Customer Reviews

I Spit on Your Graves

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you've read James M. Cain and David Goodis and Jim Thompson and Charles Williford and like the dark, tough-as-nails paperback original fiction of the forties and fifties, pick this up. It's a postwar Frenchman's take on the dark underside of America, a place he'd never been-- so his imaginary America is even more corrupt than the stuff the Americans were writing. It's sleazy "realism" (that is: fantasy), with all the teenaged girls panting nymphos and all the men racist pigs. The jargon is just "off" enough to raise a smile (though the translation is probably fine-- I read it in English), and the behavior of our "hero"-- a black man passing as white named Lee-- is completely reprehensible. He hates _everybody_. Due to the odd nature of its authorship and its aspirations, this is an entertaining read: not necessarily a good novel, but an intriguing and entertaining one.

When Jean d' Halluin first published I Spit On Your Graves in 1946, he was looking for a bestseller to kickstart his new imprint, Editions du Scorpion. Written by an African-American writer named Vernon Sullivan, the book was a visceral, often misogynistic, and (once it gets rolling) violent pulp novel offering a gritty commentary on racial injustice in the United States.

The plot centered on Lee Anderson, a light skinned black man seeking revenge for the murder of his brother at the hands of whites. Anderson, takes his revenge by infiltrating southern society as a white man (he has light skin and blond hair), bedding every white woman he can, and ultimately selecting two of those women to murder as payback for his brother's death. Despite being considered too controversial and subversive for U.S. publishers, the French public devoured the novel. By 1947, it outsold work by Sartre and Camus, giving d' Halluin the bestseller he craved.

That alone would've made for interesting literary history. But there was more to the story...

Vernon Sullivan never tried to have the book published in the United States.

Vernon Sullivan did not exist. I Spit On Your Graves was in fact written by a Frenchman. A white Frenchman. Said Frenchman had never actually visited the United States.

Then there was the law suit filed against the author by Cartel d'action sociale et morale, the same right wing organization that tried to censor the work of Henry Miller.

Last but not least, there was the grisly murder committed by a Parisian man who strangled his mistress. The authorities discovered a copy of I Spit On Your Graves at the scene of the crime with a part where Lee Anderson dispatches one of his victims circled.

Hence its bestseller status. Who didn't want to read the "murder book," as the introduction Marc Lapprand calls it?

And then of course, there was the bigger question: what if the book was not about racial injustice at all?

On the surface, I Spit On Your Graves is a pulpy, not expertly written tale of murder and sex. And upon first reading, I Spit On Your Graves comes across as that - a cheap pulp mystery, lacking only the cover illustration of a woman screaming, hands raised against her face, as an unseen stalker comes at her with a knife.

It is overflowing with graphic sex (for it's time) where Lee takes the female characters in every scenario imaginable (barring midgets and donkeys). At first one would take it as a sub-par Tropic of Cancer, except that the reader's knowledge of Lee's racial identity gives the book a taboo that is non-existent in Miller's novels. Lee gets his hands on every white woman he possibly can, and they are all to willing to be taken, even if they don't admit it at first (as is the case with Lou Asquith). As Lee relates early on in the story, "I had all the girls, one after the other, but it was a bit too easy, it turned my stomach." It comes off like a line from a 70s Blaxploitation film. And in many ways, I Spit On Your Graves reads like a Blaxploitation script. However, as the book goes on Lee flips from bragging of his conquests to being disgusted at how far he has sunk to achieve his revenge. He becomes increasingly sickened by his seduction of the Asquith girls and this drives him further towards the violent outcome.

And that is where the book starts to turn from pure pulp sadism and gratuitous sex into a more layered, psychological exploration. We know Lee is seeking revenge. We know he is going to kill. It is only a matter of time and the reader is forced to travel down the road, dragged further and further into Lee's madness, strapped in, unable to change the course.

Keep in mind, Vian was no pulp writer. He was a contemporary of Sartre and Camus, who wrote the incredibly well received Froth on the Daydream (also translated as Foam of the Daze). He was also a translator, poet, music, critic, and jazz musician who was close with Duke Ellington and Miles Davis.

In many ways, it is similar to Brett Easton Ellis' American Psycho, forcing you to see the world of the book through the eyes of a very twisted and violent narrator. We immediately find ourselves repulsed by the narrator's narcissism, their ruthlessness, and most importantly their penchant for extremely grisly acts. And yet, it is this grotesque, amped, psychotic, bloodthirsty humanity that captivates us.

I'm not the first person to make such a comparison between these two books. However, there is a major difference between them. Whereas Ellis was satirizing society, specifically the Reagan-worshipping stockbrokers of the 80s, Vian was going deeper - he was satirizing publishing and ultimately, the reader.

After all, sex and murder were rampant in novels published circa 1946. Both are still widely used as devices and plot points today. In fact, one could argue that both are necessary lynchpins of all modern literature. Sex and death is what it's all about.

