I Read Odd Books

Book: The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Deaths

Author: Corinne May Botz

Why I Consider This Book Odd: The book documents unexplained deaths as depicted in the form of miniature, almost dollhouse-like scenes. This book is bizarre, creepy yet utterly charming.

Type of Work: Photography, essay

Availability: Published by Monacelli in 2004, this book is still in print. You can get a copy here:

Comments: This book is amazing. Though the content is likely a bit morbid for most to consider it a coffee table book, had I coffee table, it would definitely be prominently displayed on mine. The book discusses the career of Frances Glessner Lee, a woman Corinne May Botz describes as:

“…brilliant, witty , and, by some accounts, impossible woman. She gave you what she thought you should have, rather than what you might actually want. She had a wonderful sense of humor about everything and everyone, excluding herself. The police adored and regarded her as their “patron saint,” her family was more reticent about applauding her and her hired help was “scared to death of her.”

Raised in an ultra-traditional, very wealthy family, Lee spent a good majority of her young life thwarted, though she was exposed to home decorating skills that would stand her in good stead when she began making the Nutshell Studies. Unable to attend college as she wanted, once her parents died, Lee started to come into her own, both metaphorically and literally, as she then had plenty of wealth to support her interests. She met a man by the name of George Magrath, a medical examiner who testified in criminal cases in New England. Magrath enthralled the young Lee, and it was through Magrath and his knowledge that Lee began to see what would become her life work.

Interested in promoting proper examination techniques to coroners, who were then mostly untrained in criminal investigation, she founded a library at Harvard (where her parents had refused to allow her to study) that contained over a thousand rare books she had collected. With her inherited wealth, Lee set up the George Burgess Magrath Endowment of Legal Medicine, and though she did not have any formal training, she was respected as an authority in what would later become forensic sciences.

However, it did not go unnoticed to Lee that students could seldom get any hands-on training, due to many factors, the main one being that few crime scenes of interest occurred when students were in training sessions. That caused her to create the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. These death scenes in miniature were physical reenactments of baffling cases, set up meticulously so that students could study them and analyze the clues and evidence in the scene, and come to an appropriate conclusion. Some were suicides that looked like murders, accidents that looked like suicides and some were murders that the killers tried to make look like either suicides or murders. The goal was to encourage students to study and find all pertinent information the scenes provided. She held seminars using her miniature scenes as visual aids. She made it clear that it was not always necessary to find the cause of death, but rather the scenes were “exercises in observing and evaluating indirect evidence, especially that which may have medical evidence.”

The sheer amount of work that went into the Nutshell Studies, as well as Lee’s incredible attention to detail, astonishes me. All of her skills and knowledge were poured into the miniature scenes. Working from crime scene photographs, she would construct detailed scenes, filled with information – some relevant, some not. The models she created worked, in the sense that one could raise the blinds, a tiny mousetrap would spring, and the coffee pots were filled with coffee grounds. With her knowledge of interior design, Lee selected wallpaper and furnishings that matched the socio-economic and class structure of the victims in the studies. She agonized over the scale of everything, making endless adjustments until the entire scene was in perfect scale.

No less attention went into the dolls, representations of dead people. Stuffed carefully to ensure flexibility, clothing hand made (even down to Lee hand knitting silk stockings for the dolls), and posed with care, these dolls became macabre representations of terrible ends. Though Lee never felt as if her dolls looked realistic enough, she had no qualms about creating dolls that showed the extremes of violence and death.

Though Botz observes this in decidedly more eloquent prose, as I read the essay about Frances Glessner Lee, I could not help but think that her choice of life work was a huge middle finger extended towards her parents and society as a whole. Her parents refused to let her get a college education and taught her that she “shouldn’t know anything about the human body.” Yet she ended up in a career where she attended autopsies and created representations of terrible crime scenes. Better yet, her career brought her into close proximity with lots of attractive, unmarried young men, a situation that had to be satisfying to her even though most of them saw her as a maternal figure, sending her Mother’s Day cards. Once her parents were dead, Lee did not set back the clock and get the education she wanted, but rather used her inheritance to become involved in legal medicine, a subject of which her father heartily disapproved. Though some of her class prejudices showed up in her works – she was reluctant to show crime in upper class settings – her quiet assumption of a decidedly unfeminine career, as girlie as making dollhouse scenes may be, was a blow for her personal freedom as well as a chance to do that which interested her.

The book is primarily made up of photographs and information about the scenes Lee created. Each scene collection has a numbered picture at the end that shows all the various clues and information one should have gleaned from the scenes, as well as analysis of what one could potentially think of the information. For some of the scenes, at the end of the book is a sort of answer key, so one can see if what one saw in the scene had any relevance to a crime. It’s an interesting diversion for those of us interested in the macabre, looking at these scenes and trying to puzzle out what Lee wanted us to see, absorb and interpret.

