ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
Empire of the Senseless. Кэти Акер
Читать онлайн.Название Empire of the Senseless
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780802146571
Автор произведения Кэти Акер
Жанр Управление, подбор персонала
Издательство Ingram
WORKS BY KATHY ACKER PUBLISHED BY GROVE PRESS
Blood and Guts in High School
Don Quixote
Empire of the Senseless
Great Expectations
In Memoriam to Identity
Literal Madness
My Mother: Demonology
Portrait of an Eye
Rip-off Red, Girl Detective
Pussy, King of the Pirates
Essential Acker
EMPIRE of the SENSELESS_____________
Kathy Acker
Introduction by Alexandra Kleeman
Copyright © 1988 by Kathy Acker
Illustrations by Kathy Acker
Introduction copyright © 2018 by Alexandra Kleeman
Cover design by Becca Fox Design
Cover photograph © Michel Delsol
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].
THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
First Grove Atlantic edition: October 1988
This Grove Atlantic edition: May 2018
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 88-19154
ISBN 978-0-8021-2835-5
eISBN 978-0-8021-4657-1
Grove Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
18 19 20 21 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to my tattooist.
Table of Contents
Works by Kathy Acker Published by Grove Press
Introduction by Alexandra Kleeman
Elegy for the World of the Fathers
I Rape by the Father (Abhor through Thivai)
II Raise Us From the Dead (Thivai)
III In Honour of the Arabs (Abhor)
V Let Let the Algerians Take Over Paris (Abhor)
II The Beginning of Criminality /The Beginning of Morning (Abhor)
III On Becoming Algerian (Thivai)
I I Realize Something (Thivai)
“I make nothing new, create nothing: I’m a sort of mad journalist,”1 Kathy Acker wrote in 1989, on Empire of the Senseless, her fifth book from a major publisher and first venture into the realm of science fiction. At first glance, journalism seems an odd analogy for this work, an obscene and mind-bending saga set in the shadow of Reagan’s presidency and told from the alternating perspectives of Thivai, a pirate, and his intermittent lover, a half-human half-robot woman named Abhor. But even as the novel extends into a speculative near-future—where Paris has been overrun by Algerian rebels and the CIA conducts clandestine operations to turn this chaos to their strategic advantage—it remains insolently rooted in the world in which we belong, anchored by Acker’s stubborn commitment to rendering visible the sexist, racist, capitalistic, father-fucking societal ego of her time—and of our own. Kathy Acker is a muckraker in the original sense, one who dredges up the dirt and puts it on display to the delight and horror of the reading public.
“Knowing much information and not feeling anything doesn’t get you anywhere,” a terrorist tells Abhor early on. “The answer to your question is that democracy doesn’t get you anywhere.” As heterodox as Acker may be in form and structure, this novel is concerned with elemental political questions: How should