GEEK LOVE
Katherine Dunn
1989
Vintage Books
Ms. Hen had read GEEK LOVE previously, many years ago when she
was a young graduate student. She was reminded of how much she loved GEEK LOVE
when she read WATER FOR ELEPHANTS recently, which is about a circus. GEEK LOVE
is about a carnival, and even though there are many similarities between the
two novels, there are many differences as well.
This novel is about a family of carnival freaks. Their
parents, Crystal Lil and Big Al, decided to experiment with their unborn
children because the carnival wasn’t doing so well. Crystal Lil ingested drugs
while she was pregnant so she would give birth to abnormal children. The first
to survive is Arturo or Arty the Aqua Boy, a fish-like creature. The
next to survive are the Siamese twins, Iphy and Elly, who develop an act
playing the piano with four hands. The third is Olympia, the novel's narrator, an albino hunchbacked
dwarf, and she isn’t really freakish enough for the family, but since they lost so
many children, they decided to keep her. The next, and last child is
Fortunato, commonly known as
Chick; he appears to be completely normal, but has psychic powers.
When Ms. Hen first read this novel, she was struck by how
the drama escalated. The reader is brought into a strange world, and it’s acceptable
that this world is freaky, but then it gets stranger and stranger and stranger,
until it explodes. Ms. Hen thinks this novel is a great example of how to
create a bizarre world, then to heighten the drama.
This time, when she read GEEK LOVE, she noticed how the
novel talks a lot about beauty, and whether or not it’s necessary, and if a
beautiful woman is hindered by her looks, if it’s possible that could
prevent her from being a success in life. Between Arty’s show, transforming people
into freaks, and Miss Lick, taking attractiveness away from women, Ms. Hen stopped to
think about what it truly means to look beautiful and normal, and how it affects
a person’s life. Ms. Hen appears to be a normal hen, but deep inside she is not
a norm. Ms. Hen likes to look normal, but she doesn’t know what it’s like to be
damaged on the outside.
Ms. Hen remembered before she reread this novel that the
word “geek” means biting off the heads of live chickens. She is frightened by
this, but fascinated at the same time. There are several mentions of chickens
and hens in this novel, especially due to the meaning of the word geek. Crystal
Lil was a talented geek in her day, but Al didn’t want her to ruin her teeth,
even though he thought an attractive geek would be an asset to the show. He
considered other people for geeks, “I couldn’t ask Horst the Cat Man, because
he was a vegetarian to begin with, and his dentures would disintegrate the
first time the hit a chicken neck anyhow.” It makes Ms. Hen sad to imagine
chickens being eaten alive, but she knows they’re eaten many different ways,
and it’s a carnival, so it makes the process more magical than disgusting.
One of the wonderful aspects of this novel is the language
in which it is written. The narrator has a unique voice, and when Ms. Hen read
this, she knew she was reading a writer who is a master. Ms. Hen
recommends GEEK LOVE for your Halloween haunting reading, or anytime to escape into a dark, mysterious, humorous and unique world.
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