pulp fiction (not the film), but also plenty of analysis of modern and rather obscure literature.
There is a sort of plot. Anna Noon is a student (about 20) who is supposed to be attending lectures and writing a dissertation; she lives in Aberdeen. She meets an older man, Alan Macdonald, and starts to spend a great deal of time with him. This involves a great deal of sexual activity, visiting all the ancient standing stones in Aberdeenshire (there are a lot of them), more sexual activity outdoors on and near the stones, talking about obscure and unusual novels in some detail, an analysis of Islay malt whisky, a lot of eating and drinking in supermarket cafes and local coffee shops. Now is probably the time to mention that Alan has a ventriloquist’s dummy called Dudley who accompanies them on some of their adventures. And yes he also participates in some of their sexual escapades (before you ask, yes it is wooden) and on several occasions becomes sentient, even to the extent of driving. Anna may or may not murder Alan late in the book and Alan may or may not become a bloke called Callum. The book has footnotes and there are several different endings in the footnotes.
There is a good deal to discuss! Home writes from a female point of view here and has received some criticism for doing so. He does write rather badly and is not in the least convincing; but I am another male saying this and of course, it may be written deliberately badly.
There is a great deal of explicit sex very much in the 1970s pornographic magazine style. Unfortunately the language is a bit too redolent of the butcher’s slab and is not in the least erotic. The addition of the dummy doesn’t help matters either. There seem to be a lot of random strangers in Aberdeenshire who are happy to join in sexual activity in the open air when they stumble across it. The sex is also boring (again maybe this is the point) and very hetero and there isn’t a great deal of imagination, despite the variety and earthy language.
The section on Islay malt whisky was interesting. There seem to be an awful lot of stone circles and monoliths in Aberdeenshire and we visit many of them. There are lots of references to antiquarian tomes, a whole reading list of obscure books on the stones and the various sites are described in detail. The novel also self-references a good deal in relation to this. In the novel there is a reference to a novel with the same title by K L Callan, where the author is taking the corpse of a certain princess around the standing stones of Aberdeenshire. He is doing this because in reality Diana was murdered at Balmoral (the car crash was a cover story) and Callan has to dispose of the body. All done in the best possible taste!
There is as much literary discussion and consideration of obscure and forgotten novelists as there is sex and they are all bona fide novelists. Some are better known than others: Alexander Trocchi for example. Others, well, anyone remember Missing Margate?
So that’s it: sex, books and standing stones with a dash of whisky. Home has written a great deal of fiction and non-fiction and his range is startling and varied and he seems to have passionate likes and dislikes. This makes him easy to read and to dispute with. I haven’t read enough Home to place this within his writing. It is certainly unusual. Home seems to have a hatred for Baudrillard and Martin Amis and a liking for Trocchi. His rants are sometimes very funny and on the mark; at other times they are annoying or just plain offensive. One reviewer (Jenny Turner in the London Review of Books) believes she knows the reason for the pornographic sex:
“It’s an insurance policy taken out against the possibility that a reader might somehow get past all the other blocks and barbs put in to repel her and find the text beautiful, or identify with the narrator, or otherwise recuperate the work in the conventional way.”
Home describes himself as “radically inauthentic” and says of himself:
“I have attempted to continually reforge the passage between theory and practice, and overcome the divisions not only between what in the contemporary world are generally canalized cultural pursuits but also to breach other separations such as those between politics and art, the private and the social.”
The audiobook seems to be on you tube if your curiosity has been piqued. There are lots of problems with this, but Home does provoke a reaction.
The Times review said that here Home does for the novel what Viz did for the comic strip. It is certainly an anti-novel and I think is deliberately badly written. It is also an attack on modernism and literary fiction. A mash up of many forms, from Penthouse to archaeological study. There are plenty of references to pulp fiction (not the film), but also plenty of analysis of modern and rather obscure literature.
There is a sort of plot. Anna Noon is a student (about 20) who is supposed to be attending lectures and writing a dissertation; she lives in Aberdeen. She meets an older man, Alan Macdonald, and starts to spend a great deal of time with him. This involves a great deal of sexual activity, visiting all the ancient standing stones in Aberdeenshire (there are a lot of them), more sexual activity outdoors on and near the stones, talking about obscure and unusual novels in some detail, an analysis of Islay malt whisky, a lot of eating and drinking in supermarket cafes and local coffee shops. Now is probably the time to mention that Alan has a ventriloquist’s dummy called Dudley who accompanies them on some of their adventures. And yes he also participates in some of their sexual escapades (before you ask, yes it is wooden) and on several occasions becomes sentient, even to the extent of driving. Anna may or may not murder Alan late in the book and Alan may or may not become a bloke called Callum. The book has footnotes and there are several different endings in the footnotes.
