Review: The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones

The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones

Author: Jack Wolf
Pages: 560
Publisher: Penguin Books
Source: Publisher via TLC Book Tours

Description from Goodreads:
An explosive and daring debut novel set during the Enlightenment that tells the tale of a promising young surgeon-in-training whose study of anatomy is deeply complicated by his uncontrollable sadistic tendencies.

Meet Tristan Hart, a brilliant young man of means. The year is 1751, and Mr Hart leaves his Berkshire home for London to lodge with his father's friend, the novelist and dramatist Henry Fielding, and study medicine at the great hospital of University College. It will be a momentous year for the cultured and intellectually ambitious Mr Hart, who, as well as being a student of Locke and Descartes and a promising young physician, is also, alas, a psychopath. His obsession is the nature of pain, and preventing it during medical procedures. His equally strong and far more unpredictable obsession is the nature of pain, and causing it. Desperate to understand his own deviant desires before they derail his career and drive him mad, Tristan sifts through his childhood memories, memories that are informed by dark superstitions about faeries and goblins and shape-shifting gypsies. Will the new tools of the age-reason and science and scepticism-be enough to save him?

Unexpectedly funny, profoundly imaginative, and with a strange love story at its heart, The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones is a novel about the Enlightenment, the relationship between the mind and body, sex, madness, the nature of pain, and the existence of God.

First Sentence: "One morning in the Autumn of seventeen forty-one, when I was not yet eleven Yeares of Age, still round in Figure and innocent in Mind, Nathaniel Ravenscroft took me a-walking by the River."

Review:

Do not be lured in by the Cover of The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones to expecting a Novel packed with Action and Magic. It is nothing of the Sort. Instead, Raw Head, as I shall henceforth refer to this Book for brevity's sake, is a slow-moving, pretentious Tale of Psychosis, Pedophilia, and Sado-masochism. While I cannot necessarily say that this is a bad Book, I can say that it is an acquired Taste, one I have no interest in ever personally acquiring.

You may perhaps be wondering at my newly discovered Love of Capitalization. I do this to prepare you for the Experience of perusing Wolf's Novel. Every single Noun within these Pages is capitalized. Wolf presumably does so to emulate the Style of classic Works, which would capitalize particular Nouns, or perhaps to hint at foreign Origins, as I know German does this. However, I found this Style entirely off-putting. In English, capitalizing Nouns in the middle of Sentences is not the done Thing, so my Brain kept trying to place additional Emphasis on those Words, resulting in a stilted Reading. The Capitalization forced me to skim most of Raw Head, as that way I was less bothered by the errant capital Letters. Either the Reader will find this unique Touch endearing or eminently frustrating.

Speaking of frustrating, let us discuss the Plot! Raw Head opens with a young Tristan Hart. He does not begin as a promising Youth, and lives in the Shadow of Nathaniel Ravenscroft. He admires Nathaniel and does whatever Nathaniel does. He becomes rather obsessed with Nathaniel much in the way that Sal Paradise wishes he could be like Dean Moriarty in On the Road. Then Nathaniel disappears for most of the Novel, but, don't worry, he will be back, sort of like Outbreaks of a venereal Disease.

Certainly the book could have been thinner.

As Tristan grows older, he discovers Passions, the first for Science and the second for causing Pain. His primary Hobby is that of performing Autopsies on any dead Animals that can be found. He saves the Bones as a Collection. A short way into his sexual Education, he begins to find that he is turned on by the Pain of Others, and tries to abuse a gypsy Woman who was going to willingly have sex with him. She curses him.

Of course, he blames his Madness on this curse, but, really, he's just psychotic. He has Spells of a Time where a Story comes to life around him, and he believes them to be True. Only later, when Others tell him of his Foolishness does he know these Happenings never occurred. During the time of his Madness taking hold, he is studying Medicine. I love to think about Sadists practicing Medicine, don't you? He also visits a whore House and whips the Whore kept for the Sadists.

If you thought that was bad, get ready. At this Point, the Novel adds another Element: a Romance. Yes, Tristan, psychotic Sadist, deserves a love Interest. Who does he fall in love with and marry?, you may ask. I shall tell you. He meets her when he is twenty Yeares of Age, and she is but twelve. Yes, that's right. Here's the Pedophilia I warned you about. Conveniently, Katherine is a little Slut and quite taken with Tristan. Also, surprise bonus, she is a Cutter and loves Pain. A Match made in the Heavens, truly.

Worst of all, they do not come to an unhappy End. Instead, they raise two Children, which simply gives me the Shivers. What was the Point of this Novel? Is there a Lesson I should have learned from this? Is it that sadistic, psychotic Murderers make wonderful family Men? That's all I'm seeing.

None of this interests me, especially due to the overblown Style with which Wolf told the Tale. However, if you like old-fashioned Language and Spellings, and also always wanted to know what it would be like if Patrick Bateman and Humbert Humbert were combined into a historical Character, then this has been written just for you.

Rating: 1/5

Favorite Quote: "'Fuck off, Ann.'"