Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary

This edition comes with its own bookends: we have an introduction by Jeffrey Stahl (subject of Permanent Midnight) and an afterword by Sonic Youth noisemeister Thurston Moore. However, what will keep Paradoxia available in perpetuity (if at times only by swiping from the old man’s sock drawer) is the salacious, provocative kaleidoscope of porno-pathic remembrance of things past the pale that is the juicy meat of this mighty memoir. As easily as Lydia’s life moves from gritty New York to unexpected Florida to decadent New Orleans, the unfettered tales move from promiscuity to rough sex, chemical celebration to addiction afire, cocaine sodomy to Satanic pedophilia.

Stringing together the scandalously dirty laundry are brief mentions of show more Lydia Lunch’s career beginnings as performance artist, art-rocker, and filmmaker. The creamy confessional of this self-directed Justine opens with a Freudian exploration of the forging of the Lunch character in the crucible of childhood sexual abuse. This lays the foundation for her sexual predation, which appears resolved and dealt with in reflective retrospection by a more mature Lunch in the final chapter. (A hint of studied consideration by Lunch of her path may be reflected in the book’s title.) Along the way, she heightens aggressive sex for her own titillation and samples runaway teenage boys and thug street youths like chocolates from a box. The entire arc of the story is prose so purple as to be florid with the details and exhilaration of pre-AIDS, post-love selfish and sordid thrill-seeking. It is an impossible tale that was lustily lived and unabashedly told for the benefit of those who couldn’t, and perhaps shouldn’t.

[Also published on Ink19.com] show less

Paradoxia will leave you with dirt under your fingernails and a filthy film over your eyes. But if this book disgusted and horrified you by the third chapter and you pushed yourself to read on and finish the book, well, who is the disturbed one here? This book intends to make you feel these things. It's supposed to turn your stomach. Lydia wants to bring out emotions you never knew were there. She wants to see if you have the guts to finish this atrocity. And you did. So she wins. She got you. Sucker. You got caught in her web for a short time and she had her way with you. She hustles her ass off in this book and then hustles you, the reader because you couldn't help yourself but to read on. This book is a masterpiece in my eyes. Not a show more masterpiece in general but for what it is and what it's supposed to do. It succeeds. Of course it is embellished but she dares you, forces you to think about things you never imagined. Lydia Lunch says and does whatever the hell she wants. She doesn't let her damage control her, she takes full advantage of it. These are the things that make her a relevant artist. She is nobody's puppet. In today's world, every artist is somebody's puppet. And besides, this book is hilarious. show less

Bonne littérature punk, bien féministe, trash et que du sexe.
Pas passionnant, se lit vraiment comme un journal, et non comme un roman. Intéressant à lire.

Meh.