The book is so overly violent and misogynist because Vian is parodying pulp writing, a form very prevalent in post-war France when he wrote I Spit On Your Graves. Like Swift's A Modest Proposal, it takes the argument to its fullest extreme, giving readers the ultimate in literary-noir: a story so extremely violent and disgusting to modern thinking that the reader can't put it down.

Much has been said about the social commentary perceived within I Spit On Your Graves. Of this one can look literally. Lee, a black man who's brother was murdered by whites, seeks revenge by wreaking havoc on white society. In the end however, without giving anything away, there is no justice for Lee. So it is easy to see I Spit On Your Graves as a biting commentary on racial injustice in America during the 20th Century.

But in many ways, Vian is still having his fun with us. After all, he's not trying to convince us that Lee is an unfortunate character of racial injustice that we should pity. He's getting us to hate Lee Anderson in spite of his quest for justice. After all, Vian's audience was white, educated, French society. And it is Lee's racial identity, his status as `black' that made (and still makes the book) so controversial. If Lee was a white man bedding a bunch of women and then murdering two of them, it would be a Harry Crews novel. Vian however spins the tables, serving up a tale of a violent, lustful black man out for revenge, one that horrifies and yet draws us in, convincing a repulsed and outraged public to keep on reading. Ultimately the joke is on us. We are thinking of racial injustice, clinging to the social message seemingly contained within the book, and yet it is the titillating bits - the sex and death - that keep us reading. Swift would've been proud.

It's the book I always advice to people who read too little or who don't like litterature. And at each time they like it very much. It's really easy to read, the style is quick and accurate. A lot of action, a bit of sex... with the Boris' style which is different as usual, it's the Vernon Sullivan style less intricate but just as good. Now it's not still censored so everyboby should take the opportunity to read it.

i have read this book in his original native language as well now as in english . Both are terrific . It reads well in english becasue it takes place in the US . Vian was underated ... 5 stars still underrates him

This book is one of most important mile stones in Boris Vian's literal life, and a must read for B.V. fans. The book is banned in many countries because of its direct approach to sexuality and racism. It is a short book and one may read it in couple of hrs, I recommend it to viewers. I dont want to state my personal thought about the book not to effect th readers about the book. My advice would be to read it and attain some knowledge about the life of the writer to have a structural thought for the book

Boris vian was the lightest spirit of the french thinkers. This book sarcastic to death can reveal such aspects of life and human behaviour that you remain breathless.

Im going to spare you all the pretense that this is a great book for its structure, narrative, theme, subtext, etc (the usual literature hype) its a classic book about a classic topic, REVENGE. A black man who can pass as white performs the horrid to correct the wrongs he has been dealt (and his brother). If you wanna read a psychological thriller then read this. The nay sayers seem to be under the assumption that there are more realistic books written about the topic or perhaps they themselves have published something better and see fit to rate it so poorly.

There are at least two mistakes on every page. These include mistakes with quotation marks, dashes, missing words and paragraph formatting. Find a different edition.

There isn't a whole lot to say about this book that hasn't been mentioned in previous reviews: It's about a black man who looks/poses as white to infiltrate a white town and avenge his brother by embarassing and killing two aristo-white girls.

The novel follows his narration from entering the town to socializing with the locals and preparing his revenge. I was surprised that I was not shocked, disturbed or offended by any of the content in this book, though I can certainly see how it would affect people the way that it did, particularly in the time when it was published. Vian, a staunch supporter of African American culture, as well as an acerbic cynic, was a huge fan of taking this sort of material and rubbing *Our* noses in it.

However, at this point I would dare say that the book is only mildly disarming and that anyone who has ever read anything by hardboiled authors such as (aforementioned) Jim Thompson, or Paul Cain, or beat poets like Bukowski, should not be offended by the text - at least on the surface. The language is simple and concise. The sex scenes included are just shy of explicit and the violence scarcely described.

The most frightening ingredient of the book is of course the implication it makes regarding racism and tolerance in American culture. The disgust towards black people indicated in the text is particularly raw. However, it is interesting to note at this point in the review that Vian had never set foot in America. Like Kafka and (now) von Trier, his perception of the American mindset is thusly a little skewed.

The borderline material in the book is incredibly ruined due to embarassingly poor editing, specifically in the formatting department. There are several simple grammatical errors involving quotation marks and the like, but the most glaring problems are present in line breaks and new paragraphs in the middle of a given sentence. These issues come to surface in the later half of the book and I found rather tedious. This sort of sloppy editting is inexcusable, particularly with something so simple.

This over-rated book doesn't have much going for it except controversy created by some French Puritans in the 1950's who called it "pornography" and had it banned, thereby fueling its popularity. It's rather tame by today's standards, and very outdated and silly, not to mention dull. Most of the writing style is flat, drawn out prose, an imitation of Jack Keroauc and 1940's film noir crime novels, which the author translated. I find most of the scenes incredulous and there's a lot of "sex" going on, which doesn't seem very plausible in the novel. It deals with a black man who actually looks white who goes on to plot some type of revenge against "whitey".