Book Review #16: "Paradise Rot" by Jenny Hval

On the rise of repulsive literature and why there is so much pee.

A few months ago, I finally got around to reading Paradise Rot (2018) by Jenny Hval. The plot follows Jo, a Norwegian student attending university in Aybourne, a foggy, fictional town in the UK. After some time spent in a hostel, Jo finds lodging in a repurposed brewery. Inside, the plasterboard walls are flimsy, barely creating even the illusion of privacy. Then there’s the matter of her flatmate Carral. Carral is older, has no respect for boundaries, and leaves fruit and trash to rot throughout their home. Jo finds herself drawn by Carral–intoxicated by their boundary-less space and relationship. The story is a queer awakening told through magical realism and bodily fluids. To quote Carral, “It’s not scary, just different” (Hval 27). While the ending fell a little flat for me, these moments of collision between reality and imagination, normalcy and repulsion, disgust and desire, have lingered in my mind. I admit I had trouble reading certain parts–especially on public transit–and, not a few times, asked myself why there was so much pee. As I’ve ruminated more on the book, I have come closer to answering this question and, more broadly, uncovering the role of disgust in the novella.

Paradise Rot is one of several books I’ve read recently that I’d describe as “repulsive.” Others include Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh, Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, and Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica. Repulsive books, especially those centered on women, are on the rise. Moshfegh, in particular, seems only to write stories with repulsive women. In 2019, Hillary Kelly called this genre “repulsive realism” in Vulture Magazine. Sascha Harvey, a reviewer for The Sunflower, added Paradise Rot to a list of “disturbing books.” While I can’t say definitively why repulsive or disturbing books have grown so popular in the last few years, I think it could be tied to a number of factors. Chief among these is that making feminine bodies disgusting or disturbing can be a form of liberation from gender norms.These repulsive stories allow us to safely engage with the fantasy of thwarting these norms without having to do so in our real lives. Finally, in a world that has experienced (and is still experiencing) a global pandemic, perhaps dabbling in the putrid and repugnant is cathartic. It is a break from sterility and isolation–although it seems we’ve already moved past these expectations as a society.

Repulsion is visceral. Rather than simply an emotion, it indicates action–a physical, prelingual manifestation of disgust. Repulsion begets gagging, dry heaving, recoiling, vomiting, turning away, tossing a book across the room, fleeing from the scene. It is a key experience of abjection, a concept at the center of Paradise Rot.

In “Approaching Abjection,” the opening essay of The Powers of Horror (1980), psychoanalyst and literary critic Julia Kristeva describes the abject as a lack, a non-object that exists outside of society’s symbolic order. Having some idea of what Kristeva means by the abject is key to understanding the “repulsion” in Hval’s book. While the Financial Times described Paradise Rot as containing an “uncanny otherness” (a decidedly Freudian term)¹, the repressed nature of the uncanny is not quite accurate for describing the abject. Rather than repressed and, therefore, buried inside the self, the abject is what is purged when we form our identities as a singular self. According to Jacques Lacan, whose theory serves as a framework for Kristeva, at the point of psychosexual maturity, a child experiences a kind of break in unity–a separation from the mother that allows them to develop the self. It represents the distinction made between self and other–subject and object.

In establishing this distinction and, thus fully forming one’s identity, one also creates a void that they can never again access– a loss, a lack that can never be filled. Lacan refers to this void as the Real. Using this theory, Kristeva argues that the abject is the embodiment of the Real–those concepts that we purged in order to create ourselves. Not only is this the separation between child and parent, but the separation from those things that challenge the organization of normative social order–things that would hinder the development of the self within our given symbolic system.

Kristeva describes abjection this way: “Loathing an item of food, a piece of filth, waste, or dung. The spasms and vomiting that protect me. The repugnance, the retching that thrusts me to the side and turns me away from defilement, sewage, and muck. The shame of compromise, of being in the middle of treachery. The fascinated start that leads me toward and separates me from them” (152). The experience of abjection is the guttural reaction to confronting this purged thing, to facing the breakdown between the distinction of self and other. Notably, the abject incites repulsion and disgust while also inspiring fascination. This fascination is in direct relation to the abject’s capacity to break down meaning. Kristeva writes that the abject is “what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules” (Kristeva 154). As much as it disturbs us, the abject also draws us in through this breakdown, facing us with the constructed nature of our reality.

In Paradise Rot, women’s bodies are moved from that of objective (and objectified) reality to a realm of impossibility and repulsion–a place that exists prior to the symbolic order (Modules). As the story progresses Jo and Carral are increasingly primed to inhabit the abject space of the lack (as symbolized by the old brewery). The longer Jo lives in the brewery, the harder it is for both her and the reader to parse fantasy from reality. Instead, they collide–representing “the place where meaning collapses” (Kristeva 151). The rot of the brewery is also physically manifested. It is fungal, taking the form of tiny mushrooms peeking through bathroom tile and of old apples leaking their juices into the brewery’s crevices. Urine, which is a recurring symbol, generates a sense of unclean moisture. Moisture dispelled from the body, evacuated. Moisture that soaks into the brewery’s walls, transforming it into a new world. It is no mistake, either, that beer is a fermented, amber liquid that intoxicates the body. I would argue that urine symbolizes the “eruption of the Real” that exists for both the reader and the characters in the story.

