wetlands - Jezebel

posts about #wetlands more →
Times Reviewer: Wetlands Not That Original
On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
Feminism Is Loving Your Fragrant Ladyflower
Somebody's Getting Their Lands Wet
Sexual Taboo-Busting German Novelist Inspired By Douches. Literally.

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budholly101
04/20/09

In reply to Times Reviewer: Wetlands Not That Original
I read it on the way home from a vacation last week - I don't think it was meant to be erotic, at least I certainly didn't find it to be. The gross out factor was pretty high, and some passages were cringe-inducing, but I have to say, I enjoyed it. In the end, it's basically a story about a girl who deals with a traumatic event in her childhood in a very bizarre way. If anybody's curious, PM me and I'll be happy to give you the cliff notes version and allow you to avoid the extraneous gore, the core idea of it is sort of sweet/sad/funny and it's sort of a shame that it's been hidden under all the sensationalism (though obviously that's what sold so many copies).
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rocknrollunicorn
04/20/09

In reply to Times Reviewer: Wetlands Not That Original
I really would not classify this as erotica. AT ALL. And I will probably read it. And I occasionally read erotica.
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jemandtheholograms
04/20/09

In reply to Times Reviewer: Wetlands Not That Original
that was the least erotic book review i have ever read. i think i could more easily get off to a chemistry textbook.
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Lilah
04/20/09

@jemandtheholograms: Hey, if you're imaginative you probably could. Fluids. Melting points. There's something there.
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jemandtheholograms
04/20/09

@Lilah: those electron clouds are pretty sexy.
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anonanimal
04/20/09

@jemandtheholograms: I read it too, and it was definitely not erotic.
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MarissaExplainsItAll
04/20/09

In reply to Times Reviewer: Wetlands Not That Original
I think that "Wetlands" is the literary version of Cosmopolitan, only shocking to 15 year old girls. By the time your out of high school, it's either meh or yeah right, not happening.
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PhDork
04/20/09

In reply to Times Reviewer: Wetlands Not That Original
I didn't think it was meant to be erotica...
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mariamariamaria
04/07/09

In reply to On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
I'll accept Wetlands as a little feminist (and not just juvenile and gross) if my enjoyment of and delight in being clean is not seen as unfeminist.
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Aesop's Foibles. YES.
04/07/09

In reply to On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
Filth is filth, it has nothing to do with being a feminist whatsoever. Trying to out-gross the guys is nothing other than childish and vulgar competition. If any of this is actually true, I feel bad for this woman for trying so hard to make a point. Yeah, bodies-both male and female- can do some pretty disgusting things. We've all figured that out by now. I don't really see much point other than shock value here. If you want to be dirty, great, go for it. But it's ridiculous to try and pass it off as feminist. Sure, women are "supposed" to be all pure and spotless and all, and yeah, it's not really like that. We all get ass-pimples once in a while. I just don't happen to think publicly acknowledging-in great detail- the existence of the occasional ass-pimple makes one a bastion of feminist-ness. It means you're honest and not at all ashamed of yourself, and that's great.

I'm going to go to the can and dry heave for a while.
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lurkerbynature
04/07/09

In reply to On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
Second time trying to post, so if there's a similar post by me already up, sorry.

I'm glad that there are places like Jezebel where we can discuss our bodies and sex in honest detail. This book, however, sounds like it's a bull's-eye for one of my pet peeves. When will "artists" of various types finally figure out that there is nothing new or edgy about shit, piss, sex, or innards?

[research.uvu.edu]

"I haue etun a dyschfull of curdys, / Ande I haue schetun yowr mowth full of turdys."

" Yt ys wretyn wyth a colle, yt ys wretyn wyth a colle,/ He þat schytyth wyth hys hoyll, he þat schytyth wyth hys hoyll,/ But he wyppe hys ars clen, but he wyppe hys ars clen,/ On hys breche yt xall be sen, on hys breche yt xall be sen"

I'm getting more and more tempted to buy one of those replica medieval pilgrimage badges with the walking vulva wearing a hat.

[www.medievalbadges.org]
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nessalicious
04/07/09

@lurkerbynature: Ah! My eyes, what is that? Medieval English? It looks like a disenvowled comment!
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rocknrollunicorn
04/07/09

In reply to On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
Sigh. So many of these comments are trying to dictate how gross the author should have been, or point out where Helen goes too far. Why?

