And the Ass Saw the Angel

Period.Was never even a fan of Nick's music, or all that familiar with it to be honest. Outside of hearing a piece of "red right hand" during the movie "Dumb and Dumber" and Metallica's cover of "loverman" on "Garage, Inc." I still to this day couldn't name one of his songs.But.I've never encountered a book that impacted my perspective on life so immensely or received so many re-reads, each as entertaining and insightful as the last... With the possible exception of Eric Blair's (aka George Orwell) legendary "1984."When I read in an interview that he wrote the initial draft over a weeks-long methamphetamine-fueled seclusion in a remote camping cabin resulting in the over 1500-page manuscript, (which currently resides in an Australian museum) I hadn't even read the book yet.In the distant late '90s, during the heights of "Internet 1.0" one of my favorite (then and now) bands, TOOL, used to have a literally physically produced "newsletter" that was typically a few xeroxed sheets with news about the band, musing and poetry by the band's webmaster/longtime associate Blair M. Blake, and occasionally, some books/authors that he and/or the band members found noteworthy. The glowing review by BMB piqued my curiosity, and subsequent interviews with the band's enigmatic frontman James "Maynard" Keenan and mysterious guitarist Adam Jones, who both mentioned how blown away they were by the intricate narrative devices and fantastically perverse, demented characters in the book sent my already piqued curiosity into interstellar overdrive.I found a paperback copy at Portland's notorious "Powell's Books" and set about devouring it.Which I did, utterly unable to turn away, in one sitting.When I finished my first reading, I did something I've only done 1 or 2 times in my life... Turned immediately back to page one, and started over. Upon completion of that reading, (the next day) I did something I've only ever done the once. Flipped back to the start and began a third reading. Which I completed another couple of days later. I had to FORCE myself not to instantaneously start a fourth pass mostly because reading a full-length novel four times in a week seemed... Obsessive. (hahaha) Little did I know...The extremely visceral and lushly depicted story was mind-blowing. So many bizzarrely demented events, from Euchrid's first memories as an infant in a filthy cardboard box, tearing off strips of the moldy wallpaper it had been lined with and attempting to eat them, to present-day Euchrid's homemade elevated platform, walled with rusty corrugated metal and filled with dead and dying animals from the gruesome traps he'd built and peppered the rural Ukelore Valley with, were hellish visions of a demented mute outcast raised by abusive drug addicts and moonshine sellers in an isolated area sparsely populated by followers of an insular religious sect called the Ukelites.The entire story is presented as his dying recollections while he slowly sinks into a muddy bog amidst the noise of an angry mob of Ukelites, searching for him by torchlight.The settings and events were so graphically described I swore I could smell the nauseating interior of his walled platform and the thick black axle grease he used to oil the mechanisms of his sadistically brutal traps. I could almost taste the toxic swill of the moonshine, whose recipes he'd learned from his insane father. The sale of it to the locals, both as a small child forced to do so, and later as an adult, were the only source of income for the Euchrow family, and later for the now solitary Euchrid.It's not solely horrific imagery however. There's a depth that really can't be adequately described. Like when a group of angry Ukelites descend on and cruelly murder Cosey Mo, a prostitute that had befriended Euchrid, while he hid from them and watched, a mute-silent witness, as the only person who'd ever been nice to him was brutally attacked and killed by the self-righteous crowd. In his internal dialogue, Euchrid is shocked by the hypocritical masses, many of which were regular customers, whom he recognized having seen them coming and going from Cosey Mo's dilapidated trailer, and their bitter spouses. He contrasted the smiling saccharine faces of the Ukelites as they presented themselves in the town square, to the snarling, spitting beasts that cheered and jeered as they showed