Shmutz

I found Schmutz by Felicia Berliner equal parts fascinating and disconcerting. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it per se - it made me deeply uncomfortable! - but I valued, admired, and appreciated it, and am glad it exists. It's unusual, clever, and provocative, both in the sexual sense and the thought-provoking one.

I finished it about a week ago, and what I remember most vividly is the stark contrast between the increasingly intense porn Raizl finds herself drawn to and the limits of her language and knowledge to describe what she's seeing and feeling. There's one scene where she's describing the men and women in her videos - in the most intensely sexual situations imaginable - in almost absurdly sexless geometric terms. There was something so guileless about her, but - as with many areas of her life - she's determined to understand.

Overall, this book was less funny and more complex than I'd expected based on the description; it resisted easy definitions or judgements. By the end, I genuinely wasn't sure what I wanted for Raizl - there's no obvious path forward, and frankly no real way for her to integrate the wildly disparate things she cares about into one life - but I was left just slightly more hopeful than fearful.

Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for my ARC.