First of all, I'm not accepting the "this is not art, this is shock schlock" from anyone who hasn't read the novel. I haven't read it. I'll decide if it's well-written if and when I do, and I don't plan to do that totally based on the content.

Now back to how gross the author should have gotten. I mean, why do your standards have to apply? Sure, you wouldn't wipe your vadge all over a public restroom. The limits of your gross behaviors aren't the rule, you know. I'm sure some people do it. Personally, I'd rather hear that story than read about someone who daintily lays TP all over the bowl before sitting.

And let's not pretend we haven't all done some weird shit (probably in our teens) just because we could, in privacy. And no, I'm not sharing which, if any, of Helen's exploits I've shared :)
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Remedios Varo can't see no huevos.
04/07/09

In reply to On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
I think by Helen Memel you meant Divine and by The Wetlands you meant Pink Flamingos.
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counterclockwise's using her promoting-power for good
04/07/09

In reply to On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
As someone who read this book when it came out in Germany:

DON'T BUY IT!

It's boring and badly written.
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nessalicious
04/07/09

In reply to On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
Um hi, I've read Wetlands!

There is a plot, albeit one which needed a lot more exploring and could have been very interesting were it not for the totally gross descriptions every 2 seconds. In fact the subplot deals with divorce, abandonment, growing up, all sorts of interesting things. It's a shame Roche didn't make the writing in her book smaller, and the story larger because it could be a real stand out work.

Also there are grosser bits. Seriously. One moment made me, someone who reads about serial killers and STDs when they are bored, wince so much and then gag. Gag so hard I tasted sick. Honest. It crossed the line of everything and I felt horrified.

And finally the ending (WHICH I WILL NOT GIVE AWAY) was SO completely, 100% un-feminist that personally I think it negates any of the 'power' of the book. Think being rescued by a knight in shining white armour. Yeah.
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electricbubbles
04/07/09

@nessalicious: I just wikipedia'ed the plot and was HORRIFIED.

Not only does the main character have (to me) a thinly veiled need to stick EVERYTHING in her vagina, but then I read the ending and was just dumbfounded. Because nothing says "I'm happy with myself" then finding you a MAN.
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nessalicious
04/07/09

@electricbubbles: It is pretty obsessed with sticking stuff up her vagina yes but argh the ending pissed me off so bad! I'd sat through tampon swapping, blood, 'ass piss', smegma, all of that, just to have her be rescued by a man? It's the first non second hand book I've bought this year and I wanted to burn the damn thing.
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Pizza!Pizza!Pizza!
04/07/09

@..now it's just Aesop's Foibles.: Where does she pass it off as feminist? I'm not doubting it, but enough people are saying this - so can I see a link or something?
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megscissorhands
04/07/09

In reply to On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
and if you read the blurb on the cover of the book very, very closely, you will see that a critic compares it to Catcher in the Rye. Which I believe is sign 10 of the impending apocalypse.

GET OFF J.D. SALINGER'S LAWN!!!1111!!11!
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Eriu
04/07/09

@megscissorhands: I so very much wish I did not read this comment. She's only a writer in the most basic sense of the word. Any literate person can physically put words on paper. Maybe I'm a snob, but that doesn't make you a writer, and especially not a writer worthy of comparison to Salinger. THIS infuriates me infinitely more than the claims of feminism, honestly.
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Eriu
04/07/09

@Eriu: I should mention, part of my claiming she's not a writer is based on the fact that she has never written before. People who just up and decide they want to write a book when they have never shown any interest or dedication in writing before irk me to no end.
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megscissorhands
04/07/09

@Eriu: I feel you. On the one hand, I hate it when people get all ivory-tower-lofty about writing, but that's fairly well-balanced by the ire I feel towards the Janet Evanovitvh's and Sophie Kinsella's of the world. This gross book may very well have merit in its own right, but let's please not compare it to THE quintessential coming-of-age story.
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rocknrollunicorn
04/07/09

@Eriu: Really? You have to devote a certain amount of time to writing throughout your life to be a writer?

