Get Your Freak On

Editor's Note: Today (8/27/10) is the one-year anniversary of this emphatically humble blog. while it has been occasionally difficult to find the time to blog, I think I have managed to do so consistently and I'm quite proud of the output here. My only disappointment has been my frustrated attempts to share the experience of reading through this blog with my friends and family. This blog has been a really wonderful way for me to keep intellectually and creatively active and it occurred to me that perhaps this expressive act, which I've found incredibly rewarding this past year, is the very thing I've been trying to share.

As I was reflecting on this anniversary, the idea of inviting my friends to moonlight on my blog came to me. I think this will be an opportunity to share completely the experience of reading, writing and sharing that has been inspiring me this past year.

What follows is the first guest blog entry for Pygmies and Peanut Butter, and I'm very proud of the work here, although it's not mine. There is a least one more guest entry lined up for the near future, but I hope this isn't the extent of the involvement. If you've read something lately and you'd like to contribute, don't hesitate to let me know. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy perusing this guest entry:


Geek Love

by Katherine Dunn

1989, Random House

The universe was asking me to read this book. Aside from Brendan having two copies of Geek Love (one for sharing and one for keeping), this book found numerous ways of making its way into my life. I finally gave in to the numerous hints and started in on the novel.

What's truly unusual about this book is that I'd finish each sitdown session so fulfilled with what I'd just read that I never had to force myself to put it down. Part of the reason for this is that the writing isn't cheap and easy; Katherine Dunn isn't looking to get you hooked. She doesn't use spectacle as a method of storytelling, although spectacle is exactly what the story is based upon.

Simply summarized, Geek Love is about a family of freaks. I assumed it was a story about dorky people who wear glasses and fall in love, a totally masturbatory plot for plenty of authors. The term "geek", I discovered, is apparently derived from an individual who bites the heads off of live chickens for an audience such as might be found at The Fabulon, the circus where the novel is set. The inheritor of this circus, Al Binewski, is enthralled with a volunteer lady geek named Crystal Lil and the two make babies. In order to produce true freaks for the shows, as opposed to the run-of-the-mill fat ladies and lizard men, the couple experiments with drugs during Lil's pregnancies. The resulting deformed children are the main characters.

I was quickly captivated by the main character Olympia, a humpback albino dwarf. Though Oly is truly freakish and would be the main show on a subway car, she is a letdown to her parents. Her older siblings include a brother and two sisters - well - two if you count heads and one if you count asses. Arty is the oldest. His hands and feet are webbed and connect directly to his torso. He is power-hungry and easy to hate. Though in a world where it's difficult if not impossible to bond with norms, it's easy for the siblings to grow affectionate of their leader. Elly and Iphy are Siamese twins with a natural dichotomy. The kid brother, Chick, has the complete physical appearance of a norm, but is far from it. Dunn takes her time to spill the beans on Chick, so I won't ruin it by saying what he is.

Really, this book can easily appeal to anyone who has ever felt like an outcast. I kept thinking to myself while reading this, "This book feels like a classic." I can almost picture it up there with The Great Gatsby or 1984 as one of those books that everyone has seen (if not read) on their high school summer reading list. I'm sure it would have a good chance to be if it weren't for the easily objectionable material.

But that objectionable material is what really pulls me in. As a proud former outcast, I saw my life parallel what these characters went through. The world can't or won't accept them, and they find their place as the princes and princesses of a circus, somehow made for each other yet constantly feuding and scheming against the others.

The book isn't really about the dynamic of this group, but more about how each of them changes or becomes affected by people and events. I'm possibly tapping into what really made me fall in love. Dunn really brings you through cycles of the changes that each character goes through. They are not a group, but individuals bound together by their freakhood, common parents, and lower torsos.

Early in the book the four young siblings find themselves in a cherry tree in some random small American town feasting on the fruit. Naturally a farmer comes by with a shotgun meaning to scare the kids. Organized by Arty, the kids climb out of the tree one-by-one, starting with Oly and followed by Arty and the twins. This parade successfully aims to scare the crap out of the farmer. This is the most organized the group find itself. It's all downhill from here.

Between puberty and power, love and parenthood, and other force of life and death, each sibling becomes their own individual. This individuality can't seem to coexist in what should theoretically be a band of brother and sisters united. Their comfort in being freaks leads them to develop as people and eventually leads to the destruction of both bonds and bodies.

When you get to the climax you should be prepared. Dunn doesn't hold back. I found myself in a Meineke waiting room getting my oil changed with tears running down my face. I wish it could have at least been at a hair salon or a GAP, just something less manly than a Meineke with those oily deep-voiced mechanics telling me something I don't understand about a car part I'm unfamiliar with. Then, to top it off, the book ends 30-something pages later with another incredibly sad, unfortunate, heart-breaking event. It's a 1-2-punch.

Interestingly enough, Dunn is now a sports writer for boxing. (Did you like the segue?) She has written columns and books on the topic, and is using it as a basis for a new novel. It will be her first since Geek Love. After almost thirty years she's switched tracks completely in terms of subject matter, but I'm dying to read it. At least this time if I break down crying in a Hummer dealership or something I can look up, flash the cover and say, "It's about sports."

Guest blog entry by extrachrisb.