Friction left me limp.
blogYesterday, with the penicillin doing its good work, I felt vaguely human for the first time in a week. In the morning I mainly watched the third season of the US version of the Office whilst drifting in and out of sleep. My appetite returned, though there was nothing in the house worth eating. I look on most food with suspicion these days. Perhaps I need a change of diet.
In the afternoon, I had a bath and began reading Joe Stretch’s repellent debut novel, Friction. Whether its repellency is a good thing or not, I’m not sure. It can be interesting to challenge your prejudices occasionally – confronting the sentimental spectacle-obsessed mind with some raw, urgent, disgusting depictions of the curdled imaginations of Mancunians, but ultimately the book feels flimsy, fake and insubstantial.
Stretch has been compared to Michel Houellebecq by many, but it is Houellebecq without the ideas, the intellect, the sadness or the cool reality. It is similar only in the sense that they are both somewhat lubricious.
After reading the book for a while, though, I understood something of the interest that people have taken in it. It is interesting to think contemporary sexual mores, however inaccurate this depiction feels to me. It could be interesting to think about where sex is going to take us. Thing is, though, for satire to work it has to feel prescient. From where I’m sitting the lapdancing/porn/dildo business look comparatively innocent compared to what is going on online (the book doesn’t seem very attuned to the internet age, despite vaguely mentioning the contents of the protagonist’s sexual experimentation site, newsex.biz . If you click on that site what you get is Stretch’s band’s website, which isn’t much use to anyone, is it?).
There are so many other things crying out for satirical treatment that Friction left me limp.