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‘An indescribable joy always rushes out of great books, even when they speak of ugly, hopeless, or terrifying things.’ — Gilles Deleuze, quoted in ‘Assisted Living’
‘Assisted Living, by Nikanor Teratologen, was originally released in Sweden in 1991 under the title Äldreomsorgen i Övre Kågedalen (roughly translated: Caring for the Elderly in Upper Kage Valley). The book immediately caused an uproar, due in part to the book’s endless “Satanic” parade of rape, murder, sacrilege, bigotry, pedophilia, etc., but also the author’s use of a pseudonym, which led critics to accuse a wide array of major Swedish authors as the creator, including the now goofily popular Stieg Larsson. The result was not only instant-cult-classic and controversial bestselling status for the book, which later would be credited to the novelist Niclas Lundkvist, but also a slew of varying takes on the book’s content, both praising its wild innovations in the way of language and stylizing, and predictably defaming it for its utter lack of reverence, apology, or “humanity.”
‘But that kind of hype can be a load of bullshit in a world where anything that is remotely taboo without redemption can stir the whining not only of religious moralists, but also of those who think the novel, as a form, must wear its redemptive qualities on its face. Upon receiving a copy of the frequently compelling Dalkey Archive edition of an English translation of the novel, I was both excited at the possibilities and dismissive of anything referred to as “not for the faint of heart.” But indeed, if anyone is capable of using these taxonomies not only for their immediate prowess but for changing language and image at once in how they get invoked, it is the Swedes, as I’ve learned from many of their authors who have recently been translated to English, including Aase Berg, Johan Jönsson, and Johannes Göransson.
‘Teratologen’s particular manner in manipulating revulsive fields feels different, though, than even those. The book begins with two installed frameworks to give the book a clandestine, contraband-like feel, with both a preface from the author revealing his usage of the pseudonym as a mechanism rather than a shield (“A dear friend with exquisitely cruel tastes entrusted me with the text you now hold in your hands.”), followed by another foreword from said “dear friend,” who proceeds to explain how the body of the book to come had been derived from a child: a child the dear friend kidnapped, tortured, and killed before finding a stack of wallpaper samples in the boy’s belongings that detail a series of acts between the boy himself and a character known only as “Grandpa.” The opening structure evokes the feeling of the cloaked narrative tunnels of Dennis Cooper, arranging other screens around the reader always floating even as we proceed into the book’s primary body, where the true trauma begins.
‘Basically what happens hereafter is a nonstop stream of human cruelty. In scenes that span a single page to more than 30, we are held in the skull of the child as subject to Grandpa, who is one of the more memorably repugnant characters put on paper. He actually kind of makes the Judge from Blood Meridian look like a sweetheart in comparison. Grandpa fucks the kid incessantly, rants in endless streams of hate jargon meant to demean anything and everything at all, rapes and kills animals and children for fun, and so on. What makes this onslaught even sicker is the way it is related, in a playful, blown-up way, almost like a serial cartoon. The language rams together its subjects with the same impious banging as the described acts themselves.
‘A short list of the ilk of what can be found on pretty much every single page in Assisted Living:
1. On Grandpa having abducted two boys who’ve come by selling gingerbread: “When he was finished with their mouths, he told me to get him a fistful of steel wool. Then he started playing Open the Locked Door with the first kid. The other one curtsied and bowed to Hilding, but a knee to the face took his breath away. After that, Royal showed him how to smoke Sumatra cigarillos and Hilding forced the kid to kiss him down there.”
2. Grandpa fondly reminiscing about his Nazi lifestyle for a kid at the bus stop: “It was a raw February morning in the Whoregod’s year of 1945, and me and Dirlewanger were partying in the orphanage’s ruins. ‘You know that Himmer’s balls taste like Apricots, right?’ he asked.”
3. Grandpa asks the boy to say a prayer for his own “old Grandpa in hell”: “He who knows what a child is, fuck me because I’m small, wherever I go in this world, fill my hands with shit, Satan comes, Satan goes, he loves sheepdick, that’s all, I recited.”
