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Synopsis:
The Marbled Swarm is Dennis Cooper’s most haunting work to date. In secret passageways, hidden rooms, and the troubled mind of our narrator, a mystery perpetually takes shape—and the most compelling clue to its final nature is “the marbled swarm” itself, a complex amalgam of language passed down from father to son.
Cooper ensnares the reader in a world of appearances, where the trappings of high art, old money, and haute cuisine obscure an unspeakable system of coercion and surrender. And as the narrator stalks an elusive truth, traveling from the French countryside to Paris and back again, the reader will be seduced by a voice only Dennis Cooper could create.
Review:
The Marbled Swarm is the first novel by Dennis Cooper ever recommended to me. This was years ago, and I did pick up a copy of the novel in 2016. It was shuffled in with a great deal of other books. I have had The Marbled Swarm, but it was The Sluts that I read first. I’m glad that I did. If The Marbled Swarm was the first Dennis Cooper novel I read, I probably would not read another.
The story is told through an unreliable narrator who is using a technique that he has learned from his father. The marbled swarm is the use of language and speech as a mask to hide who the person really is. The narrator grows up in a large house that is filled with secret passages, and in the beginning of the novel, he is looking at purchasing a chateau that also has a great deal of secret passages where the owner spies on his sons, just like the narrator’s father spies on him and his brother while growing up. The oldest son has died and is haunting the chateau and the younger son, a fourteen year old Emo kid, is desperate to leave. The narrator also says he is a killer and a cannibal so the thought of cooking up a young kid is enticing.
The houses in this novel are a metaphor for the narrator himself. They are large, empty houses with secret passages that are more enticing due to their mystery that their function. It seems as if the narrator is fairly empty except for the secrets that really have more mystery than function. In the end, his story might be more about his gathering of different personalities and using them as a mask to show that he really is not that interesting at all.
I have not read all of Dennis Cooper’s novels, but I will say that I like his novels that are straight forward and unabashed in their depravity over this type of narration. The unreliable narrator is Dennis Cooper’s favorite device. He finds it entertaining to pull the rug out from under his readers, making us think something is happening when it was all a fraud, or nothing is happening and it is all a deviant plot. Mixed in with gruesome sex and death scenes. This playfulness is The Marbled Swarm. Cooper concentrates more on tricks and plots than telling a story. The narrator even breaks the fourth wall a few times to talk to the reader, instructing you to do things for him. All of this is intentional. He wants to show us a mystery and secret passages, but it might just be a trick. I would recommend Dennis Cooper to everyone, but I would not start with this novel.
Other works by author reviewed:
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