Frisk

Rating:
Summary: Chewy
Review: Clinging to his memories of fake snuff photographs, the mysterious narrator named Dennis explores the dangers and taboos of sexuality. Finally, in Holland, he finds himself free of restrictions and is able to act upon his dark fantasies. A fascinating tale of fetishes and deep desires that disturbs as it compells the reader onward. While not as lush as Poppy Brite's "Exquisite Corpse" or as satirical as Ellis's "American Psycho", "Frisk" charts its own course along similar territory, coming up with a new revelation. And I have to agree that Cooper's writing style can easily put off readers, and I found "Frisk" to be the most readable of his books I've read.

Rating:
Summary: Enough
Review: Frisk is the gay American Psycho, and like that horrendous novel it revels in grossly repellant violence, and just like American Psycho, you have to ask yourself what the point is. And it's hard to say. Ellis's novel was supposed to satirise the yuppie greed-is-good 1980s. Okay, it does. But the violence towards women in that book goes on for page after page after page. And after say 15 pages, the reader is justified in saying Okay Brett, I Get The Point Already!! But on and on the violence goes. And so I get to figure that what's happening is that Ellis actually LIKES writing this stuff. Otherwise why go on at such length? And why does he like it, all that describing women being chopped up and tortured in so many disgusting, amusing ways? Well, I have to leave that to each reader to answer, and likewise answer why the reader likes reading it as well, and why so many many readers (vastly male it seems from the Amazon reviews) think American Psycho ROCKS! So, Dennis Cooper writes about gay sadomasochistic sex and murder. And in this book, plenty of coprophagy. The style he uses to do this is uniformly dull, lifeless, enervated, flat, affectless. It's... oh, I dunno, whatever. One critic describes it as "cool, immaculate prose [which] manages to convey intense romanticism alongside the macabre temptations of taboo." Yeah, right. Does that make it good, this breaking of taboos? Dennis Cooper does step out of his cool, immaculate style and gets quite excitable when he gets to the part about carving up teenaged boys. But then he lapses into a kind of boredom again. And the Los Angeles Times Book Review critic says in the blurb on the front "destines to classic status". And I say, these critics are degenerates. This book serves no purpose, except maybe, you know, if people like to read about torturing boys to death. I mean, some people might. So to them, it's good. Might even be a classic, I guess. Do I have the right to say that people shouldn't get their fun reading about pain and death and sadistic torture for page after page?

Rating:
Summary: lowered expectations
Review: I first reead TRY which I thought is a great and amazing book so I got FRISK. I wasn't too hot about the first part of the book, then it got better with dennis weirding out but when it got into totally gruesome violence it made me feel like i don't like it because of the same reason i wouldn't like a splattermovie where you feel it's just shock without too much of a story, humor or anything worthwhile. shame as i liked the story of dennis becoming obsesed with killing boys. loved TRY not so much this one.

Rating:
Summary: Cooper vs. Brite
Review: I found this to be confusing, due to the narration. It jumps from 1st person to 3rd to 1st again. By jumping like that, it pushed me away from the story rather than be pulled in. This book is reminiscent of Poppy Z. Brite's Exquisite Corpse which is much more brutul and tantalizing than this book.

Rating:
Summary: Cooper vs. Brite
Review: I found this to be confusing, due to the narration. It jumps from 1st person to 3rd to 1st again. By jumping like that, it pushed me away from the story rather than be pulled in. This book is reminiscent of Poppy Z. Brite's Exquisite Corpse which is much more brutul and tantalizing than this book.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful, gruesome, beautiful words: a true American Psycho.
Review: This is one of those rare novels that can fully restore your faith in the written word as a truly higher artform, while simultaneously destroying your faith in humanity. Alternately grisly and utterly fascinating, Cooper's Frisk will take you through a devastating landscape of psychological and sexual depravity, bring you right to the point of absolute empathy, and then save you with a loving reality slap. A truly marvelous work, but certainly not for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Unexpected Beauty
Review: With his award-winning first novel _Closer_, Dennis Cooper established himself as the Marquis de Sade of the Information Age. Still, I've come to think of _Frisk_ as his most daring novel to date. It begins as a grisly little tale of S/M and sexual psychosis. But Cooper surprises us at every turn, delivering a stunning meditation on art, eros, friendship, fantasy, and the great act of creation.