4. Not all of the book is pure onslaught or sick jokes, however. The moments sometimes fold briefly to reveal an underside, though only crammed between the mass, such as here, where we find the central child left alone without Grandpa for a while: “Sometimes I play the quiet game… sometimes I play dead… sometimes I draw old geezers I’ve met and then I pretend I’m them… sometimes I lay on my back in a September field and listen to the earth hurtling though space… to victims shrieking at all the evil deed wrought upon them… then I try to sink into the light, soft, fluid grass and become a part of its mystery…”
‘It goes on and on like this, taking a historical and cultural shit and wallowing in it and spasming around in the most costume-party no-blinking parade of ways. The imagined last words of Jesus, fake literary histories appended with real ones, Axl Rose jokes, destroyed anatomies, gross contortions, confabulated smut literatures: it accrues such a mass so fast it doesn’t even feel like reading. One after another the blows come and before you have a chance to even think about the context the next idea is in your throat. It’s somehow almost… refreshing, in how it comes on. The pages of images and juxtaposing sounds are addictive in their composition and how they fold together, and the burning of the sentences is fun, which in some way masks the true filth of the scenes. It’s not an atrocity meant to be wallowed in, but somehow vacuumed of its own judgment in the presence of itself, which, stepped away from, makes it even more dangerous and deforming. And in its current, you are not released but almost mocked for how smoothly it unscrolls.
‘“He’s the world’s best Grandpa,” the boy tells us right at the beginning. No matter what Grandpa does or says to him, the boy remains faithful, ready, in love. The flapless stream of shit matched by the unjudged eye of both the boy and the decided tone soon take on a feeling much like some kind of hyper newsroom running through the reams of blinkless horror. There is no apology for what humans do, have done, will do. That power, and how it flows past, held in the pages of a book, makes Assisted Living much more than a shock totem or even a vicious catalog. It is, instead, an object both aware of its world and its own work, less like a mirror or a mural than the shitty part of the skin that itches when you want to sleep.’ — Blake Butler, Vice
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Further
Nikanor Teratologen @ Wikipedia
‘Assisted Living’ reviewed @ Publishers Weekly
Nikanor Teratologen @ Vertigo Press (Sweden)
‘Nikanor Teratologen – Att hata allt mänskligt liv’ @ NY Moral
Nikanor Teratologen page @ Facebook
Loyal Magazine #6, featuring work by NT
Buy ‘Assisted Living’ @ Dalkey Archive
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Extras 1
A short documentary about Nikanor Teratologen (in Swedish)
Ny Moral Radio: Teratologen
Tretton scener ur Nikanor Teratologens roman Äldreomsorgen i Övre Kågedalen.
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Extras 2
‘“Morfar suger Gud”. If you haven’t read Nikanor Teratologen’s Äldreomsorgen i övre Kågedalen, this will probably seem like an odd shirt to you. Then again, even if you have read it, it may still seem weird. Teratologen is very much the odd one out of Swedish authors, too weird for me even, I’ve only read Äldreomsorgen and left it at that. Others, like Indy (pictured here) hold him in very high regard. Maybe it’s just me not being intellectual enough, that wouldn’t surprise me much. Great shirt though, the way you need prior knowledge to understand it and even if you don’t, it’s still provocative. The design… well, we’ll let that slip for now.’ — Shirts of Satan
‘Long as ye can have others suffer, dere ain’t no reason killin’ yerself, Grandpa slobbered jovially. He was asittin’ dere in his rockin’ chair, crochetin’ a Confderence flag. ‘Ein Heldenleben’ was afadin’ out, an’ Larri Isokyrpä an’ Torsten Murkström were busy fadin’ out them as well, sayin’ their thanks for a good cheer. Grandpa had put som strychnine in that coffee, an’ I thought they might as well have it. Ye have to come up with some fresh fun’ an’ games when things go get tedious. Larri stayed with us a little longer, lookin’ me in the eye, jerkin’ his heid like a spastic and slobberin’ an’ shit, but so fuckin’ what, din’t help none. He was one bad ruffian of a dowser, any kids he could put his hands on he turned two noseholes into one. Now they were alyin’ dere lips all blueberry blue, an’ Grandpa put his bobbin’ an’ breezy slobberin’ aside an’ stepped up to them …’ — trans. Einar Heckscher, Strikte Observanz
Nikanor TERATOLOGEN is famous in Sweden for the much hated and much loved Äldreomsorgen i Övre Kågedalen book and other classics.
