Customer Reviews

The Baby Jesus Butt Plug

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This relatively short and oh so sweet story by Carlton Mellick is much more than just shock-rock in literary form, as many people may think from the title alone. It is set up almost as a children's story, with large print and lots of interesting illustrations. It's a story about the future of society and the structure and interaction of family, full of heaping helpings of taboo smashing sex, violence, and humor. Between litters of John Lennon clones, zombies, and childish CEO's that happen to be hundreds of years old, there's something for everyone. It's an easy read, but in the very best way. The fairly simple illustrations complement the story nicely, and you'll find that after you've finished the story the first time you'll have an urge to begin it again almost immediately. So pick this up, it's more than worth the price, and I promise you will be very pleased.

You know that feeling you get when you walk to the edge of a skyscraper window 100 stories up and put your forehead against the glass (and just for a second you feel like the glass might give and you'll go toppling head over heels to the pavement) and your belly starts to swirl and rise towards your throat and you get light headed?

That's the feeling of this book, from page one. There's some nasty business, some big laughs, and an overall sensation of things being wrong in the best way. But what you might not expect (amidst the melting clones, abstract sex, and zombie carnage) is the strange poignancy of the final pages that make this more than a surreal jerk-around.

This is a headsquisher of a book.

If the demented 13-year-old offspring of the unholy union between David Lynch and William S. Burroughs were given pen and paper and told to write a trippy story splattered (and I don't choose that word lightly) with blood, gore, zombies and sex, Baby Jesus Butt Plug is what you'd get.

Unfortunately the outcome will still suffer from the story telling of a hormone laden 13-year-old boy. To illustrate, imagine a depraved pre-pube making up a wild sex-fi story on the fly, while his wide-eyed buddies eat up his every absurd word. It's stream-of-consciousness story telling with all manner of shock and awe thrown in for effect.

On the other hand, the beginning and end of the story contain flashes of satirical brilliance, biting humor and quirky sci-fi-esque fun to offset the crude writing and story line. One passage that I found particularly clever and amusing is when the narrator talks of getting a free Baby Jesus Butt Plug from a couple who just want to make sure the BJBP goes to a good home. He says, "And when they said `a good home' all they really meant was they didn't want to give them to anyone who would stick them in their butts".

I wish Mellick had pursued the socio-religious angle of owning a BJBP that began to take form in the first third of the book. Or he could have explored the conundrum of losing oneself physically and mentally in a sea of one's own clones. Either way would have made for a much more powerful and coherent statement. As it stands, the story begins to provoke and stimulate but quickly deteriorates into a menage-a-bizarre story of teen male angst, desire and fear.

I've read other Mellick works and know that in a lengthier format he can make you blush, throw-up and ponder in the matter of one short paragraph. So I am comfortable in saying that this is not his best. However, if you want a unique insight into the stuff of which adolescent boys wet dreams are made, then Baby Jesus Butt Plug will take you there.

I have recently read this book and I want to clarify to everybody reading this review that this book is in no way anti-christian; on the contrary I feel that this book is defending traditional christianity and laughing in the face of the new "corporate" christian.
This book tackles issues on the subliminal level and makes you think about those issues long after you put down the book. Issues such as the corporization of christianity, Government control, and the extents of human lust are in here.
I have been an avid reader of vonnegut and other underground authors and can truthfully say that it is no understatement that Carlton Mellick is compared to him.
I'm tired of reading the same things put out by mainstream authors, it has become like a chore. Mellick does things completely different and has a twisted look on a twisted world.
Try to support authors like Mellick because they are truly the new thinkers of the new generation.

This book works on so many levels, you just have to check it out. Although not my favorite Mellick book, I read it first and believe it is the best place to start with this author. First off, it's hilarious in the sickest possible way. The basic plot is about a couple who buys a clone of the baby jesus to use for anal sex. If that offends you then go read the Davinci Code instead. But it's not all just sick humor. It's also an examination of the zombie-like lifestyle of mundane america, set in a creepy dream-like suburb of the near future. If you think it's absurd and disturbing that our culture encourages us to enslave (aka employ) ourselves to tedious inhuman office jobs and have kids just to give purpose to our otherwise empty lives, then you should check out this book. It's funny and profound and geniunely unique. Just like all the other books by CM3.

Man, if this guy is a published author, then what in the holy hell is my excuse?

Overall, this 92-page novelette, with its big print and big margins, strikes me as a transcription of a more or less typical Mellick dream. All of the elements of dream are there: impossible physics, constantly shifting points of view and scene, transposition of mind and body, the outrageous and extreme made common, instant physical and spatial jumps, with the simplest of straight-line narratives.

I got this as a Christmas gift--go figure--from my best friend, who happened upon it in an enlightened bookstore. Good on him for knowing something I'd be intrigued with, that I'd want to read just because of the title. I'd never buy it for myself, but am glad I got a chance to read it; I'm always up for something different, and different this book is.

