Jeff's Reviews > The Filth

The Filth by Grant Morrison
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did not like it

Thoughtless or immature readers too often mistake unintelligibility with profundity. That is, they assume that the harder a work is to understand, the more meritorious it must be. Rarely is this the case. True, myriad (rightly) canonical cultural products are notoriously difficult to consume—Ulysses, Absalom! Absalom!, etc.—but even a cursory overview of Western literature reveals that such works pose exceedingly rare cases, formal experiments that actually manage to justify themselves. Quite a bit more frequently, formal tinkering functions to obscure a lack of content: the author with little to say compensates by saying it in a non-standard way. He manufactures tension and purpose by messing around with the work's spatial or linear organization, withholding information in a blatantly unnecessary fashion, and otherwise flooding his product with flourishes and frivolities sufficient to consume and dazzle the novice consumer, and with luck to convince him that something is going on amidst all that clamorous nothing, and that that something is just beyond the reader's reach. Of this strategy The Filth is an exemplar. It's plot skates the line between non-existence and willful obfuscation. The conspicuous lack of background renders the dialogue infuriatingly meaningless. The wincingly clumsy meta-fictional overtures are never explained and so are reduced in the reader's eyes to target less gestures. But then again, the guy is wearing a clown wig, so The Filth must be good, right? No. The Filth is bad. Worse, it's sleazy—masturbatory nonsense that abuses the reader's good faith. If you haven't read The Filth, don't. If you have, stop essaying to define what is good is about it. It's an impossible task, and you only look foolish undertaking it.
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Reading Progress

Finished Reading
July 31, 2012 – Shelved

Comments Showing 1-4 of 4 (4 new)

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Astir I totally agree with your review. Morrison aims for gonzo transgression but delivers scattered juvenile ugliness.


Chuck Decay It is just a big clamorous nothing, that's why I liked it. I hope to never read another fucking comic ever again as a result, unless they are just as stupid as this one.


message 3: by Ill (new) - rated it 4 stars

Ill D Paragraphs are really cool!

And I wouldn't describe The Filth as, "masturbatory." It was one of Grant Morrison's first works. Perhaps the words "embryonic," or, "experimental," would be more accurate.


Char Lee  Sea Your critique reminds me of those experimental noise bands that lack any talent or originality, hoping that you will believe there is something genius in their music that you're just not hearing. Then there's the original "noise" bands that actually were geniuses. I eventually enjoyed the Invisibles (after an exhausting effort). But in hindsight, it may just be due to the constant referencing to everything I loved as a teenager. Robert Anton Wilson, Burroughs, Crowley, LSD, etc.. I don't want to think of Morrison as a pretentious, hipster, hack. But I can't really disagree with you're review.


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