Consumed

Last week I was looking for a book to read because I was finally scraping the barrel for things to do for fun while stuck inside my house, due to a one-two punch of Coronavirus and obscene heat. Bookstores and libraries being mostly unavailable to me, I decided to peruse the Apple bookstore app on my phone that I had never really bothered to open before. And, lo and behold, due to the very obvious horror and cinema related search habits stored in my phone's preferences, I was recommended David Cronenberg's first novel, Consumed.

From the beginning I was fully engrossed in the story. It reads very easily, and keeps you wanting more... a book whose plot you want (aptly) to devour in one sitting. Consumed tells the story of Nathan Math and Naomi Seberg, a journalist couple separated by hundreds of miles while they each pursue separate stories. Naomi is researching the murder and cannibalism of noted French philosopher Célestine Arosteguy, possibly by her husband's own hand. Nathan writes about medical cases, and begins by researching illegal organ transplant and ends up looking into the story of a doctor who discovered an STD. Little do the two journalists know, traces of one another may be finding their ways back to them up the streams of the stories each pursues.

This novel deals with themes common to all Cronenberg tales. He examines the fascinating and dangerous ties between humans and technology, perverse or unconventional sexuality as a lens through which look at the thin line between the horrific and the desirable, body horror, and even entomology (Cronenberg studied Lepidoptera briefly while in college). His French philosopher couple believe that capitalistic consumption is the truest expression of the self, and thus Cronenberg carefully tells you exactly what cameras, voice recorders, computers, tablets, etc. each of his characters is using in case you yourself want to draw some conclusions as to what their choices could mean about their psyches. He compares the concept of an "embedded journalist" to the idea of a parasitic insect; a "fly on the wall," not participating, but watching through the faceted lenses of cameras, but he also incorporates the cinematic and philosophical idea that by viewing something you are inherently involved in it, that a movie or a magazine article, no matter how objective it hopes to be, is inherently swayed by a viewpoint and an active participant in the telling of the story. Each of his main journalist characters become so much more involved in their stories than they ever could have anticipated. He also begs us to question the ability of technology to portray the truth. Similar to a quandary in his film The Fly, where main character Brundle wonders if his teleportation device is creating a real baboon or simply the concept of a baboon, we are asked if we really believe what the characters in the novel are experiencing on screen. Could someone be dead in real life, but alive in the computer? Could they be alive in real life and dead through the lens of technology? Is it possible, even, that the computer represents a kind of afterlife, a world to which the living cannot cross over. Some of these are not questions directly asked by Consumed, but rather, ones that came to mind once I'd finished the book and began pondering its meaning. 

The plot of the novel is remarkably well thought out, with each of the character's stories weaving complexly into the lives of the others. It reminds one of the Stephen King extended universe, where every book is subtly connected to one or more of the others. It should come as no surprise, then, that King and Cronenberg did talk when he began writing this story, King offering some much-needed encouragement for the filmmaker to begin conquering a new medium. Cronenberg has said that he is more heavily influenced by literature than film in all of his screenwriting, so it felt natural to write a book himself. It is very satisfying indeed to read a story that seems so considered, and to know that the author had the entire plot worked out before he even began writing. Appropriately, this book reads as an infinite mobius strip or oroborous, circling back and devouring its own tail.

All in all, I definitely recommend this story for other horror-enthusiasts who prefer, rather than to be scared, to be asked to ponder questions that the mainstream might be too afraid to touch upon. It is a quick and engrossing read, perfect to eat up some quarantine downtime, but not for the easily offended.