What's it about? It seems a man and a woman in an otherwise normal relationship in an alternate world somewhat like ours feel the need to acquire a pet baby, and, ah, do things with it. The pet baby is not quite what they expected, and the hapless couple embark on a short, harrowing adventure. Think of Eraserhead or the darkest and most unpleasant Cronenberg, with a lot more explicit sex, blasphemy and malevolent spirit and zombie combat action, and you'll be about 36% there.

The artistic vision is interesting, at times surprisingly compelling. The alternate future-world more than once struck me as William S. Burroughs-ian, but without the depth of description. There is a core story here that I found I wanted fleshed out; some of the scenes were intriguing, and I wanted them to last longer, and wanted much more depth of description than the breakneck pace provided.

Mellick's writing is raw and exceedingly simple, with a touch here and there of beat-style prose, especially with the adjectives. Some of the constructions are grammatically incorrect, but work nevertheless, in an almost--dare I say it--poetic way.

Okay, I'll admit it: I'll probably get at least one more of his books, just to step through that glass and walk in the weird a little bit more.

Someone, publisher or author, truly thinks this little book is art, given the Capote quote at the outset. If it makes you think--and this book did, a bit--then I guess this might just qualify. Mellick lets himself down a bit, though, in the preface when he cops to hawking his "taboo-breaking retard humor" at conventions, coming across as a convention geek. The story of the origin of the title is good, though, and I assure you if you follow the provided URL, you can get your own, very, very personal keepsake to remind you constantly and deeply of this story.

Bottom line: Greatly honed prose of depth and nuance this most certainly is not. Those with delicate sensibilities probably shouldn't even pick it up, let alone read any of it. But if you're up for a little something exceedingly divergent, gory-raw and outrageous, something that will show you just how vapid and hollow most media staples truly are, then this might just be something you'd want to try.

My first exposure to Carlton Mellick III was 'Ocean Of Lard', a hilarious "make your own story" book that had me weeping with laughter and barfing from playful grotesqueries. I had to read more from this author.

'The Baby Jesus B*tt Plug' uses another form of parody: A children's book for adults only. When you pick it up, make sure to read the Author's Notes at the beginning.

Adopting cute little Baby-Jesuses as pets, sickos who use their pets as b*tt toys, wolf spiders, pointless jobs, clones, zombies, and music boxes, this is one bizarro story. A nightmare fairy tale, complete with funny, childish illustrations by Mellick himself. The text is double spaced for easy reading ... easy enough for a child, and the font is large. The look of the book, overall, contributes to the bizarreness of the story.

You must have a sense of humor to read this piece, and if you aren't already laughing by the first paragraph its probably not for you. Mellick has such a talent for wrapping up the most disgusting, vile tales and images into a crisp lining of hilarious comedy. With Mellick, the mask of comedy and tragedy would have the smiling half weeping in laughter and the frowning half vomiting in disgust.

Carlton Mellick III is for all horror and gross-out aficionados who love to laugh. Enjoy!

Yeah, turns out that this is a book.... I didn't know that when I originally made the purchase. I should really moderate my impulse control.

Color me embarrassed.

I own a Baby Jesus butt plug. Yeah, that's where I'm coming from on this one. I thought it truly was Divine Intervention to find there was a book by the same name. I absolutely *adore* and have voraciously read all the authors Mr. Mellick was likened to in the previously published reviews of this and his other works. Here, I thought, would be the perfect pairing of gifts to give out to friends of mine just as twisted in their humor and literary tastes as myself; a butt plug AND a book deliciously dark in their contexts.

Couldn't be further from the truth.

As the saying goes - Garbage In, Garbage Out. A completely nonsensical, disjointed, third grade vocabulary, not even remotely funny or sulci tickling, typo containing "novella" that never had a point to begin with to ever go anywhere with it. A GREAT concept with the poorest execution. Which, in truth I shouldn't be so harsh to judge as that runs rampant in every facet of today's "entertainment" culture - books, television shows, movies - and has come to be what is expected from the apathetic masses.

You are better off reading the synopsis and letting your own imagination run riot with it than spending the seven bucks and change this "book" (and I use that term loosely) costs. If I weren't so damn ethical, I'd request a refund of my money from Amazon on this one. Alas, I've already read it and I think that voids eligibility for a return. Need to go and double check...

I bought this book based on the title. How can you not read a book called THE BABY JESUS BUTT PLUG: A FAIRY TALE? Once I started reading it I couldn't stop until it was finished (which was too soon). I thought this book was imanginative and original. If Chuck Palahniuk (LULLABY, FIGHT CLUB) went on a bad acid trip you would have CM3! An author that assaults your imagination with bizare images and ideals and pulls no punches. I highly recommend this book for any reader that likes the "odd" (to say the least).