SIEBENSÜNDEN equals very obscure Swedish Sludge Core with members of WARCOLLAPSE, FARCIAL, DOM DÄR, COUNTERBLAST and TOLSHOCK. The band has been more or less (more less than more though, ehr…) active for over ten years and have released two full length albums up till the present day.
GLÄD DIG DU KRISTI LUDER / HERRENS DJURISKA NJUTNING with TERATOLOGEN’s acid-dripping and poignant lyrics accompanying the miserable audible sloth of SIEBENSÜNDEN’s can be seen as an answer to the “righteous” fanatic Christians new morality movement. Put simple it is guaranteed to give you a new angle on the subject of Christian sects and religious indoctrination. That is, if you know Swedish…if not you will still be able to lap up the slowly flowing audible bile which should be a feast for Sludge maniacs, Doomsters, miserable punks, Black Metal misfits and industrial psycho’s alike. The later listener category is also likely to be the ones most fascinated by the sound of SIEBENSUNDEN’s own home made instruments, while the BM aficionados will appreciate the extremely blasphemous message.
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Book
Nikanor Teratologen Assisted Living
Dalkey Archive
‘The Marquis de Sade is alive and well and living in Sweden — or perhaps author Nikanor Teratologen is the devil himself, sending the English-speaking world a Scandinavian squib to remind readers that such reassuring figures as vampires and serial killers are no more frightening than pixies or unicorns in light of the depravity contained in one quiet suburb. Reading like a deranged hybrid of Deliverance, Naked Lunch, and Tuesdays with Morrie, and rivaling The 120 Days of Sodom in its challenge to our assumptions as to what is acceptable (or not) in literature, Assisted Living presents us with a series of queasy anecdotes concerning an eleven-year-old boy and his grandfather, a monster for whom murder, violence, incest, drunkenness, and philosophy all pass as equally valid ways to spend one’s time. Whether it’s a study in excess, a parody of provincial proto-fascism, a clear-eyed look at evil, or simply a prodigious literary dare, Assisted Living is unlikely to leave you indifferent.’ — Dalkey Archive
Excerpt
Last summer I murdered an eleven year-old boy. He said his name was Helge Holmlund from Hebberhshålet in Upper Kågedalen, north Västerbotten. We met at an urinal in Tivoli just as Men’s Night was closing in on Children’s Day. He struck me as the quiet, frail type – and it was love at first sight. I took him home, and after he’d performed certain choice services, I tied him up and locked him in the soundproof cellar I use for these occasions.
—-For six whole days he gave me exquisite pleasure. After that, I hacked his body into small pieces, wrapped the meat in plastic, priced it and distributed the packages to a number of different display cases in and around Skellefteå.
—-I kept his head for my little collection.
While I was burning the boy’s clothes and other things, I found a hefty stack of old wallpaper samples tucked in his ratty leather backpack. Each sample was covered with a child’s erratic, immature hand, and the words were written with different colored pencils. As I made my way through a few of these fragments, words utterly failed me. A brave new world opened before my eyes – one of vile pleasures and terrifying abominations – with the power to touch me in ways I no longer thought possible. Chuckling at his impudence, weeping at his tender sentiment, trembling with sorrow, paralyzed by hate – I sorted these rough fragments and organized them into offensively seductive stories, each one presumably written by the dead boy.
