Order THE VIOLATORS here (Out on 23/02/16)
(also reviewed)
Order VAMPIRE STRIPPERS FROM SATURN here - Read The Review
"It's complicated.To die for the sake of art. To let our consciousness murder us. To fall upon our own metaphorical swords. It's beautiful, you know? I'd like to be destroyed too."
Everyone who has never written a goddamn word of fiction in their lives will tell you: writing a novel is the easiest thing. They have Zeitgeist-altering ideas, but not the time to write them up. Everyone who tried they hand at fiction will tell you this is the most difficult thing that they have ever done. That boiling human consciousness down to words is pure torture. Basically, nobody can keep their shit together whenever the topic of writing fiction is raised. Especially not Vincenzo Bilof, who wrote The Violators, a book about the idea of writing fiction and the crazy people it attracts, which might be a Zeitgeist-altering idea in itself.
Alan Chambers is a nerdy kid with literary ambitions. After a lengthy essay about Edgar Allan Poe gets him accepted in the exclusive class of The Artistry of Contemporary Literature, his world tumbles into a spiral of debauchery and murder. Professor Krang and his intimate, but merry band of homicidal students will stop at nothing in the name of art. Marlon Brando might've alienated every director of Hollywood with his own spin off method acting, it's nothing compared to the atrocities Alan's new friends are ready to commit for literature. The lonely and feeble-minded young aesthete will soon look down into the abyss for inspiration too.
Vincenzo Bilof is going to make a lot of enemies with this novel. The Violators is about people raping, killing and brutalizing one another for inspiration, so it is bound to elicit some violent reactions on social media. Obviously, debauchery and violence not Vincenzo Bilof's endgame. The Violators uses provocation to test the line between reality and fiction and make a statement about creative freedom: art doesn't need boundaries. It doesn't have to imitate life. Sometimes art is just art. The only ones it ever had were imposed by morality and human censorship. I don't expect that many people to make it far enough into the novel to realize this because we live in a puritanical utopia where it's cool to condemn things publicly to enhance your social status.
What I'm saying here is that The Violators is bound to be purposefully misunderstood because of its brash nature, but its very purpose is to shock you into a different state of consciousness.
Alan Chambers is a nerdy kid with literary ambitions. After a lengthy essay about Edgar Allan Poe gets him accepted in the exclusive class of The Artistry of Contemporary Literature, his world tumbles into a spiral of debauchery and murder. Professor Krang and his intimate, but merry band of homicidal students will stop at nothing in the name of art. Marlon Brando might've alienated every director of Hollywood with his own spin off method acting, it's nothing compared to the atrocities Alan's new friends are ready to commit for literature. The lonely and feeble-minded young aesthete will soon look down into the abyss for inspiration too.
Vincenzo Bilof is going to make a lot of enemies with this novel. The Violators is about people raping, killing and brutalizing one another for inspiration, so it is bound to elicit some violent reactions on social media. Obviously, debauchery and violence not Vincenzo Bilof's endgame. The Violators uses provocation to test the line between reality and fiction and make a statement about creative freedom: art doesn't need boundaries. It doesn't have to imitate life. Sometimes art is just art. The only ones it ever had were imposed by morality and human censorship. I don't expect that many people to make it far enough into the novel to realize this because we live in a puritanical utopia where it's cool to condemn things publicly to enhance your social status.
What I'm saying here is that The Violators is bound to be purposefully misunderstood because of its brash nature, but its very purpose is to shock you into a different state of consciousness.
Alan didn't want to join a cult. He didn't want to kill anyone. He wanted to go home and wonder where his father was. He wanted to wonder why he couldn't be like his father, because he didn't know his father; he wanted to wonder if he could imagine being like the man his father would have wanted him to become, so he must in turn emulate all the fathers, and he must in turn remember the name of GOD even though he is not religious and GOD is an overused metaphor for FATHER. We cannot fear that which we cannot understand but we instead fear not understanding what should be understood to save ourselves.
For example, one of the characters mentions at one point that raping white girls is boring. What a fucking horrible thing to say, right? This is one of the occasions where the author speaks through his character mouth about fiction: the character isn't REALLY saying that, but Vincenzo Bilof is stating that rape is a boring and easy way to add pathos to a story *. That is freakin' bold and disturbing and not necessarily wrong. Plenty of authors (usually white guys) use sexual assault in order to automatically win their reader over because who is really going to root against sexual assault victims? Nobody, of course. ** The purpose of The Violators is to confront and deconstruct shocking ideas and believe me, it gets the job done.
I really liked The Violators but couldn't get myself to give it a perfect score. It is a hyperviolent novel by nature and sometimes it is difficult to see past what's on the page. Sometimes it is violent for the sake of being violent. Whenever Vincenzo Bilof decides to discuss literaray issues through his characters, it sets the novel ablaze. The Violators is going to elicit a lot of reactions and I might burn a few bridges with this review myself, but I think it's a very courageous decision Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing took by releasing this novel. Just remember, guys: art doesn't have to imitate life. Sometimes art is just art. Take a step back, leave your check your sensibility at the entrance and appreciate The Violators for what it is.
* I'm obviously excluding rape survivor stories for that statement here. So please, don't take this personal and send me hate mail about how much of a phallocratic white scum I am. The Violators isn't making the apology of rape, it merely proposes to stop using it as a cheap plot device.
** Mandatory reading before you get pissed at me. This is the issue Vincenzo Bilof (and me, I guess) are talking about.