There is a good deal to discuss! Home writes from a female point of view here and has received some criticism for doing so. He does write rather badly and is not in the least convincing; but I am another male saying this and of course, it may be written deliberately badly.
There is a great deal of explicit sex very much in the 1970s pornographic magazine style. Unfortunately the language is a bit too redolent of the butcher’s slab and is not in the least erotic. The addition of the dummy doesn’t help matters either. There seem to be a lot of random strangers in Aberdeenshire who are happy to join in sexual activity in the open air when they stumble across it. The sex is also boring (again maybe this is the point) and very hetero and there isn’t a great deal of imagination, despite the variety and earthy language.
The section on Islay malt whisky was interesting. There seem to be an awful lot of stone circles and monoliths in Aberdeenshire and we visit many of them. There are lots of references to antiquarian tomes, a whole reading list of obscure books on the stones and the various sites are described in detail. The novel also self-references a good deal in relation to this. In the novel there is a reference to a novel with the same title by K L Callan, where the author is taking the corpse of a certain princess around the standing stones of Aberdeenshire. He is doing this because in reality Diana was murdered at Balmoral (the car crash was a cover story) and Callan has to dispose of the body. All done in the best possible taste!
There is as much literary discussion and consideration of obscure and forgotten novelists as there is sex and they are all bona fide novelists. Some are better known than others: Alexander Trocchi for example. Others, well, anyone remember Missing Margate?
So that’s it: sex, books and standing stones with a dash of whisky. Home has written a great deal of fiction and non-fiction and his range is startling and varied and he seems to have passionate likes and dislikes. This makes him easy to read and to dispute with. I haven’t read enough Home to place this within his writing. It is certainly unusual. Home seems to have a hatred for Baudrillard and Martin Amis and a liking for Trocchi. His rants are sometimes very funny and on the mark; at other times they are annoying or just plain offensive. One reviewer (Jenny Turner in the London Review of Books) believes she knows the reason for the pornographic sex:
“It’s an insurance policy taken out against the possibility that a reader might somehow get past all the other blocks and barbs put in to repel her and find the text beautiful, or identify with the narrator, or otherwise recuperate the work in the conventional way.”
Home describes himself as “radically inauthentic” and says of himself:
“I have attempted to continually reforge the passage between theory and practice, and overcome the divisions not only between what in the contemporary world are generally canalized cultural pursuits but also to breach other separations such as those between politics and art, the private and the social.”
The audiobook seems to be on you tube if your curiosity has been piqued. There are lots of problems with this, but Home does provoke a reaction.
March 8, 2009
This book is fucking stupid. It's not so much a story as it is a paragraph of weird sex and then four paragraphs about what this old guy thinks about various books.
Fucking stupid waste of time.
Fucking stupid waste of time.
December 12, 2015
Home’s anti-novel involves Aberdeen stone circle sites, frequent pornographic romps, illuminating gloss on avant-garde novelists and reference books, and the usual lean workmanlike prose as per Home’s other novels: taking apart the conventional architecture of the novel, thumbing his nose at genre conventions and literary distinctions in the furtherance of “proletarian postmodernism”, i.e. a form of parodic postmodernism involving aspects of pulp fiction and a smorgasboard of intellectual preoccupations. Try teaching this, bastards!
December 28, 2011
This was the first book by Home that I read, and I thought: finally! Finally someone gets it. An author who gets what modernism did to literature, but is not being all high falutin' about it. This book is sophisticated but it wears it lightly. Its both conceptual and a fun read. The language is not the 'fine writing' so favored by so called 'literary fiction' (ie middle brow trash). And there's some great stuff on stone circles (probably from tour guides) and modern literature (you could draw up a reading list or two).
January 28, 2012
I first fell into this when my ex had it in his collection, he was a Englist lit student (if that counts for anything), I read it and apart from imagining him tossing one out into the toilet bowl over it and feelingly slightly jealous/sexy I suddenly started to feel stirings in my tummy that I had never felt before!
About a year later when i kicked his compulsive lying cunting ass out its the only thing of his i kept as i found it great when I fancied a cheeky wank! If anything it bought me pleasure out of a horrible situation! Its still with me all these years later! from Leicester to London well travelled alongside my guinea pigs and it still makes me happy when I feel the urge!
So THANK YOU Stewart Home!!!!
You made/make me happy and fill the void that male on male anal fisting now can never fill!!! <3
About a year later when i kicked his compulsive lying cunting ass out its the only thing of his i kept as i found it great when I fancied a cheeky wank! If anything it bought me pleasure out of a horrible situation! Its still with me all these years later! from Leicester to London well travelled alongside my guinea pigs and it still makes me happy when I feel the urge!
So THANK YOU Stewart Home!!!!
