Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels (Acker, Kathy) [Paperback]

Kathy Acker (Author)

Book Description

Series: Acker, Kathy | Publication Date: December 18, 1997

The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula by the Black Tarantula; I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac; The Adult Life of Toulouse-Lautrec by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

This volume brings together three of the postmodern punkster's earliest novels, all originally published by obscure presses in the Seventies. As much as one wants to give Acker the benefit of a fair reading, it's hard not to be bored by the lengthy repetitions, the obscure plotlines, the complete disregard (deliberate, of course) for conventional notions of time. In The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula, the fictional ``I'' decides to become various murderesses from history, as well as Yeats and Sade. Speaking in a cacophony of voices, she ``can't handle her own horniness,'' though ``sexual ecstasies become mystic communion.'' I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac, another historical hallucination, further emphasizes Acker's sense of the self in disintegration--the reason one assumes the roles of so many other characters from history and literature. Here, a story of sexual obsession somehow transforms into a bland litany of case histories of prisoners whose rights have been abused. This political dimension to Acker's porno-anarcho prose becomes most explicit in The Adult Life of Toulouse-Lautrec, which begins by imagining the artist as a sex-starved, deformed woman. A murder plot sort of develops, to be solved by Hercule Poirot; van Gogh's daughter is actually Janis Joplin, who becomes the lover of James Dean. A profile of Henry Kissinger illustrates how society is corrupted, and individuals like Toulouse-Lautrec/Joplin/Dean suffer. A long political speech, full of half-digested left-wing notions, demonstrates America's decline into ``friendly fascism.'' All of which leads to the facile equation, dramatized in the last section, that the CIA and the Mob are like-minded institutions of repression. The sexual details of Henry Miller, the numbing prose cutups of William Burroughs, the relentless assault on the senses of thrash music--to point out the excess of Acker's entire enterprise only serves her sense of striking out against the bourgeoisie. But it is possible to understand exactly what she's trying to do, and still find it a worthless exercise. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st Grove Paperback Ed edition (December 18, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802135439
• ISBN-13: 978-0802135438
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #867,140 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Introduction to Acker, September 2, 1999

By 

Matthew L. Moffett - See all my reviews

This review is from: Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels (Acker, Kathy) (Paperback)

This is a wonderful introduction to Acker...to all the major themes, motifs and techniques she would continue to explore through the rest of her life. I've had trouble with her work in the past, but these 3 short novels pulled me into her mindset enough to get a handle on what she is about and made me want to re-read her later work. These works are highly experimental, using a fractured collage technique and jarring jump-cuts to new points of view, so they are not for the relaxing subway ride home. Also contains a high exploration of gender roles, sexual identity, sexual deviancy that is touching and thoughtful, but may insult or frighten more conservative readers.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I wouldn't begin here with Acker., January 1, 2003

By 

frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels (Acker, Kathy) (Paperback)

I'm afraid that had I read these novels first, I might have been too frightened to progress to the more mature novels (_Blood and Guts in High School_ is my favorite). Still, these books make thought-provoking reading.

For me, the least successful of the three was the _The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula by the Black Tarantula_. Call this one three stars. In BT, Acker takes scenes from the lives of famous murderesses and from pornographic novels and inserts herself into them. Interesting idea, but too much repetition. It felt too much like a formal experiment.

My favorite was _I Dreamt I was a Nymphomanic: Imagining_. I found it really sweet for Acker, although the chapters were a little too disjointed for comfort. For me, her best work tempers the anger with a kind of dreamy happiness, and this is one of her best works.

_The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec by Henri Toulouse Lautrec_ has been anthologized elsewhere. It's definitely worth a read (Lautrec as a lonely woman in a whorehouse) or a re-read if (like me) you'd read it before.

I got a lot more out of reading these early works having read the other novels. I could appreciate where she was going in a way that I'm not certain that I could have had I read them cold. Start with Blood and Guts or _Empire of the Senseless_ if you're an Acker newbie.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a journey into murder, sex, and gender, March 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Portrait of an Eye (Paperback)

Three stories which venture into madness, murderesses, and sex. One of the more sucessful parts develops when Acker interweaves her personal history and historical accounts of murderesses