MADreads

Sick girl

June 5th, 2009 Dennis - Central

I’ll be right to the point here, this is not a recommendation for Wetlands, the somewhat notorious debut novel by Charlotte Roche.  The simple truth is, I just don’t think it’s particularly good.  But if you want to know what all the excitement is about, then I suppose you should read it for yourself.  Just don’t for a minute believe this is an important work.

I don’t know how this book got published, let alone translated, but I guess since author Charlotte Roche worked for an MTV-like television show in Europe, she’s got a built-in fan base.  “Wetlands” is the title of the translation [others suggest the original title, Feuchtgebiete, could also be translated as "moist patches"] and the story centers around Helen, a still living-with-mom 18-year-old who’s entering the hospital for treatment of a wound that’s been infected after she cut herself shaving (shaving her butt, to be specific).  And as long as they’re down there, the doctors will be removing a rather large hemorrhoid as well.

So Helen gets to spend a few days in hospital, using the time to become enamored of one of the male nurses, and plot ways to get her long-separated parents back together.  She reasons if she can just get the two of them to visit her in hospital at the same time, she’s convinced that they’ll get back together– for her sake anyway.  So she finds a couple of different ways to extend her time in hospital, putting herself at risk in the process.

Helen’s narrative is mostly internal monologue, giving her a chance to recount some revealing incidents in her life, including her more gustatory pursuits. And this is where I had serious problems with the book.  Helen seems to think anything is fair game sexually (no real problem for me there– your mileage may vary) but the girl will put anything in her mouth. Boogers, scabs, blood, vomitus, etc. have all been ingested by Helen at various times and described in nausea-inducing detail.  So if you’re on the squeamish side, definitely give this book a pass.

As there’s no real plot to this tale, you may find yourself wondering what the point is.  Helen’s story becomes somewhat more interesting about halfway through the book when she crystallizes her plan to get her parents back together and this gave me the much needed impetus to finish the book.  I won’t reveal the success of her plan but the ending as a whole rang false.  Helen never really was a very sympathetic character and eventually reveals herself to be just plain pathetic.

I’ve read reviews that suggest the author (or maybe it’s just some readers being charitable) is attempting to position this as feminist and/or erotic literature, while others call it pornographic.  I’d allow that the protagonist is sexually liberated, but I doubt this particular tome will enhance the status of women everywhere.  Erotic? Pornographic?  Somewhat explicit surely, but I can’t see how some of these fairly short interludes would turn anyone on, let alone get anyone off.  If that’s your goal, there are much better choices than this.  Maybe Roche is attempting to (re)define those terms for a younger generation?  I’d hate to think this is how younger readers will be introduced to either feminism or erotica.  This is more like a scandalous page in Facebook that’s gone viral– someone desperately seeking attention by being more outrageous than anyone else.  Reviews in the New York Times and New York magazine are also dismissive, although Granta seems more receptive.

I’d be interested to hear what our readers have to say about the book.

Entry Filed under: Recreational Fiction