You made/make me happy and fill the void that male on male anal fisting now can never fill!!! <3
January 29, 2012
Home's more recent novels, from 69 Things to Do With a Dead Princess (2002), Down and Out in Shoreditch and Hoxton (2004), Tainted Love (2005), Memphis Underground (2007) and Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie (2010) demonstrate a shift away from the pulp style toward a more overtly experimental style, often referencing and even “reviewing” books both within the narrative and dialogue. However, his continued use of references and intertextuality means that his work can be viewed as a thematically-linked whole, with developments between each successive book.
Like his previous works, 69 Things to Do With a Dead Princess and Down and Out in Shoreditch and Hoxton draw on a wide range of sources. Where these texts differ is in the nature of the material from which he appropriates, and Down and Out samples far more substantial portions of many other more historical writers ranging from Daniel Defoe to Richard Marsh & Dead Princess takes Ann Quinn’s Berg as its starting point.
The result? An audacious intertextual groove sensation, of course!
Like his previous works, 69 Things to Do With a Dead Princess and Down and Out in Shoreditch and Hoxton draw on a wide range of sources. Where these texts differ is in the nature of the material from which he appropriates, and Down and Out samples far more substantial portions of many other more historical writers ranging from Daniel Defoe to Richard Marsh & Dead Princess takes Ann Quinn’s Berg as its starting point.
The result? An audacious intertextual groove sensation, of course!
December 30, 2011
There is more about this novel here: http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/boo...
And a look at some of the more mindless reactions to it on Goodreads here: http://stewarthomesociety.org/blog/ar...
And a look at some of the more mindless reactions to it on Goodreads here: http://stewarthomesociety.org/blog/ar...
May 22, 2020
ik ben hier, naar alle waarschijnlijkheid, te dom voor.
December 29, 2011
Stewart Home is the best kind of feminist. This book is written fantastically from the view of a female protagonist, as she goes through the many wonderful ups and downs of art student cliche-but-true-so-important life.
The analysis of key texts within the book is spot on, looking at them from a perspective of knowing their redundancy and pointing to a direction of better inquiry.
A must-read for anyone interested in art and powerful women.
The analysis of key texts within the book is spot on, looking at them from a perspective of knowing their redundancy and pointing to a direction of better inquiry.
A must-read for anyone interested in art and powerful women.
July 21, 2007
too many references to pulp fiction get in the way of this book actually BEING pulp fiction, which is what I percieve as the author's intentions. Sexual creativity becomes the driving force in this somewhat pointless novel about a man too specifically pathetic to NOT be the author himself...
skim the pages...
skim the pages...
December 17, 2022
A good book to read if you don't feel like reading for a while; like smoking the whole pack of cigarettes, if the pack had been fished out of a latrine in a BDSM dungeon after being discarded by Robbe-Grillet.
An overdose of the written word as subject and as effect.
An overdose of the written word as subject and as effect.
July 25, 2007
there is a lot in here about recumbent stone circles, sex with ventriloquist dummies and other books - without doubt the greatest anti-novel written in the English language.
May 24, 2016
Немного однообразное чтение про Анну, Алана и чревовещательскую куклу, которые занимаются сексом, обсуждают книжки и проводят литературоведческое исследование.
May 27, 2018
'A man who no longer called himself Callum came to Aberdeen intent on ending his life' the famous opening a homage to the famous opening. This is porn, book porn. Yes there is psychogeography. Yes there is lots of sex. But mostly there is the chance to spend a few reading hours in a world where it is normal to read and obsess about Joyce, B.S.Johnson, Alexander Trocchi, Julian Cope and Bill Drummond while nodding referentially and reverentially at Ann Quin. Home!
October 2, 2007
believe me when I say that stewart home needs to learn how women think if he's going to make his protaganist a woman.
March 29, 2018
The title and first paragraph intrigued me, but after reading the first chapter I’m going to pass on this one.
Just. No.
Just. No.
February 1, 2019
Jos tajuat jotain postmodernismista tai olet kirjallisuudentutkija tmv. saatat saada jotain irti tästä. Minulle tämä ei tarjonnut juurikaan mitään.
November 29, 2016
I must confess that I bought this book because of the cover and the title. It turned to be quite a tour de force as an experimental novel.
The setting is modern day Aberdeen with a near complete tour of the surrounding stone circles and watering holes. For a frog like me it is an interesting window into the drinking and eating habits of the locals. The main character is a young female art student of the local college, who seems to spend half of her life wasted, and the other half having sex with a dubious "man who no longer called himself Callum" and nearly everybody else in the way up to and including a ventriloquist's dummy. There is no pretension to make the characters believable, which is actually refreshing. A good part of the novel is clearly pornographic, with some interesting descriptions, and the rest are drunk ramblings on mostly unknown writers, ultra-left intellectuals and local whisky. The plot is not easy to find but turns out to be based on an imagined murder and on a desired one, mixed with a dusting of spy novels. The end is indeed surprising but not a deus ex machina.