unimaginable savagery while they murdered his only friend. It is Euchrid alone who fully grasped the cruel fate of Cosey Mo.There's a fully human beauty, a real tenderness shown via Euchrid's thoughts and memories, a soul-rending mute howl of agonized betrayal at the hand he'd been dealt by life. The wistful yearning as he peers through windows and sees what normal family life can be is palpable and devastatingly heartbreaking. Cave's overtly heavy-handed focus on the grossest aspects really provides a pitch-perfect counterbalance to the sweetness and beauty extant inside what would be ubiquitously described as a monster by most.I'm reminded, then and now, of a particularly emotional and moving scene in Stephen King's novel "Cujo" where the titular canine, driven mad by rabies, is perched on the hood of the car that contains the mother and child he spends the bulk of the book ferociously trying to kill. The dog pauses, sees the terrified mother protectively cradling her son, and has a flash memory of tenderness shown him by his human family, seemingly aeons away, when Cujo was a "goodboy." He whines, mourning for the loss of that life in a brief moment of clarity before the swirling torrent of pain and madness sadly swallows him completely.Cave's entire novel is, in a sense, an expression of a single drawn-out version of that same whine, hundreds of pages long, as a murky bog is swallowing completely a deeply ill animal, tormented by infinite oceans of pain and madness. Saddest of all, Euchrid never even was given a chance to be a "goodboy."I would literally give up one of my hands to read that manuscript, which Nick Cave has donated to a museum under strict orders that it never be released, at least until his death. I don't say that lightly either, I'm a musician. It's somewhat difficult, I'd imagine, to play the guitar or keyboard without one of my two hands.Cave has called the original draft unreadable and disjointed, a failed attempt to recollect a fever dream. He insists that, without the heroic and dedicated labor of his editors, and several rewrites, it would still be unreadable. He himself was rather displeased with the manuscript and only submitted it for publication at the stubborn repeated nagging of his girlfriend to let this work of staggering profundity be shared with the world. How wise and prescient her advice turned out to be.I've been an avid and voracious reader since I was a small child... And, this literally just dawned on me seconds ago, but I read my first "grown-up" length novel at age 6, on a family vacation to Arizona. I'd been in a heated argument with my schizophrenic mother, and was grounded for a week, (out of a two-week vacation) confined to an attic bedroom, in Phoenix... in the absolute depths of summer. In one of my twice-daily bathroom breaks, which were the only times I was allowed out, my Aunt saw the despair on my face and said to me "Hey, I asked her if I could give you a book to read so you're not so bored... She said no, so don't let her see, but I think you'll really like it. I'm so sorry that she's doing this to us all, the kids are really upset that they can't play with you either. It'll be okay buddy, I love you." She hugged me and passed me a black hardcover. I glanced at the title, "kuh...?""It's pronounced koo-joe, sweetie, just make sure to put it under the bed when you're not reading so she doesn't see it, I don't want to get you into worse trouble. I hope you enjoy it, but I know you will, it's really good, I just finished it." She hugged me again and said "I'll try to talk her into letting you out before next week but no promises, you know how she can be. Now go on, before we're both grounded." She giggled softly, then smiled warmly as I turned to head upstairs...Somehow, the obvious through-line between my first novel and my favorite novel has managed to evade my detection until just a few minutes ago.It's been almost 35 years since that summer.My Aunt passed away about 7 years ago. I thanked her profusely several times, but I wonder if she ever really knew how much what she did meant to me..?It's times like this, with so much exquisiteness amidst the abject misery, that I really understand why Benigni named his film "Life Is Beautiful."Thanks, Aunt Joy, I miss you, and I love you too. :'-)Note: Photo is of my first edition hardback copy, sorry for the glare, I did my best.

