Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The seamen were usually loaded. If they were too big or too sober theyd hit them over the head with a brick. If they looked easy one would hold him and the other(s) would lump him. [...] Theyd hit him until their arms were tired. Good kicks. Then a pie and a beer. And Tralala. She was always there."

I am too old to cry but I somehow managed to get my eyes wet when reading a passage from Last Exit to Brooklyn (1957 - 1964). The momentary sadness that led me to tears soon morphed into extreme anger at the despicable, miserable species that we are: the only species on this planet who tortures their own for entertainment or for no reason at all, just to pass time and escape boredom. It is highly ironic that the adjective 'bestial', which means 'cruel', 'savage', 'depraved' comes from 'beast', meaning animal. It would be more fitting to call rabidly aggressive animals 'humanistic'.

Last Exit, the highly acclaimed work of Hubert Selby Jr. owes some part of its renown to the so-called taboo topics it deals with and graphic scenes of violence and sex, which were the reason for its prosecution in the UK under obscenity statute. It's curious that the other best-known work by Selby, Requiem for a Dream, also became more famous because of non-literary reasons: it was adapted as a classy and successful movie under the same title.

One might disagree with classifying the book as a novel since it is a set of six stories that are independent of each other. They are connected by Brooklyn location, lower-class protagonists, focus on naturalistic depiction of human activities that are usually not shown in literature, and the use of rough, seemingly anti-literary writing style. The prose reflects the way of speaking of low-educated people, with their misuses of words and grammar.

In the best of the six pieces, unforgettably called Tralala, a soldier, happy to be finally coming home after three years of service, is brutally beaten just for the fun of it. The attackers take his wallet, continue beating him, and his blood mixes with tears when he begs them to give him back the military base pass so that he can get home:

"Thats all I want. Just the ID Card. PLEASE PLEASE!! The tears streaked the caked blood and he hung on Tonys and Als grip and Tralala swung at his face, spitting, cursing and kicking."

There are strong sexual scenes in Last Exit, but to call them obscene takes a really deranged mind. The violence and savagery are obscene, the beating of bloodied people to pulp is obscene. The sexual scenes test the limits of the reader's endurance because of the pervasive violence that they entail. It's not the sex that is so disturbing, it is the participants' celebration of power, domination, subjugation of their victims. Brutality is the most elemental human trait, screams the author.

Protagonists of several stories are strongly memorable: how can one forget Georgette from the story The Queen is Dead, a transvestite prostitute, "a hip queer," "high most of the time on benzedrine and marijuana"? Nor will the reader forget Harry, from the longest story, Strike, which intermingles labor issues with tribulations of a married gay man, a masterful example of a literary counterpoint.

The prose that incorporates street language snippets of dialogue into the narration may take a while to get accustomed to but the reader stops noticing it soon. Fragments like

"Whattayamean its not cold enough yet. Im dyin a thirst. How inthefuck can yadrink warm beer. Wit my mouth, what thefuck yathink."

read completely natural. There are some passages that I don't particularly care for, like the extremely detailed and vivid description of a woman picking her nose and playing with the drying snot. Inclusion of that scene makes me a bit less impressed with the novel as it is hard not to agree that the author used it for shock value. On the other hand, I love the totally beautiful, lyrical passage that closes The Queen is Dead. It forms a gorgeous juxtaposition with the group sex scene, just a few pages earlier. That scene features an unexpected literary jewel:

"Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe."

Overall, Last Exit is an utterly unconventional and uncompromising statement of disgust with humans. Very hard to read yet the pain is richly deserved.

Four stars.


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