—-My philological training proved extremely useful in tackling the difficulties posed by these unusually precocious recollections, which the boy had misleadingly entitled, In the Winter of Life. I also made discrete inquiries into the poor boy’s past, a quest that took me far off the beaten path and into the dark and looming Norrland woods, home to more terrifying legends than any one person can take in. I wandered on muddy paths through a rough landscape. On both sides of the Kågeälven, the dark river, the earth is fertile and the view open. I could see dirty gold barley fields, resilient swaths of hay pasture, run-down farms and hopeful new patches of almond potatoes, all stretching away before me; there were graying Västerbotten farmhouses in various states of decay, though clumps of willow trees and stands of birches tried to hide the worst of it. Each of these farmhouses is set well back from the road and has a long approach leading up to it. It’s obvious the folk in these parts want to know who’s coming; they keep to their own. Nonetheless, you can still find a few beautiful old Västerbotten farms scattered here and there: dark red timber buildings with white doors, small porches and shingled roofs. For the most part, though, faded brukshusen – practical farmhouses, each one identical to its neighbor – have taken over. The empty cow barns (which the locals call fusen) have long since been abandoned. Now they use silos. Around these parts, there’s a church for every ten homes. In short, everything’s so modest and respectable you just want to shout “Celebrate cruelty and cunning!” to the heavens. It’s only the old folks who are left out in the country, though in the loosely populated regions of Ersmark and Kusmark a few communities still try to scrape by: making condoms for Skega and crying buckets of tears outside the barred churches. Mystery has been driven from the forests surrounding the riverbeds. Winter in these parts is hard. Blizzards numb all human feelings; thought turns inward. During the long winter, people do their best to forget. Distance leeches all color from the valleys; it’s here the atmosphere changes. Spruces and pines cover both slopes and sorrows. A spiderweb of paths (leading nowhere) spreads throughout the forest. Everything’s condemned to be cut down and carted away. The trees are taller and darker here; their melancholy is stronger than life. The fact that the valley has no visible borders makes escape impossible.
—-Farther up, the scene remains unchanged. In fact, the character of the dell becomes even more pronounced where Kågedalen nears its end — until, finally, it becomes transcendental. A large power line running from Svartbyn in Norrbotten to Jälta in Ångermanland splits the countryside in half. The forest here draws close to the rugged dirt road; the same is true of the humble homes in the small villages. Every now and then you catch a glimpse of cultivated land: forest-clad ridges crisscrossed by brown swaths of clear-cutting; forgotten, outworn meadows — once worked, now overgrown — boldly marching down toward Hebbersbäcken’s shallow watercourse. At Slyberget this creek joins the northward-bound Kågeälven, before proceeding alongside the road to Bottenviken. In short, the landscape in Upper Kågedalen is nerve-wracking, bewitching, and pristine. People here aren’t too concerned with planting and harvest time; something else fills their minds. The observer is overwhelmed by the mood of sorrow, severity, and loneliness that pervades the atmosphere. The air here is clear, you see all too clearly, but the forest holds an eternal darkness. Human hands could never rob the countryside of its austere grandeur. The old people in these parts are cut from the same cloth. When the time comes, they hang themselves— silently, calmly, expertly — from the rafters of the abandoned cow barns. Grand gestures have no place here. No one even talks about it. What would be the point?
—-Naturally, I questioned the people in the villages of Upper Kågedalen under false pretenses. Still, they met this polite and scholarly stranger with silent gestures meant to ward him off; and, more often than not, with curses or the evil eye. I preferred concentrating on the shier old men — frail and soft, infant-voiced and doe-eyed— who, after a litany of stops and starts, would finally start rooting around in their own overwhelming oblivion and return with what they found there, which they would pronounce in voices like the newly weaned. Hebbersfors, Hebbersliden, Hebbersholm were all familiar. However, no one knew anything about Hebbershålet. People insisted they’d never heard of, much less met, an old man with a little grandson. It seemed Holger Holmlund was an unknown party. The same was true of Helge. Names from their circle of acquaintance likewise turned up nothing. In the end, banal reality threatened to bury myself and my fantasies beneath its everyday offal.
