![]() ![]() If I tell you the book is also loaded with heavy-handed religious imagery, implausible love affairs and unbelievable dialogue, generally relating to the deep, dark tea-time of the soul – oh, and that it's more than 600 pages long – I expect I will have gone a long way towards putting off the uninitiated. ![]() There is a man who masturbates over a cliff edge onto lovers hiding in lantana bushes. Lovers "drink saliva" and "claw at each other". Copulation is a matter of disgust, "wrinkled, ugly old cocks" and "gluttony". We see souls laid bare and human weakness examined in all its forms, especially when it comes to sex – or, as White prefers to describe the act of love, "depravity". ![]() We see all manner of offal and dead matter and sheep guts torn out by hand. True to its title, The Vivisector also deals enthusiastically in viscera. Even when there's no toilet around, there's always a good chance Duffield will let loose a good "fart" or at least a "belch". Great swathes of the novel are set out in the "dunny" – and it's here Duffield gains his greatest enlightenment. Poo, in fact, is a very important element in this book. Given that context, it probably won't come as a surprise that Duffield is the kind of artist who paints in blood. ![]()
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