See some of the pictures of Lee’s scenes under the jump. These are reenactments of crimes using dolls, but if you are of a sensitive nature, bear in mind that violence is depicted. Read the rest of this entry »

Book: Story of the Eye

Author: Georges Bataille

Why I Consider This Book Odd: Oh God, where do I start…

Type of work: Pornography, fiction

Availability: Originally published in 1928, this book was re-released by City Light Books. You can get a copy here:

Comments: It seems unfair for me to completely dismiss Story of the Eye as an enormous turd polished to a sheen by specious intellectualism. I loathe the inverse of this attitude when applied to the books I love. For example, I frequently get a DIAF feeling when I think of Harold Bloom’s contemptuous and elitist dismissal of Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, the latter whom he seems to dislike simply because of what he considers her overuse of em-dashes. But it is my opinion that only a critic could find much to love in this odd book, because the subject matter is so repellent, the narrative so useless in terms of depth of story-telling, the plot so outrageous and the character development non-existent. Some people call this style of writing surrealism. Good for them, but I call shenanigans. In order to find any connection to the book, one has to downshift into sheer critical analysis, refusing to answer questions of whether or not one considers a book good versus whether or not one simply finds a book relevant to a certain critical way of thinking.

In certain respects, it all boils down to personal taste, even amongst true critics. My personal tastes rebelled against Story of the Eye because it seemed to me to be an exploitative, meaningless look into perverse sexuality that, while it may have explored elements of rebellion, was just a puerile examination of the disgusting, pushing limits just to push them, telling a pointless story in order to shock. After reading a bit about Georges Bataille’s childhood, the whys and wherefores of the book make a bit more sense to me, but just understanding the author’s motivations does not, in any way, ensure the content can connect with a reader.

I felt a bit hypocritical hating this book as much as I did, for the Harold Bloom reason I mentioned above. Moreover, people like Sartre and Susan Sontag have argued for this book’s relevance, as both a text of transgression and an excellent example of pornographic use of eros and thanatos, respectively. The book influenced the interesting and delightful whackaloon Bjork. There are people likely far smarter than me who think Story of the Eye has literary merit or social merit. de Sade, whose works never raised this level of enmity in me, may not seem that different to some readers.

But for me, there is a stark difference between Bataille and de Sade. De Sade’s works sprang from a need to fight against the limitations of cultural norms, religion and law. His tomes of rape, necrophilia, BDSM, sexual servitude and moral degeneracy were an extreme attempt to strike a blow for personal freedom during a time that was both personally stultifying and socially tumultuous, a nihilistic rage against the machine.  Story of the Eye is just a disgusting tale filtered through odd and sad events in Bataille’s life. There is no surge for a greater breath of freedom reading this book, just an unsettling feeling that one is being forced to read a foul practical joke.

The book is quite short – a novella, really – and comes in at 103 pages. I read it twice trying to get a handle on the content, hoping I could find a critical thread that impressed me.  I failed. In short, this is the book:

A young man recalls his sexually disgusting past with a distant relative, the equally perverted Simone, and the mentally fragile Marcelle. He and Simone explore their bizarre sexuality via lots of masturbation, urine and eggs. Yes, eggs. They include Marcelle, who is driven insane at an orgy and ends up institutionalized. They break her out of the booby hatch, only to have her commit suicide. They have sex next to her dead body and Simone urinates into her open eyes, as you do. To avoid an inquest into Marcelle’s death, the two go to Spain with a debauched nobleman. There are disgusting bullfights that involve impaled mare bladders, more weird sexuality involving eggs, eyes, bull testicles, and urine. Then there is the sexually-charged murder of a priest, the removal of his eye and its use in sex (Simone’s love of globular, soft objects and their relation to her nether regions is possibly the unsexiest thing I have ever encountered…). Then they disguise themselves and flee. Fade to black.

On some level, I wanted to read this text as a sort of bizarre coming of age tale, but it doesn’t work that way. There is no commonality of human experience. That’s okay – the thing I like best about odd books is that often, the commonality is lacking. Bizarre books take me to a place I would not ordinarily see. But having read very dark fiction, truly disturbing non-fiction and all sorts of stuff in between, I haven’t in any way felt as alienated by a piece of fiction as I was by Story of the Eye. I know there is all sorts of symbolism with fluid, eggs and eyes, but ultimately it didn’t matter for me. The content was too outre and too specialized for the meanings to matter.

As always, your mileage may vary, and to be honest, this book is worth reading by odd book fans simply because it is so disgusting and insane. But be aware that I say this in the same way my high school teachers often urged us to go to college so we wouldn’t be at a loss at cocktail parties (got the degree, paid off my student loans, and nary a cocktail party has come my way). The main reason to read this book in my opinion is so that you can say you have. You may get nothing more out of it than that.

