Matthew Stokoe: Cows

[Benny Profane]

A very peculiar (and disturbing) novel about psychopathy, delusion and loneliness.

A review: https://christopherwillardauthor.me...review-of-cows-by-matthew-stokoe-769ac17d0b35

Stokoe walks in the same way by Hubert Selby Jr.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Stokoe walks in the same way by Hubert Selby Jr.

?

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I tend to find out the exact contents of “transgressive” novels and movies because I’m a curious fellow; I could practically give you scene-by scene rundowns of A Serbian Film and Salò (“Then the naked adolescents are forced to eat bowls of glass slivers, and after THAT…”).

But I also tend NOT to read or watch them, because life is hard enough as it is and I’m looking for the nice these days.

Besides, the whole concept of transgression has been turned topsy-turvy, simply because there is so much of it, and so much oneupsmanship within the territory. It is Barbara Pym who is transgressive now.

 

[Liam]

A Serbian Film

I interpreted it as a savage satire on modern day Serbia and how the atrocities of the past will follow the country far into the future, but I still felt like I had to scrub my eyes with Ajax after watching it, ?

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Oh, I can imagine. Self- or nation-hatred does seem to be a thing in Serbia. A movie I like very much, to the extent of going to see it two nights in a row, Goran Paskaljevic’s Cabaret Balkan, is a less provoking but still powerful riff on those same themes. I could TAKE IT, which I doubt I could do with A Serbian Film…

…of which, nonetheless, I read every review and description. At second hand, I can deal. But as a teaching colleague of mine once said, there are images that I don’t want renting space in my head.

 

[Liam]

there are images that I don’t want renting space in my head

Some things you just can't unsee, ?

Thanks for the recommendation of Cabaret Balkan, I've never heard of it before.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Cabaret Balkan is brutal but not unwatchable, deeply enmeshed in an entire caustic tradition of 20th Century literature and film. The narrative methodology is similar to that of Richard Linklater’s Slacker (which maybe Paskaljevic had seen? Taxis are prominent in both films) - “hand-offs” from one vignette to another.

I have never yet managed to see another of Paskaljevic’s features, alas.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

The title of Cabaret Balkan in Serbian is “Powder Keg”, a reference to the famous take on the Balkans as the “powder keg” of Europe. But that title was going to be used for another movie in the US, so a change was made. “Cabaret Balkan” is also apt and evocative.