I read this over 20 years ago and had recommended it to so many readers ever since. I was wrong.I reread it recently. Maybe it's good when you're a moody brooding 20 something.Nick Cave is a musical genius, I'm a fan. He's made some good films too. And there's a lot to love in this novel. But it really drags, and becomes a chore to get to the anticlimactic end.On the bright side, reading it before bed helped me get to sleep for many nights.

Wildly lyrical and disturbing, Nick Cave is a master story teller. If you are a fan of Nick Cave and the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds, you Must read this. If you have never heard of him, I promise you will never forget his name.

If you are a fan of Nick Cave's music, there would be no reason why you shouldn't read this book. It's intense, gruesome, disturbing, but yet beautiful in the way he uses language and keeps you interested in the story. It's a great view of a southern hell: full of fundamentalists and inbred hillbilly's. My only critiscm is that it does tend to ramble a bit at the end, but with such great prose it didn't bother me too much.

This is the best novel since Finnegans Wake. It gets even better with each re-reading, and is a must read for the serious artist of any medium.

very happy with the order

This book was a gift

Love this book, it's crazy how this guy can write. I would not recommend it for kids. It is pretty harsh.

This novel was far from an enjoyable read, at least for me. The only positive point I can think of is that the author has a certain linguistic ability for describing a depressing scene or situation quite effectively by drawing on an amazing range of obscure literary words. He regularly uses words that are extremely unusual, often archaic, and always obfuscating. If you know the meaning of atramental, caligenous, erumpant, extravasate, fritinancy, funest, pemphigus, reboant, riggish, and spissitude off the top of your head, this is the book for you. From my point of view, inscrutable archaic words that give you no clue from context or similarity to other known words (even in other languages!) at best add nothing to the story, and at worst obstruct the telling and diminish your enjoyment. After an extensive search online and in dictionaries at home I've still not discovered the meaning of these words: dinning, flimmering, frogle, scumbered, uggr. Also, for a writer with such a wide range of vocabulary it's surprising that he doesn't know the correct past tense of 'bid' (bade) or that the word 'midst' is a noun.Perhaps more importantly, the story suffered seriously from a lack of likable characters or anyone you could really identify with or care about. The plot included quite a few so-what events and endings (everyone dies) that didn't arouse my interest in the slightest. Recurring features of the writing style include long lists like this one in Part I Chapter VII: '...wild meteors, blood-blown moons...[34 more types of planetary body]...Little Bear, in collision, in colour, here." And in Part III: "The doctor's house. The tabernacle...[18 more locations in the town]...O and the playground in the square and the swing." Towards the end of the book the author starts a process of exact consecutive repetition of phrases, which is quite easy to do using copy and paste, though I'm not sure what purpose it serves in the plot, apart from maybe helping to meet the minimum word-count set by the publisher? Examples are: "...off to a death in the west somewhere. Off to a death in the west somewhere. Off to a death in the west somewhere." Later "Beth's house. Beth's house. Beth's house." Later still "And ah ran on. And ah ran on.And ah ran on. And ah ran on." This last one is repeated two more times a few pages later!There are some strange analogies, such as two women looking "like a pair of matching suitcases" (where did this filthy neglected penniless mute see any suitcases in this godforsaken town?). Also some illogical descriptions, like beating a mule "to a standstill", tilting back one's head to stop a nose-bleed, and a flying swan with its "neck erect" (impossible). Nobody seems to eat anything, the house of the mute's parents is chock-full of stuff - including a limitless supply of dangerously fortified booze! - even though neither of them seem to lift a finger to earn any money. Finally the main character apparently builds a huge maze of fearsome traps and defences to protect his home, but this elaborate system is not triggered and hardly even tested before the end of the book! As with so many other elements in the book, this reader was left wondering what the point was.

I thought I'd struggle with this book, as there were a lot of old-speak words, but I didn't at all. Sure, I had to look up the meaning of many words, but it didn't detract from the story or make it a pain to read.The story flowed beautifully and I was surprised I understood it as well and as deeply as I did.I didn't want it to end and am sad I've just finished it.I'm a long-time Nick Cave fan, and I'm so happy I bought this book. He's literally a genius and a wordsmith.What a story.

Nick Cave's "And the ass saw the angel" is the tale of a disturbed mute, Euchrid Eucrow, born from drunken and abusive parents. The novel follows Euchrid from his birth to his end in a valley of the American South, a valley burdened by a society of savages and teeming with misplaced religious fervor.The story of Euchrid is strangely compelling. At first, I found the narrative interesting mostly because of its oddity and its graphic description of the lowest and most primitive elements of humanity. As the story progressed, however, particularly in the final chapter of the book, I found that the themes of the novel seemed to center around some deep, almost mythical elements of humanity: The story is a story of innocence, indoctrination and ultimately, the meeting of two human archetypes, the naïve saint and the outcast. This is what for me really lifted the book to a higher level. While the book is filled with violence and depravity, I did not find that it was overdone or that the author in any way revelled distastefully in this, rather the depravity forms a central element of the book and its message.If I were to come up with anything which I did not like about the book, it would be that the writing is sometimes a bit difficult. English is not my first language, nonetheless I generally read english prose without any problems. Cave's prose in this book, however, is more difficult than average. For someone for whom this is not an issue, I assume that it only adds to the atmosphere, so it's hard to claim this as a weighty criticism, but at least it's a feature that some might want to take note of.All in all, I would definitely recommend this to anyone in search of an well-done and original novel.

To anyone familiar with Nick Cave's lyrics, it should come as no surprise that his book is dark, twisted, and absolutely brilliant. From the first sentence to the very last, you will be living the insanity of Euchrid Eucrow with no respite, no accidental slip back into normalcy. In this, I can only compare this book to William Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" and J. G. Ballard's "The Atrocity Exhibition", both widely acclaimed masterpieces. It is a rare gem, and Nick Cave is an extraordinary author.

Looking forward to reading it