If your thing is hipertextual postmodern novels, this is for you. You'll either love or hate it, but it will not leave you untouched.
The setting is modern day Aberdeen with a near complete tour of the surrounding stone circles and watering holes. For a frog like me it is an interesting window into the drinking and eating habits of the locals. The main character is a young female art student of the local college, who seems to spend half of her life wasted, and the other half having sex with a dubious "man who no longer called himself Callum" and nearly everybody else in the way up to and including a ventriloquist's dummy. There is no pretension to make the characters believable, which is actually refreshing. A good part of the novel is clearly pornographic, with some interesting descriptions, and the rest are drunk ramblings on mostly unknown writers, ultra-left intellectuals and local whisky. The plot is not easy to find but turns out to be based on an imagined murder and on a desired one, mixed with a dusting of spy novels. The end is indeed surprising but not a deus ex machina.
If your thing is hipertextual postmodern novels, this is for you. You'll either love or hate it, but it will not leave you untouched.
October 26, 2023
I was hesitant to give this book a positive review because it gave me a sense of disgust towards literature and literary discourse, but unfortunately it is really fascinating and I can’t help but want to continue unwrapping all the layers.
This book seems to argue that literary review is pointless or purely self-serving, which I find so interesting as someone who hung out with a lot of hipsters in college. What is the point of telling someone what you thought of a book, or of listening? Are we trying to merge our perspectives? Are we really just talking to ourselves?
Even though this book was written in 2012, I don’t think there was a single mention of the internet, which I found interesting because the themes of unsolicited opinion and overabundance of content are especially salient there. Sometimes it seems like the internet is the last frontier of human consciousness, where the foundations of knowledge are cracked as conflicting worldviews converge and diverge like a churning ocean.
This book seems to argue that literary review is pointless or purely self-serving, which I find so interesting as someone who hung out with a lot of hipsters in college. What is the point of telling someone what you thought of a book, or of listening? Are we trying to merge our perspectives? Are we really just talking to ourselves?
Even though this book was written in 2012, I don’t think there was a single mention of the internet, which I found interesting because the themes of unsolicited opinion and overabundance of content are especially salient there. Sometimes it seems like the internet is the last frontier of human consciousness, where the foundations of knowledge are cracked as conflicting worldviews converge and diverge like a churning ocean.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 29, 2019
Given the ostensible split between graphic sex and literary criticism, this book perhaps shouldn't be as entertaining as it is. But entertaining it is, carrying you forward on a peculiar tour of stone circles.
And, beneath, there's something far more interesting rumbling on.
(For people who gave up during the first chapter, with its numerous ludicrous sex scenes: there are fewer in subsequent chapters.)
And, beneath, there's something far more interesting rumbling on.
(For people who gave up during the first chapter, with its numerous ludicrous sex scenes: there are fewer in subsequent chapters.)
November 10, 2022
Heh. Kertaus on opintojen äiti -- monikohan jätti kesken sen johdosta? Sen suuremmin spoilaamatta, lopulta ihan ovela teos ja pidän lukemisen väärtinä.
Siitäkin huolimatta pysyn arvosanan suhteen kannassani, jonka muodostin jo jossain ensimmäisen neljänneksen tienoilla: tämä ansaitsee ihan yhtälaisesti sekä yhden että viisi tähteä, joten annan 3.
Siitäkin huolimatta pysyn arvosanan suhteen kannassani, jonka muodostin jo jossain ensimmäisen neljänneksen tienoilla: tämä ansaitsee ihan yhtälaisesti sekä yhden että viisi tähteä, joten annan 3.
January 27, 2021
Interesting play on form
Genitalia of/ and stone erected in the dark recess of the mind
Dizzying and semi captivating
Similar to Home’s other book She’s My Witch > an excess of a mans monologue> abound in notions of modern literature and an excess of references
Genitalia of/ and stone erected in the dark recess of the mind
Dizzying and semi captivating
Similar to Home’s other book She’s My Witch > an excess of a mans monologue> abound in notions of modern literature and an excess of references
May 31, 2025
This is actually crazy. Just sex, namedropping and opinionated dismissals of books and authors, and stone circles. One of those books where it's hard to tell if the writer actually knows what they're doing.
May 7, 2019
Post-modern, post-porn, post-pointless. Totally mad and totally baffling.
January 4, 2020
I didn’t get it. Duh...
August 5, 2020
Trrrash
October 21, 2020
The erotic moments are really good. But that's about it. There is no climax to the book. I was constantly waiting for something to happen between the sex and "book reviewing".
August 8, 2023
literatuurkritiek en 100 verschillende woorden voor vagina! Een mens kan maar bijleren!
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