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*
p.s. Hey. ** jay, Hi, j. Interesting. In the States he’s way over the heads of conventional, boring types of readers. I have yet to find sufficient charm in the concept of EW’s last book to begin to think about trying it. Let me know. ‘Ada or Ardor’ is excellent. You’ve read Nabokov? That wouldn’t be the best place to start with him maybe. Screening went very well, thank you. May your week continue to proceed exhilaratingly. ** Dominik, Hi!!! The screening went really well, and the short trip was good. I finally decided I like Brussels after being kind of meh about it previously. And I did remember my bodily accoutrement. So, so, so nice to know that Hungary is free of that horrible fuck. It makes me want to dream for the US, but I fear it’ll be a while yet there. Do you have any thoughts of moving back there, or are you plenty happy enough in Vienna? Love not letting me run out of cigarettes before I finish the p.s., G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thrills galore about and for Leeds! How about dem apples? Ah, you managed to score the Sotos. I did not. Curses that it was made so briefly available while I was running around in Brussels. Sweet! ** Bill, Dorsky’s stuff is pretty dreamy. It seems like SF Cinematheque must screen his films sometimes. They’re best (and want to be seen) projected. “Paper films”, how interesting. I’ll definitely look into those. Thanks, Bill. ** ⋆˚꩜｡darbbzz⋆˚꩜｡, I had a piano in my bedroom when I was growing up. But it basically just sat there, and I used it as an eccentric looking table. If you haven’t seen the documentary ‘Sisters with Transistors’, I highly recommend it. Your studio transformation plans get a very bright green light from me. Is that enough time re: the guy? Yes, sure, absolutely. That’s a lot of time, I think. Wow, all the luck. I liked that video, but I want to look at it again when I’m not traveling, meaning asap. Fire hazard … well, you should be careful with your fires, yes. Nope, my curtains are tied open and I’ve never gotten close to them. ** Adem Berbic, I guess I’m lucky because I’m never tempted by very non-filter cigarettes. Brussels was nice. The architecture has this curious blend of French and Flemish, which I kind of got into. Good news about the dialogue acing. It’s a good skill. ** Laura, Hi. My pleasure on the Dorsky. I don’t know re: festivals’ resistance, but it’s certainly not uncommon. I think a lot of festival curators just watch the first 10 minutes or whatever of a film and decide, and our film doesn’t work that way at all. You don’t really know what it’s doing for about a half-hour minimum. Iow, it’s not just Spain. I never show anyone anything of mine until I’ve spent a lot of time finessing and refining it. If I didn’t, I’m sure my things would get blanks too. Trip was good. Screening went great. Saw a fantastic retrospective by the artist Lutz Bacher. Etc. I don’t know, you could read that biography of me, just know there are a number of inaccuracies. But there are more things I like about it than not. ** beaujolais, Hi. Okay, I should be here then. I mean on those July days. Yes, I know Connie. I met her in Chicago, and she commented here a few times. Yes, you could send me the manuscripts. I’m very slow though, but I will endeavour to read them before you’re there. There’s time. Cool. Enjoy the rest of your week for now. ** Steve, Mothers Days is definitely a melancholy occasion. Ha, no, but that activity in the walls would have made childhood even weirder. The Brussels screening went very well, thank you. ** Carsten, Brussels was a goodie, and the trip to and fro was swift. It looks like maybe your blog curse has lifted now? Hope so. Definitely give it the old college try. ** HaRpEr //, Hi. The screening was a really good one. There’s suddenly a new possibility for RT in London, but I’m not going to hope yet what with our luck’s track record. It’s nice once you have a publisher because it’s up to them to figure out how to ‘sell’ the work to the public, even though what they come up with can be mortifying. Well, yeah, the identity thing. Like with Zac’s and my films, we get rejected by the vast majority of queer festivals due the films’ not making queerness the films’ overarching theme, and, when they do program a film, the films tend to get their worst reactions there. Literally like people hating it because the cast were ‘cute’ but never even took off their shirts, which they found infuriating. ** Nicholas., If I remember right, most people are born in the morning. I wonder why that is. Great gifts! Keep them coming. ** Okay. Today: here’s a novel that’s pretty terrific and wild if you don’t already know it. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 