If you've heard anything about the German novel Wetlands, you've probably heard that it's grody. Despite not yet being released in the States (read the opening chapters here), it's already sold over a million copies worldwide, in no small part because of the buzz incited by the protagonist — an eighteen-year-old girl — eating her own boogers, pus, and menstrual blood; leaving used (homemade) tampons in hospital elevators; and describing in detail a penchant for sex during her monthlies or up the ass, giving her men the option of a "chocolate tip." (As Catherine Breillat, Melissa P., or Michel Houellebecq have shown, a good way to sell books in Europe is to be kinky, icky, or both.)
Then there's the frisson between the book's obscenity and the identity of its author: not a Bukowski-esque lowlife, but Charlotte Roche, a sprite-voiced thirty-year-old German TV personality. Part of the hubbub must come from the titillation of imagining a cute celebrity in such lurid HD.
Roche admits she tried to stretch the envelope of shock, and for those unfamiliar with Sade, she will probably succeed. Wetlands, predictably, has drawn a Mason/Dixon; one camp is outraged by its "filth" (but buying many copies), another thinks it a feminist manifesto (against the "purification" of women's bodies). In my opinion, both miss the fundamental humor underlying the book, and the fact that beneath all the poo and smegma there's a nice little story of a lonely, sad girl. As I discovered in talking to her, the most autobiographical elements of the story are emotional, not carnal, making it more than the mere provocation it may at first seem. — Jack Harrison
You have such a delightful accent.
Yes, everybody makes fun of me because of it.
My feelings about the book didn't seem that well represented in the press. To me it seemed playful, but people seem to be taking it very seriously.
I prefer people to say it's light and playful. Women tend to take it more seriously because it's about their bodies, all their hygiene pressure, etc. But my first German editor, one of the first men to read it, said that it's a "feel good" book.
If you read it in a very serious way, it's even more disgusting and difficult to cope with. But if from the beginning you try to see it in a light way, you can cope more easily with all the disgusting parts.
I don't think Hooksexup readers will feel the need to take it as a serious, serious political thing, because many of them already feel liberated the way Helen is liberated.
That's good. When people start calling it a feminist manifesto, then you can imagine women reading it in a very serious way, wondering, "What is she trying to tell us?" But writing the book for me was really funny, letting her go to all these forbidden places and do terrible things. It was great fun. I think the most disgusting parts are the funniest parts of the book.
That stuff is part of a literary tradition; I don't know if you intended it to be?
I don't read very much, but of course people told me it's like this or like that. There's been tons of literature about shit and farting and masturbating and bleeding; I just put it all together.
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