Book: Letters to Rollins

Author: R.K. Overton

Why I Consider This Book Odd: Best collection of insane but utterly fake letters ever.  I ordered this book not knowing the letters were fake, and throughout the book, I kept clinging to hope after hope that these letters were real.  Mr. Oddbooks and I laughed until our bladders hurt upon reading the first letter from Carl Plaske.  This book is meta and was meta before any of us were hip enough to use the word meta.

Type of Work: Humor

Availability: Published in 1995 by Rollins’  2.13.61 Publications, this book is out of print.  Worse, drop shippers on Amazon give the appearance that there are copies of this book to be easily had, making finding a copy an annoying experience.  (Drop shippers are people who make listings for books they do not have, hoping someone will order it.  Once they get an order, the drop shipper then desperately tries to find a copy of the book to fill the order, generally ordering a less expensive copy from someone else on Amazon and having it shipped directly to the buyer.  Letters to Rollins is a circle jerk amongst drop shippers, each listing it and each trying to get it from the other when someone orders it.  Mr. Oddbooks found this at a used book store when I realized I had been duped by a drop shipper who was relying on other drop shipper listings to get the book.  Seriously, when you use the Amazon Marketplace, don’t buy from anyone with less than 97% positive feedback.)

So bear the above in mind if you click this link to get the book.  Or better yet, send Rollins a real letter and ask him to get this book into reprints.

Comments: This is by far and away the most hilarious and random book I have read in a while.  Based partially on insanity,  and partially on the trope that Rollins released an album called “Nap TIme” in 1993 to capitalize on his extraordinary appeal to children, this book contains “letters” from an angry Christian woman, a strange 13-year old girl, a psychotic from Henry’s youth, a youthful offender who wants Henry to send him a letter dammit, an oily publicist, a man playing a one-sided game of Battleship with Rollins, a small child,  a golfing instructor who gives Henry advice on how to avoid common golfing mistakes, and several others.

Utterly random, utterly insane, I cannot help but think this book was inspired largely by the real mail that Rollins actually received (Charlie Manson contacted Rollins out of the blue after seeing him on television).  But for me, a diehard Henry Rollins fan, the true odd delight inherent in this book comes from the fact that people who do not know Rollins’ career may not know these letters are ringers and read this thinking it true.  Mr. Oddbooks, who is not quite the Rollins fan I am, did not know even the most outrageous letters were fake until I told him.  Not even the letter from KROK radio seemed to give it away.

Oh why can we not live in a world as random and hilarious as the one that peoples Letters to Rollins?

Best lines from the book:

From Kimberly Evans, a 13-year old “fan” who renamed Henry “Smokey” and sent him a pic of her cat, whom Rollins evidently kissed at one of his concerts (the girl, not the cat):

Are you mad I didn’t tell you my dad was a cop?  I was afraid that if I told you you wouldn’t want anything to do with me or my letters.  I know you’ve had problems with the police in the past, so I decided not to say anything.

I know my dad tried to raise a stink, and I’m glad the night court judge saw things your way…”

From Carl Plaske, a former classmate Rollins once punched who is going slowly but clearly insane, a state presaged by going berserk in an ice cream truck:

I  guess I went kinda nuts. I turned up the volume and blasted that stupid theme from “Love Story” out those shitty speakers, scaring the neighbor kids and killing a dog as I drove 50 miles per hour down the sidewalks.  I eventually hit a UPS truck.  My license got revoked for a year but no one pressed charges.  They were okay to hire me at Puppet Town, even if they’re idiots.

From Karl Plaske’s father, Joseph Plaske, after Carl went over the edge and started stalking Rollins to the point the FBI considered him a menace and Carl ends up institutionalized:

The institution where he is currently residing does not allow its patients to have writing instruments of any kind, so I have transcribed from his 12′ by 12′ rubber cell wall a letter he wrote in saliva and blood during the incident:

Henry Henry we all scream for Henry

Take his curly shoes and run from the cave.

If you have any insight into what this may mean, please contact me at the address above.

From his publicist, the man behind marketing the infamous “Buddy Ebsen” doll:

Henry,

How is your hand?  My face is still puffed up, but the x-rays showed no concussion, and I’m not going to press charges.

As your ex-publicist, I wanted to say that it has been a pleasure being your publicist, and I’m sorry we had to part under such less than satisfactory circumstances.

From the Project 213, a group of Rollins fans who have been abducted by UFOs:

I send you this letter primarily to let you know that we exist and are helping other Rollins fans know that they are not alone in their dealings with the growing alien tide.

Yeah, I know, there are some purists out there who will not consider this book odd, per se, and I say bite me.  I want to live in the bizarro world of fake Rollins letters, which makes me odd, and the book is therefore odd by association.