Aliens and Anorexia: Aliens & Anorexia (Native Agents) (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents) [Paperback]

Chris Kraus (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584350016 | ISBN-13: 978-1584350019 | Publication Date: March 2, 2000 | Edition: 1st

As the rope was tightening around my neck, an Alien made love to me. Belief is a technology for softening the landscape. The world becomes more beautiful when God is in it. Here is what happens inside a person's body when they starve.Written in the shadow of Georg Buchner's Lenz at razor pitch, Aliens & Anorexia, first published in 2000, defines a female form of chance that is both emotional and radical. The book unfolds like a set of Chinese boxes, using stories and polemics to travel through a maze that spirals back into itself. Its characters include Simone Weil, the first radical philosopher of sadness, the artist Paul Thek, Kraus herself, and "Africa," her virtual S&M partner who's shooting a big-budget Hollywood film in Namibia while Kraus holes up in the Northwest Woods for the winter to chronicle the failure of Gravity & Grace, her own low-budget independent film.In Aliens & Anorexia, Kraus argues for empathy as the ultimate perceptive tool, and reclaims anorexia from the psychoanalytic girl-ghetto of poor "self-esteem." Anorexia, Kraus writes, could be an attempt to leave the body altogether: a rejection of the cynicism this culture hands us through its food.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Aliens & Anorexia is a tantalizing, messy, wildly associative and often brilliant book that leaps effortlessly between autobiography, art criticism, philosophy and fiction. [...] There are more ideas on every page of Aliens & Anorexia than in most books published in the last year. It is an exciting and courageous work." Ben Ehrenreich, L.A. Weekly, (19 January 2001)

About the Author

Chris Kraus is the author of Video Green: Los Angeles Art and the Triumph of Nothingness and the novels Aliens and Anorexia, I Love Dick, and Torpor. The 2007 recipient of the Frank Mather Award in Art Criticism and a 2010 Warhol Foundation Arts Writer's grant, she has taught art writing in graduate programs at University of California, Irvine, Art Center College, San Francisco Art Institute, and European Graduate School.

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Semiotext(e); 1st edition (March 2, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584350016
• ISBN-13: 978-1584350019
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #236,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courageous and Moving, April 18, 2000

By 

Shambhavi Sarasvati (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aliens and Anorexia: Aliens & Anorexia (Native Agents) (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents) (Paperback)

I thought Chris Kraus's first novel, "I Love Dick," charted a new direction for contemporary fiction while provoking profound questions about what counts as a "real" relationship and about all the forms of human relating that are developing as a result of new letter-writing cultures. "Aliens and Anorexia," Kraus's new book is even more brilliant and provocative. It wrests practices of female body asceticism such as anorexia and sadomasochism from the pathological dustbin and reconnects them with a tradition of ethical outrage and activism running from female saints to the philosopher-activist Simone Weil. Kraus has produced a book that breaks the boundaries of the novel and that is intellectually and emotionally wise.

5.0 out of 5 stars genius, August 20, 2011

By 

jones - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aliens and Anorexia: Aliens & Anorexia (Native Agents) (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents) (Paperback)

Brilliant little book! Chris Kraus' blend of perfect diction and street smarts gives one a sense of adventure in an observably alien world. Very artistic and literary, heartening and humorous. 'Genius' may be an overused word, but Ms. Kraus' style and skill merit it. Very Rare indeed.