Wetlands [Paperback]

Charlotte Roche (Author), Tim Mohr (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 19, 2010

With her jaunty dissection of the sex life and the private grooming habits of the novel's 18-year-old narrator, Helen Memel, Charlotte Roche has turned the previously unspeakable into the national conversation in Germany. Since its debut in February, the novel ("Feuchtgebiete," in German) has sold more than 680,000 copies, and is the biggest selling book on Amazon anywhere in the world. The book is a headlong dash through every crevice and byproduct, physical and psychological, of its narrator's body and mind. It is difficult to overstate the raunchiness of the novel. Wetlands opens in a hospital room after an intimate shaving accident. It gives a detailed topography of Helen's hemorrhoids, continues into the subject of anal intercourse and only gains momentum from there, eventually reaching avocado pits as objects of female sexual satisfaction and - here is where the debate kicks in - just possibly female empowerment. Clearly the novel has struck a nerve, catching a wave of popular interest in renewing the debate over women's roles and image in society.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Roche's explicit and provocative debut about an 18-year-old girl with a very active sex life was a bona fide sensation in Germany upon its publication earlier this year. Helen Memel, hospitalized for the treatment of an infected anal lesion, spends much of the novel in the hospital scheming on how to reunite her divorced parents. Between visits by hospital staff and her family, Helen shares her vast sexual experience, details how she rebels against her mother's uptightness by reveling in excretions, and maintains a high level of curiosity about her own body (and, of course, others'). Among the graphic sex scenes and tidbits on her avocado tree–growing hobby, Helen dishes gnarly stories about leaving a used tampon in an elevator, dribbling a trail of urine from the bathroom to her bed and eating scabs. Through Helen's mix of eroticism and profanity, Memel attacks conventional views on women's hygiene, sexuality and the definition of femininity. Though there isn't much plot—it feels largely like a buffet of filth and screwing—Helen's take on life is enough to keep the pages turning. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'Profoundly unsettling' Rowan Pelling, Daily Mail 'If you ever wondered what you'd be like if you weren't shy, polite, tolerant, modest, sexually repressed, logical and constrained by modern standards of hygiene, this may be the book for you!This is not a beautiful or perfect book, but an enterprising one, and its cumulative effect is admirable!Our bodies mean a lot to us -- even the asshole, about which far too little has been written. Every writer needs to claim a bit of territory, and assholes are there for the grabbing. Boldly, Roche takes them for her own' Guardian '"Wetlands", in the tradition of Plath's "The Bell Jar", is a remarkable novel about mental illness that has been mistaken for feminist literature' Alice O'Keefe, New Statesman 'The cause of the fuss is the novel's extreme obscenity -- though "obscenity" doesn't quite catch the particular, pungent flavour of the thing. "Grunginess" is nearer the mark' Adam Lively, Sunday Times 'Literary news this week suggests that when it comes to women writing about sex, reviewers are still reacting in the same way as Dr Johnson to his walking dog, surprised that it's being done at all. So hats off to Charlotte Roche, who has managed to give both the "Sunday Times" and the "Guardian" the willies by cheerfully confessing to consuming pornography with her husband and starting her book "Wetlands" with a graphic discussion of hemorrhoids' Lisa Hilton, Spectator 'Maeve Binchy is famous for her unique humour and insight; Cecelia Ahern is popular for her unlikely twists and touches of magic; Charlotte Roche has a different formula for success -- haemorrhoids, hairy armpits and halitosis, mixed together into an unlikely erotic pot-pourri' Irish Independent 'Graphic, brutal scatological glimpse of one young woman's sexual proclivities!Helen celebrates shattering sexual and social taboos in a way others might only dream of' London Lite 'Carrying "Wetlands" around with me over the past few days, I have bumped into quite a few people who imagine, from all the publicity, that it is a steamy sex-romp of the type few of us can resist. But I have had to disappoint them. Steamy it may be, but the steam comes from something less attractive than sex; in a characteristic phrase, Roche describes the smell coming from her bowels as being "like warm pus mixed with diarrhoea and something acidic"' Craig Brown, Spectator 'As the furore surrounding the publication of "Wetlands" has shown, there's a very vocal segment of the population ready to accuse women who embrace pornography of some sort of treachery' The List --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; Reprint edition (January 19, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802144691
• ISBN-13: 978-0802144690
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #318,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Miller? Greer? Salinger? No. Maybe Palahniuk..., July 5, 2009

By 

mrs_somnambulist - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wetlands (Hardcover)

Billed as the female "Tropic of Cancer" , the modern "Female Eunuch", or even the teen girl's "Catcher in the Rye", the hype surrounding this "Wetlands" is a million times more titillating and infuriating than the book itself.

While it's notions of feminine hygiene and propriety seem ground-breaking to the uninitiated, they've been dealt with earlier (and sadly, with more empowerment) in the male-penned "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues or in a more artful manner in the works of Kathy Acker.

The main character is an emotionally damaged teen whose self-endangerment ( and the endangerment of others) is a "equal-and-opposite" style display of rebellion from her mother's hygiene fixation and whose sexual "freedom" serves to placate her feelings of detachment from her father and abandonment by both parents.
To borrow from the lexicon of the modern 18 year old; This is SO not the feminist manifesto so many make it out to be.

If gross-out stories a la Chuck Palahniuk amuse and entertain you, by all means pick this up.
It was a quick, funny read for what it was worth, however, don't make the mistake of heading into this with the idea that this is an important work, or even one that will be remembered in ten years.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sheesh....., March 16, 2010

By 

Danielle (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wetlands (Paperback)

I was excited about the prospect of a book like this - something I hadn't come across before. I am writing this review after having read only 1/3 of it before losing interest. You pick up your novel night after night because you want to know what will happen next. Yes, this is a character study more than than story, but a girl in hopsital after a butt operation relaying gross stories for the sake of grossness, just doesnt cut it.

At first it's quirky, then it's just silly. She eats her snot. Eats her scabs. Sucks on the left overs on her knickers. She drops tampons she is using on the dirty floor, with the intention of it getting dirty, then re-uses it. I'm sorry but you REALLY need more than that stuff to round out a character.

I'm sure the author would be delighted to read the reviews. It really seems like the whole purpose of this book was just to shock and create controversy rather than produce a meaningful or insightful piece. And for anyone who wrote that they were hoping this book was an insight into the female mind, OH PLEASE. Come on.

You should read a few pages of this book before buying it to make sure you can handle/ will enjoy the contents. You won't have to dig very far to discover the flavour of the book. Might suit male readers more... I'm not sure.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a refreshing look at all the most taboo parts of normal human experience, January 3, 2010

By 

Diana S. Fleischman "evolutionary psychologist" (London, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wetlands (Hardcover)

As someone who studies the psychology of disgust this book was recommended to me by a colleague. It is a startlingly refreshing book that engages with subjects that I have never seen so well described before. This book takes an unflinching look at so many things which make human beings uncomfortable, disgusted, ashamed, embarrassed and aroused. The reader is put inside the mind of a young woman who is totally comfortable and even fascinated with all of her body's secretions and manifestations. Thus the book forges a deep intimacy with the main character but also will make a self-reflective reader analyze their own responses and attitudes towards the most private, mundane and animalistic aspects of human beings. This book is not amazing because it deals with anything extraordinary or has a complex plot or character development but because it handles so comprehensively taboo subjects that are at their heart a totally normal part of the human experience.