Bloody Kittens

The explicit, excessive, uncensored, yet strangely laden with indie pop culture references style of the content of the novel "kittens in the boiler' by Delphine Lecompte aroused my curiosity as to how others might be reading this tale and interpreting its content so I conducted a little informal investigation. I read some of the vignettes/little stories/prose poems (or whatever you want to call them; I kind of feel like calling them bloody chunks) that Delphine Lecompte has published in various literary magazines in recent years-and I also read some of the buzz about the book at the Thieves Jargon message boards. Some of what I read I disagreed with-not in a snobby way so much as a 'why the heck do they think that?' way. For example, I read the message board blurb about how the book was finally infiltrating its intended audience of goth kids and then I followed the link to the review at 'Morbid Outlook'. I read part of that review and thought it was fairly ridiculous. It suggested that a reader could pick up on the fact that Lecompte was uneducated but not unintelligent and that a reader could more easily reconcile the 'filthy' content once it was realized that this was just a true account of a different kind of lifestyle.

To me, even though the book is billed here & there as autobiographical, it is clearly made up-and it is clearly made up intentionally by the writer. Parts of it are so unbelievably over the top how could it possibly be construed as true? This is not to say that the tale doesn't have its own kind of verisimilitude and authenticity, though. This is not even to say that it's NOT autobiographical. I know that I can write a poem and feel that it's true and reflective of me/my experience even if it's not LITERALLY true. There are different kinds of truth, aside from a linear, literal truth. There is the kind of truth in which creative writing is used to generate a landscape that in some way reflects the writer's inner landscape, but this illustration need not be literal-or thinking of it in painterly terms, this illustration need not be a realistic life drawing-it might be more conceptual or more abstract or more cubist or more Dadaistic. Just because it doesn't reflect a literal truth is not to say it doesn't reflect a tonal truth or an emotional truth or a psychological truth or some other kind of truth.

Plus I don't get how a reader could perceive the book as being a literally true-life account when it starts off about how she was raised by wolves. I also don't get how someone could perceive the book as having been penned by an uneducated person. To me, it seems pretty clear that the person who wrote it is not only educated but also quite literary. The book does not reek of the literary ESTABLISHMENT or any other kind of intellectual posturing, but it definitely strikes me as literary in its own way.

Especially when I was reading individual Lecompte pieces in online literary magazines, these vignettes/bloody chunks stood alone and struck me like hardcore poems. They seem more seethingly poetic than something that was just dashed off as a diary entry or true-life anecdote. And anyway, they were submitted to literary magazines, weren't they? Yes, some of the content is filthy and scatological and may seem gross and/or shocking to some, but despite the somewhat matter of fact tone of its delivery (which makes for a strangely titillating juxtaposition), I feel like it's a literary PERFORMANCE. Like some kind of grotesque burlesque. A menagerie of grotesqueries like diseased plucked chickens revolving on spits in some seedy back room of the imagination.

Perhaps some readers enjoy the story more if they DO think of it as being like a perverse but true-account diary, but being as I'm a poet, I enjoy it more if I think of it as WARPED ARTIFICE and that's how I'm going to think of it. And I certainly don't intend that as a negative assessment. I have an affinity for warped artifice, as long as the overall effect is still authentic on some level and/or interestingly provocative.

My informal research also yielded several comparisons to Bukowski and I can see where they're coming from to an extent, especially in terms of unabashed descriptions of ludicrous sexual scenarios, but whereas Bukowski strikes me as real, Lecompte strikes me as HYPERREAL. In fact, that might be a good descriptor for the book as a whole. HYPERREAL. And although I think Lecompte's voice is unique, just for the sake of fun and comparison, I will suggest that rather than Bukowski-esque, this tale is more akin to a hybrid of Bukowski and Kathy Acker, but with a much more contemporary slant. It's not as furious as Acker; it's more disaffected-and I think that such a disaffected delivery speaks of the contemporary zeitgeist moreso than an angry feminist delivery. Nothing against angry feminists, but the tone of things these days often seems more disaffected, disconnected, alienated. As such, it seems apt that when her tough attitude lapses, the narrator of 'kittens in the boiler' is more apt to admit to feeling lonely rather than feeling angry. I'll return to that thought in a moment, but first I wanted to mention that a few other books/writers who have flitted across my mind so far while reading Lecompte have been 'Baise-Moi' (Rape Me) by Virginie Despentes and some recent poetry by Chelsey Minnis and Ofelia Hunt.

Back to the loneliness. It seems like one symptom of the current zeitgeist is feeling lonely, feeling empty, feeling a void despite all of the consumption, celebrity worship/idolatry, kinky fantasies, and whatever else people devise to try to fill the hole. I don't know if the hole is due to some kind of spiritual bankruptcy or too much of a gap between fantasy and reality or systemic corruption beyond our control from which the only escape is distraction borderline delusion or what-but I feel like 'kittens in the boiler' has something to do with this hole and trying to fill it.. All the violence and bloodiness and rough sex and ultimate aloneness in the book, despite its matter-of-fact presentation, at times seems like it is trying to indirectly lash out at something-but at what? at who?

