(Imagine a wounded wolf howling, and then imagine that the sound – the howling – can generate similar, equally awful, wounds in those that hear: that is the experience of reading Eden Eden Eden.) There is beauty here, but there is also great, savage pain. You need to approach this as if it was the combination of an extraordinary piece of abstract art and a nail bomb. Saying that, to view Eden Eden Eden as a biographical work – to approach it as a way of attempting to understand what Guyotat does – is wrong, in my opinion. More importantly, Eden Eden Eden is viewed by those who know as a significantly biographical work, set as it is during the war between Algeria and France, a war in which Guyotat was held prisoner. Guyotat is, if nothing else, somewhat driven. During the writing of The Book and The Story of Samora Michel, he gave up eating, lost half his body weight and eventually had to be resuscitated from a near fatal coma. Guyotat has displayed his manuscripts (spunk encrusted telephone directories) in galleries throughout the world. As such, his sentences rarely include punctuation or follow straight grammatical rules, rolling on and ever on, dreamlike (or nightmarish), insistent, perplexing. Things you should know (and these things will arm you, these are things you require: think of what I am about to tell you as an enormous pair of boots to help you wade through the sickening morass of shit, spew, jism and mud here): Pierre Guyotat masturbates as he writes. You are appalled because – Christ – there is shit! – beneath your fingernails! You are appalled but you must know how that shit got there. This is the shit beneath your fingernails.

Eden eden eden by pierre guyotat