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February 13, 2007
This book has balls
The Average American Male is vulgar with or without italics. Chad Kultgen emphasizes, exploits, and entertains this point in his new book chronicling the life of an American 20-something male.
Kultgen’s novel depicts his unnamed narrator going to frat parties, recounting sexual experiences, and fantasizing about life in a vivid stream-of-conciousness style that seems to be intended to provide insight into the way men think.
Ultimately, the crassness of book comes back to the question of whether or not art replicates or perpetuates societal norms.
The crux concerns the narrator’s choice to get married or continue living by what he calls the “ninety-eight percent rule,” which he describes as a willingness to have sex with 98 percent of all women “in the age range of seventeen or so to dead.”
Kultgen employs the fact that men supposedly think about sex every six seconds and there are rarely three consecutive pages that do not reference mastubation, sexual conquests, or the objectification of women.
The book urinates on the grave of chivalry and paints, extremely graphically and broadly, what goes on inside the mind of the average American male.
Posted by dwright at February 13, 2007 11:21 AM
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