She sat down and wrote a book. I don't know, that to me is being a writer.
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Eriu
04/07/09

@rocknrollunicorn: Many people would agree with you. And as I said, yes, she is a writer in the most basic sense of the word, as you also described. But as someone who majored in writing, who can imagine doing nothing else in life, who lives and breathes it as all of my other writerly friends do, I have a severe aversion to this idea that many people have that it doesn't take practice and dedication and passion; that anyone can just sit down and put words together and sell it. This woman is a performance artist making a scene and using writing to do so. So, yes, essentially my point is sitting down and writing a book doesn't necessarily make you a writer. It's not even because her book is poorly written. I think Danielle Steele's books are poorly written, but she's still a writer in my opinion. It is what she does, what's important to her, what she's passionate about. I've played baseball, but that doesn't make me a baseball player.
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rocknrollunicorn
04/07/09

@Eriu: I guess I just see this idea as somewhat elitist. I mean, I'm not going to say that getting into/making it through school was at all easy for you, but not everyone has an opportunity to make writing the focus of their life.

I mean I don't really know this particular author's details, but I'm really averse to thinking that a)you have to put in your hours or b)you can't develop into a writer at any point in your life. Or even that you need to consistently engage in a specific form of writing (i.e. creative).

Agreed on Steele, however. Even if her books aren't great, that woman writes
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Eriu
04/07/09

@rocknrollunicorn: Well, I admitted that it's snobby (so, yes, elitist too.) However, I think you're taking my point somewhere on your own. I didn't say either of these things: a)you have to put in your hours or b)you can't develop into a writer at any point in your life. Nor do I think that my going to school for it, which is absolutely a privilege, makes me more of a writer than someone who may have happened to go to school for Finance or not gone to school at all if writing is important to them. I don't even think it's about time. I work as a writer now, but not 100% creative, and don't have time to write all the time, not nearly as much as I wish I could. It's about passion. My senior year of college, a bunch of friends were at a bar and one of them, a business major, asked the group what they would do if they won a million dollars, or whatever the sum was. And people had all kinds of answers, from what they'd buy to what difficult careers they'd try to pursue (modeling, rock star) that aren't practical when you don't have the money to fall back on, and both me and my best friend had the same answer: we'd write. Use the money to cover our basic needs, and write. That's what I'm talking about.
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rocknrollunicorn
04/07/09

@Eriu: Ah, ok I arrived at a and b because nothing I've read about this author indicates she doesn't plan to keep writing, or never wrote before -- just that, basically, some of it is autobiographical,and that she was in a band and stuff.
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rocknrollunicorn
04/07/09

@rocknrollunicorn: whoops didn't mean to post that yet. Anyway, I guess I'm seeing a blurry line and a difficult distinction here.
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stoprobbers
04/07/09

In reply to On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
Damn, Anna N. Way to take one for the team...
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tscheese
04/07/09

In reply to On Grossness: Wetlands Tries To Make Filth A Feminist Issue
You know, I was thinking about Moe's terrifying Tampon Incident and Sadie's harrowing OMGarlic Encounter, and I was wondering why those pieces seemed so much more...well, constructive than this. (I'm not sure if that's the best term, but I'm going to try to go with it.) All of the tales are extraordinary and involve stuff in vaginas. All of the stories involve scents, textures, and methods that are...definitely out of the realm of most peoples' experiences.

And that's just it. Being a woman involves a lot of stuff that hitherto was seen as "weird" because "nice girls" don't talk about "down there." Vaginas need to be written about. They need to be seen as normal. They produce fluids and smells. That's what they do: they're vaginas. But Moe and Sadie weren't actively trying to fuck their shit up. They were dealing with forgotten tampons and yeast infection cures; they were trying to rectify situations in which something WASN'T the norm.

I think that's why Moe and Sadie's pieces resonated a lot more with me. They were writing about their experiences because they had a forum in which it was possible for women to share their embarrassing/harrowing vagina scare stories, and laugh it off and feel better about it all. Wetlands seems to only exist to be gross.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Just pontificating. Again. As usual.
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BrutallyHonestBabes (aka Mrs. Sarah.of.a.Lesser.Hobbit)
04/07/09

@tscheese: You hit the nail on the head, sister.
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rocknrollunicorn
04/07/09

@tscheese: @luxylux: Yeah, I think I'd have to re-read Moe's posting but if I recall, it involved a bit of irresponsibility. Which is FINE. Because it's real. Not saying this book is real, I think it's intentionally extreme, but... well, fuck it. The comments are starting to make me feel like a real weirdo.

I think maybe reading the book would make me feel less so.
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