THE SUGAR FROSTED NUTSACK REVISITED
BOOKS FOR BIGOTS
One occasionally needs to rethink something that has earlier been thought. In this instance, it is my pronouncement that THE SUGAR FROSTED NUTSACK is a parody of modern life. Having come across some other thoughts, and being unsatisfied with the simple description as parody when referring to the book, I am revisiting the book.
This revisit does not reflect the view that, afterall, it is a book that would be read and cherished by Bigots. That is not relevant to this discussion. I recently came across a brief description of "postmodernism", a term that I have seen and read about and considered for a number of years without any understanding of what it signifies. What "postmodern" was, in the description I read included the following: "nonselection", "intentional indiscrimination", "logical impossibility", and "inclusivity".
Now these terms, in toto, do indeed describe THE SUGAR FROSTED NUTSACK which leads me to believe that the book is a serious effort to reflect the postmodern condition of life as it currently exists and as we experience it. However, I think, after further consideration, my description of the book as a parody is more correct than incorrect.
One can only see the world as Mark Leyner does as a grotesque parody of what life is or should be. A function of literature, a function lost on Bigots of all varieties, is the effort to make us think about the world in which we live. This THE SUGAR FROSTED NUTSACK has done. As I said earlier it is a difficult read with little context, no continuity except repetition, and a vast vocabulary with which to further make the reading of the material even more difficult. It is in fact a parody and if this is so, so is postmodernism. I am not a literary critic, but I do think that books are written not for literary critics but for people like me who read them for amusement, for understanding, out of boredom, or whatever reason that we have when we sit down with a book to read.
I'm usually reading several books at once, usually depending where I am in the house. In bed, I have THE PICKWICK PAPERS by Charles Dickens. This was the one novel of his I never got read during the years I was reading Dickens. I enjoy this book very much and find myself chuckling every few pages. The characters are enjoyable, the plot is enjoyable, the settings are interesting, and for us living currently, it is a history.
Why mention THE PICKWICK PAPERS along side THE SUGAR FROSTED NUTSACK? I mention them together in this context because it is relevant to the discussion of postmodernism so called. THE PICKWICK PAPERS reflects a world we can understand; THE SUGAR FROSTED NUTSACK reflects a world we can not understand unless we do actually view it as a parody of modern life.
Are our lives more accurately depicted by Leyner or Dickens? I want to think that our lives are more like the lives portrayed by Dickens, but in reality they may not be much different from what is shown us by Leyner and that thought is not a comforting one. Hopefully my life has more coherence, continuity, and meaning than what THE SUGAR FROSTED NUTSACK depicts, but again, I will have to give it some more thought.
Richard E H Phelps II
Mingo