Before Jo ever enters the old brewery, urine introduces abjection. Catching her reflection in a mirror as she pees, Jo muses, “Now it reflected my belly and hips, and I stood there like a man and unzipped my trousers with my front facing the toilet bowl. It felt almost strange not to have a dick to pull out through my fly. When I rolled my jeans and pants down my thighs, the dark triangle of pubic hair looked strangely empty, like a half finished sketch. I turned around, sat down on the toilet seat and looked down between my legs, where a thin stream of urine trickled into the bowl. The dirty-white porcelain was tinged with acrid yellow. Almost a shame to flush away all that colour” (Hval 3). Various signals of the abject are present in this early scene, however it is the reader that experiences disgust instead of Jo. Most obvious, of course, is that it depicts the act of peeing. When reading or watching fiction, bodily excrement is rarely described. We all know that it must happen, but it’s not included unless it explicitly drives the plot. As the viewer, we accept this as part of the story’s reality, its symbolic system, and engage without issue. While Kristeva uses the corpse as a key example of the abject because it faces us with the fact of our mortality and, therefore, makes us question the symbolic system that dictates our selves and lives, corpses are more or less expected in narrative. Although there are certainly ways to write about corpses that would incite feelings of repulsion, it is more likely that you will encounter a non-abject corpse than someone peeing in fiction. This familiarity with the depiction of the corpse helps adapt it to the symbolic order and, thus, limits its ability to cause abjection. Pee is more taboo² and the recoiled discomfort I felt in reading this scene ties into Kristeva’s belief that “body fluids, this defilement, this shit are what life withstands, hardly and with difficulty, on the part of death. There, [we are] at the border of [our] condition[s] as living being[s]” (Kristeva 153).

While there are often mirrors in bathrooms, they don’t usually reflect the toilet. The mirror’s odd placement causes Jo to face her “bodily fluids” and, in turn, “the border of her condition.” In watching herself, her body becomes a separate entity from her–a kind of other. In fact, the mirror’s presence encourages a performance of gender. Jo unzips her pants, standing “like a man.” However, this performance goes beyond pantomime. Rather than a simple musing, it causes Jo to feel a strange lack. The absence of a penis seems unnatural. The objectivity of the body, that its sex organs directly translate to our sense of self as gendered, comes into question. Jo highlights this point, comparing her own “front” to an unfinished sketch. The unfinished-ness of her body suggests a lack, but one that is distinct from the Lacanian Real or Kristevan abject. Instead of purged, it is as if the penis was forgotten or left out. While Jo’s thoughts are not directly about death, they signal a malleability of the body that is tied to its fragility. Notably, the mirror’s presence also makes Jo think of masturbation. The combination of desire and disgust builds throughout the book, especially in Jo’s odd relationship with Carral. It also reflects the siren call of the abject, how it draws us in.

The scene ends not with the mirror, but with pee. Jo describes the toilet bowl as “dirty-white” and her pee an “acrid” yellow, both suggesting a sense of displeasure and disgust. However, as with the abject, Jo simultaneously feels an affinity for her pee, disappointed to lose the color. Not only does this foreshadow her journey toward the abject space, but her relationship with Carral who wears a “tight pastel-yellow wool jumper that almost matche[s] her pale yellow-white skin” and “yellow curls” (Hval 26).

As the embodiment of pee, Carral is also the embodiment of the brewery–the abject with which Jo is faced. Once she moves in, Jo becomes aware of all kinds of liquid: the foam produced from biting into an apple, various kinds of milk³, her professor’s spit, and the dried pages in a book. Abjection moves from the toilet bowl to the bulk of her environment. The breakdown of meaning begins in earnest.

While it is difficult to choose a single example that shows this breakdown, I will do my best. As the story progresses, Carral and Jo grow closer. Carral often sleeps in Jo’s bed as a source of comfort, further manipulating Jo’s perspective and turning the world into something less tangible. In a chapter aptly named “The Brewery,” Jo awakens to find Carral missing from her bed. She says, “There was no trace of her, as if she’d never joined me up here at all” (Hval 67). Carral’s presence, or lack thereof, marks a moment of confused fantasy that transforms the old brewery. Jo blasts music through her headphones, trying to “push Carral out of [her] head” and begins to think of the brewery as a church with strange melodies, giving her a “sense of space and grandeur” that is “almost dizzying” (Hval 67). As the music fades, Jo is “surrounded by plasterboard and bricks and [feels] feverish…the air in the factory ha[s] become dense and stuffy…the house seem[s] different, snugger, as if the building had contracted” (68). This inexplicable change in the building, one that makes Jo wonder if someone had entered in the middle of the night and switched out all the walls for new ones, also reflects in Jo’s body and mannerisms. She walks more gingerly, trying to “avoid bumping into something she [can’t]t see” and realizes that this is how Carral walks. She asks herself, “Had I begun this recently or had I been doing it a long time? I [look] down at my feet. They [are] soft and white on the floorboards, almost liquid” (Hval 68 - 9). At this thought, Carral emerges from the bathroom, leaving behind a toilet bowl of unflushed pee the “color of melted butter” to which Jo adds her own.