Perhaps the narrator is lashing out at herself in some indirect and/or passive aggressive way. All this talk in the beginning about Wee Andy being such a sheltered c..., such a middle-class t... and at some point, I couldn't help thinking that maybe Delphine Lecompte herself is the middle class t... Maybe she disrespects and loathes herself in relation to her own sheltered background and so she has constructed this elaborate, twisted, and traumatic fantasy life to distance herself from the lonely boredom of bland suburbia. After all, who really glamorizes bleeding crotches and reckless knife wielding unless it is so far removed from one's real life that it actually seems to hold some kind of salacious appeal or at least a sordid titillation? Sure, such things are some people's reality, but do those people really have the time or luxury if you will to type up literary vignettes about their sleazy experiences and then submit them to hip literary magazines? I think not. Granted, I could be wrong. I am not trying to assert that I'm some expert on the squatter/hooker lifestyle or that I think all hookers fit one mold or adhere to one stereotype. I could certainly be wrong, but I don't think that Delphine Lecompte is a hooker and I don't think she's writing literally from her real life experience.

I do think she could be writing indirectly from her real life experience. I do think that with her writing she could be using a kind of displacement to fill a kind of void. What's with all the references to indie rock, Morrissey, Oasis? Is a hooker really going to care so much about indie music? Not to be stereotypical or to make it sound like I think that hookers aren't even human and can't appreciate music, because it's not that. But I do kind of think of indie rock as being the province of suburban hipsters, college kids, college graduates, and their ilk. I don't associate indie rock with the working class, the maladjusted, or the maligned. I'm generalizing here, but I think of indie rock as having preceded 'emo'. I think of Morrissey's special brand of woe is me angst as being appealing to those who are emotionally sensitive, but probably haven't suffered too many real hardships that weren't of the relationship-oriented variety.

Don't get me wrong here, because I really LIKE Morrissey-but then again, I am pretty much of middle class myself. I mean I certainly don't want to generalize about MYSELF or even talk about myself very much here, but I will say a little bit. Although I've had my ups & downs and consider myself to be a very intelligent and complex person, my upbringing was sheltered and pretty vanilla. Although I didn't undergo a traumatic childhood, in retrospect I resented and had some issues with my upbringing because I felt as if I did not have enough diverse life experiences and was not encouraged (and sometimes not even allowed) to express myself freely. One reason I like writing whatever I want these days is because I finally CAN. I can do whatever I want to with my brainpower, thoughts, feelings, and creativity without having to apologize to anyone for being inappropriate.

Although I'm not entrenched in academia, I am a college graduate and I did attain my undergraduate degree in creative writing and I have to admit I think there could be a definite correlation between having had a particularly sheltered upbringing and desiring to write really shocking, squalid, explicit content. Again, don't get me wrong, because I'm not suggesting that 'kittens in the boiler' was written solely for shock effect or as an act of middle class rebellion-I think it's more sophisticated than that-but I do think that the writer could very well be middle class. I guess I just find it hard to believe that a working class hooker would really be that interested in recounting her lurid experiences in such a way.

I also find it hard to believe that a working class hooker would be such an Oasis fan. I mean Oasis seems so suburban. I mean one of the first times I heard Oasis was over the sound system at Urban Outfitters in Ann Arbor Michigan where some college friends and I were browsing stylish and overpriced housewares.

And cutting? There's some rather excessive talk of cutting early in the book and cutting strikes me as so suburban, too. It's kind of in the same camp as anorexia, I think. Obviously, there are exceptions, but generally speaking I think of anorexia as afflicting young, perfectionistic, white girls in the midst of non-poor, overprotective family units. Why would someone who is already being raped and dealing with blood have to cut herself to prove that she could feel pain? Maybe it's a control thing-taking control of one's OWN pain and mutilation.

OR maybe it's a middle class aberrancy creeping in at the edges of this elaborately constructed hooker fantasy, just like all the namby pamby Oasis music.

OR maybe the whole thing is just a big seeping, blurring, bloody chunk of twisted escapism.

OR maybe it really is a slightly exaggerated autobiography and Delphine Lecompte is an oddball hooker with a natural affinity for choosing details that just SEEM like they were constructed by someone with untraditional literary aspirations. I don't think so, though.

Indeed, one opinion I did find myself agreeing with during my research on Lecompte was the idea that Lecompte may not really exist and might just be a persona. Her author blurbs sound pretty persona-ish to me, although they might also be indicative of someone who is not looking to be a scenester or wants to maintain a certain mysteriousness (sometimes that kind of mysteriousness can increase the impact of one's literary endeavors or impart a more cultish vibe) or just does not want to situate herself in the public eye.

Maybe she really IS a hooker who has undergone so many traumatic and abusive experiences that she looks old and battered and ravaged beyond her years-and thus the only author photo that one can find of her is that of an eerie looking little girl with a wooden cross behind her and her hands posed as if she is prayerfully imploring some higher power (although she is staring directly into the camera), which I read was a First Communion photo (First Communion is a Catholic ceremony and a Catholic upbringing might very well have been a strict and stilted one-or perhaps it was more of a backwoods, snake-handling, swampy thing). Maybe it's just because she doesn't want a glimpse of her real life persona to influence the way people interpret her poetic persona. I know that is something I worry about a little. I'm always blabbing about personal stuff on my blog and I wonder if that infiltrates the way people read my poetry and such. I worry that it compromises the power of personal poetic interpretation if people are privy to more mundane details about my real life. I also find it curious that one cannot uncover any post- kittens information or publication credits by Delphine Lemcompte. 'kittens in the boiler' came out in 2005 so what is she working on now? Hmmm...

I do suspect that Delphine Lecompte is really someone else, but I can't be sure-and even if she is, I can't be sure who. Maybe there is a real Delphine Lecompte who is very different from the character in 'kittens in the boiler' and who devised these stories as a visceral wild ride to distance herself from her own vanilla middle class background or to distract herself from her own inexplicable gaping emptiness or to make people think about the illusory nature of reality and identity...