English translation of a German TV personality's sexually graphic
first novel."As far back as I can remember, I've had hemorrhoids."
With this opening line, Roche declares her intention to omit no
physiological detail. Readers may take it as a frank come-on or a
kindhearted warning, depending on their interest in exploring
aspects of the female nether regions that are seldom described
outside of hardcore pornography or the gynecologist's office.
Eighteen-year-old protagonist Helen Memel narrates the entire novel
from a hospital bed, where she is confined after the aforementioned
rectal unpleasantness contributes to a terrible shaving mishap.
While convalescing after emergency surgery, Helen entertains
herself by reflecting on her unhappy family, reminiscing about her
sexual adventures and tenderly examining all - all - of her body's
excrescences. Indeed, meditations on cervical mucus and related
substances make up most of this slender novel, and this, aside from
Roche's fame (she's a presenter on the German equivalent of MTV),
is the reason why her novel has become an international cause
scandale. Abroad, it has been celebrated as an empowering depiction
of sexual independence, and a superficial reading would support
such judgment. But Helen is hardly a feminist heroine. She is
sexually precocious but emotionally stunted. She is afraid to be
alone, and, while she may revel in her various secretions, she is
ultimately no more respectful of her body than the women who groom
themselves into a state of profound unnaturalness. Indeed, Helen's
claims that her own filthiness is a political act seem more bratty
than noble. When she spits in a glass of mineral water and offers
it to a candy striper, it is not the act of a revolutionary; it is
the act of a petulant teen.Provocatively nasty but intellectually
empty. (Kirkus Reviews)
With her jaunty dissection of the sex life and the private grooming
habits of the novel's 18-year-old narrator, Helen Memel, Charlotte
Roche has turned the previously unspeakable into the national
conversation in Germany. Since its debut in February, the novel
('Feuchtgebiete', in German) has sold more than 680,000 copies, and
is the biggest selling book on Amazon anywhere in the world. The
book is a headlong dash through every crevice and byproduct,
physical and psychological, of its narrator's body and mind. It is
difficult to overstate the raunchiness of the novel. Wetlands opens
in a hospital room after an intimate shaving accident. It gives a
detailed topography of Helen's hemorrhoids, continues into the
subject of anal intercourse and only gains momentum from there,
eventually reaching avocado pits as objects of female sexual
satisfaction and - here is where the debate kicks in - just
possibly female empowerment. Clearly the novel has struck a nerve,
catching a wave of popular interest in renewing the debate over
women's roles and image in society.
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