While there is a lot in this scene, a theme that stands out is that of blending. There is, of course, the blending of Jo’s imagination with her reality; her thoughts directly impact her mannerisms and physical state. There is the blending of Carral’s presence and absence. She is at once gone from the scene while also embedded within it. Her “present absence" enables Jo’s fantasies, demonstrating Carral’s power over Jo even as Jo attempts to drown her out. With that, there is also a blending of Jo and Carral. Not only does Jo mimic Carral’s mannerisms, but she sees her body as turning into liquid. This brings to mind Carral’s association with pee and the role of urine/fluid in the story more generally. And, finally, there is the literal mixing of Jo and Carral’s liquids in the toilet bowl.

The toilet bowl scene is reminiscent of John Donne’s satirical romance poem, “The Flea” in which the narrator attempts to convince the object of his affection that they can have sex because their bloods have already intermingled within the flea that fed from them. I wouldn’t say that Donne’s use of blood is abject. In general, blood has maintained a strong symbolic connection to life, sexuality, and biology for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Blood powers our bodies, offering a sense of vigorous life. To the credit of Donne’s rakish narrator, a baby, just like the flea, contains within them the “two bloods mingled” of their parents.

I go on this digression to highlight the contrast between blood and urine. While blood is a symbol of vitality and sexuality, pee is decidedly not. Urine may be biological, but it doesn’t have the same resonance as blood. It is of a cruder, more abject nature. It’s a waste product that is meant to be flushed away. In replacing intermingled blood with intermingled piss, Hval demonstrates another collision of desire and disgust. Rather than removed from the home, the urine remains in the toilet bowl, beckoning Jo. Instead of an “acrid yellow,” Jo now compares it to something edible (melted butter) which makes us reconsider the nature of both urine and butter. It at once makes pee, the liquid that we purge, seem appealing and melted butter, a liquid we ingest, seem disgusting⁴. Here, then, is a collapse of meaning through abjection. To use this mingling of pee as a metaphor for sex further highlights the desire that underlies abjection.

Jo’s unstable environment allows her to better inhabit the space of the lack embodied by the brewery. The brewery is malleable, it seems to exist outside of the symbolic order. Normative social behavior disintegrates within its rickety walls. Carral sleeps in and wets Jo’s bed, their home is seemingly unlivable filled as it is with rot and damp, and Jo watches Carral have sex. As with the space itself, the two young women increasingly lose their boundaries with each other. There are several instances of Jo fantasizing about their bodies melding together. The objectivity of reality falters as well, becoming a rotten, mushy fruit. The solidness of objectivity liquifies and evaporates in and around Jo. This accounts for Jo’s strange visions of the brewery, how the space seems to change to accommodate her daydreams.

It is this mix of reality and the Real that caused me to dislike the book’s ending. I craved something more tangible to end on that would finally make sense of the story’s bizarre plot line and characters. Hval doesn’t offer this, though. Instead, the epilogue makes us wonder if Carral was ever real at all. Jo doesn’t hear from Carral after she moves out and can’t find her in any phone books. She imagines Carral’s figure “wrapped in a faint white fog, blurring her silhouette” (Hval 147). Jo’s memory of Carral is faulty, threatening to completely disappear from her mind. Could this indicate that Carral is herself abject and inhabits the space of the lack? Does this suggest that Jo is finally experiencing a (belated) Lacanian development of the self that purges the Real as symbolized through Carral and the brewery? Could this belated development explain Jo’s affinity for the abject for most of the story?

On the book’s final page, Jo imagines herself as split–one of her selves has escaped the brewery and returned to Norway and the other is stuck there. Jo describes this brewery self as a drowned body separate from her own. She says, “Her face is white, covered in lime, algae skeletons, beer froth, and seafoam.” The brewery, or Jo’s fantasy of the brewery, has invaded this second self, becoming a part of it. The books ends with this line, “I stroke her head, smooth and bare and shining: a glistening doorknob without a door” (Hval 148). The second self is a passage that leads to nowhere and means nothing, a meaningless, pointless doorknob. It is the inaccessible, purged lack. It is part of Jo that she can never get back.

SOURCES:

Felluga, Dino. "Modules on Kristeva: On the Abject." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. 2011.

Kristeva, Julia. “Approaching Abjection” The Monster Theory Reader, edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, University of Minnesota Press, 2020, pp.150 - 70.

1. I will not get into the differences between Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory here. This is not to suggest that I have the capacity to do so. Quite the opposite.

2. Another Freudian term. Sorry!

3. Kristeva opens her chapter by describing the repulsion caused by seeing the skin on the top of warm milk.

4. “Food loathing is perhaps the most elementary and most archaic form of abjection” Kristeva (152).