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    Consumed: A Novel
    Consumed: A Novel
    Consumed: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    Consumed: A Novel

    Written by David Cronenberg

    Narrated by William Hurt

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    “An eye-opening dazzler” (Stephen King) about a pair of globetrotting, gore-obsessed journalists whose entanglement in a French philosopher’s death becomes a surreal journey into global conspiracy from legendary filmmaker David Cronenberg.

    Stylish and camera-obsessed, Naomi and Nathan thrive on the yellow journalism of the social-media age. Naomi finds herself drawn to the headlines surrounding a famous couple, Célestine and Aristide, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Célestine has been found dead, and Aristide has disappeared. Police suspect him of killing her and consuming parts of her body. Yet Naomi sets off to find him, and as she delves deeper into the couple’s lives, she discovers the news story may only skim the surface of the disturbing acts they performed together.

    Journalist Nathan, meanwhile, is in Budapest photographing the controversial work of an unlicensed surgeon named Zoltán Molnár, once sought by Interpol for organ trafficking. After sleeping with one of Molnár’s patients, Nathan contracts a rare STD called Roiphe’s and travels to Toronto, determined to meet the man who discovered the syndrome. Dr. Barry Roiphe, Nathan learns, now studies his own adult daughter, whose bizarre behavior masks a devastating secret.

    These parallel narratives become entwined in a gripping, dreamlike plot that involves geopolitics, 3-D printing, North Korea, the Cannes Film Festival, cancer, and, in an incredible number of varieties, sex. Consumed is an exuberant, provocative debut novel from one of the world’s leading film directors, a writer of “fierce sculptural intensity” (Jonathan Lethem, The New York Times Book Review) who makes it “impossible to look away” (Publishers Weekly).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateSep 30, 2014
    ISBN9781442374812
    Author

    David Cronenberg

    David Cronenberg is a Canadian filmmaker whose career has spanned more than four decades. Born in Toronto, Canada, Cronenberg was inducted onto Canada’s Walk of Fame in 1999. In 2002, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, and in 2006 he was awarded the Cannes Film Festival’s lifetime achievement award, the Carrosse d’Or; he is also an Officer in France’s Order of Arts and Letters (1990), and a Chevalier in its Legion of Honor (2009). Cronenberg’s many feature films include Stereo, Crimes of the Future, The Dead Zone, The Fly, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, Crash, A History of Violence, A Dangerous Method, and Cosmopolis (an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 2003 novel). His most recent film, A Map to the Stars, starring Julianne Moore, Joan Cusack, and Robert Pattinson, opened at the New York Film Festival in Fall 2014.

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    Reviews for Consumed

    3/5

    58 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Cronenberg is obsessed with many of the same things he is fascinated by in his films - i.e., sex, bondage, death. This book especially resembles his film _Crash_ and is very cinematic. There is also a definite fascination with technology. Cronenberg seems to want to strand the reader in the midst of many unknowns - and then just sort of abandon them at the end without any satisfaction of a real ending.
    • 3/5
      What a messed up book. I mostly mean that in a good way, but it makes this a tough one to review.

      On the one hand, you've got an author, and therefore characters who are obsessed with various things: technology, insects, North Korean films, body abnormalities, sex, 3D printing... the list goes on. There's not, what I would call a "relatively normal" character in this book. Again, not a bad thing, but whenever someone new was introduced, I found myself asking, "what's their obsession going to be?"

      And I'm no prude--not by a long shot--but even to me, these characters seemed obsessed with sex.

      On the other hand, you've got an author who's taking ridiculously disparate ideas and storylines and mashing them together in a way no one has ever done before, and creating something new and horribly beautiful. There's no denying this story is compelling as all hell, simply because it's so strange, you have no idea what's going to come out next.

      And quite honestly, I was ready to give this a 4, maybe a 4.5 rating, but then I finished the novel. That is, I came to the end. And though it truly was the end, there were no additional pages to go, it feels like Cronenberg somehow lost power to his Mac, couldn't write any more, and decided to call it a day. Virtually every single plot point is left wide open, with only the central initial mystery somewhat resolved.

      The reader is left with some answers as to what happened, but very, very little as to why?

      And I hate that.
    • 1/5
      Cronenberg's debut novel features a disappointing lack of his signature depravity and body horror, and its severe shift in focus to a peripheral character's story make this a shockingly dull read from a horror legend.
    • 4/5
      Wow! This debut novel by iconic filmmaker David Cronenberg's devours the senses. Truth be told, I was going to put this book on the shelf, but glad I didn't. The author's empowering knowledge of present day photographic equipment and 3-d printers makes one hell of a story. The story is of two journalists,Naomi and Nathan, whose interest in a French philosopher’s death becomes a journey into global conspiracy. Naomi is drawn to Celestine and Aristide Arosteguy, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Celestine is found dead and Aristide has disappeared. Police suspect him of killing her and consuming parts of her body. A graduate student named Herve Blomqvis helps Naomi try to find Aristide and she finds very disturbing details about their sex life including trysts with Herve. At the same time Nathan is in Budapest photographing the work of an unlicensed surgeon named Zoltan Molnar, once sought by Interpol for organ trafficking. After sleeping with one of Molnar’s patients, Nathan contracts a rare STD called Roiphe’s. Nathan then travels to Toronto, to meet the man who discovered the STD, a. Dr. Barry Roiphe. Nathan learns, he now studies his own adult daughter, whose behavior hides a secret. A secret that is more than overwhelming. The narrative's of Naomi and Nathan are cleverly tied together and this story is provocative to say the least. Very good read.
    • 4/5
      A creepy book, which however has no sfnal elements at all as far as I can tell. Indeed, the technology available to the characters is pretty obsessively rooted in 2013.