Aliens & Anorexia (Native Agents)

Rating:
Summary: Courageous and Moving
Review: I thought Chris Kraus's first novel, "I Love Dick," charted a new direction for contemporary fiction while provoking profound questions about what counts as a "real" relationship and about all the forms of human relating that are developing as a result of new letter-writing cultures. "Aliens and Anorexia," Kraus's new book is even more brilliant and provocative. It wrests practices of female body asceticism such as anorexia and sadomasochism from the pathological dustbin and reconnects them with a tradition of ethical outrage and activism running from female saints to the philosopher-activist Simone Weil. Kraus has produced a book that breaks the boundaries of the novel and that is intellectually and emotionally wise.

Rating:
Summary: Courageous and Moving
Review: I thought Chris Kraus's first novel, "I Love Dick," charted a new direction for contemporary fiction while provoking profound questions about what counts as a "real" relationship and about all the forms of human relating that are developing as a result of new letter-writing cultures. "Aliens and Anorexia," Kraus's new book is even more brilliant and provocative. It wrests practices of female body asceticism such as anorexia and sadomasochism from the pathological dustbin and reconnects them with a tradition of ethical outrage and activism running from female saints to the philosopher-activist Simone Weil. Kraus has produced a book that breaks the boundaries of the novel and that is intellectually and emotionally wise.