Here's what I wrote in 2013 about this read: "OK, I bought this in Kroger and I guess you get what you get. A bit fastinating as it's the story of a sadist, his obsession with fairies along with pain and passion, and his brilliance and interested in the working of the human body at a time when science was exploding. A set of oxymorons? Certainly a sometime horrifying and chilling tale, with a love story set in the middle. Go figure. . . " ( )

Please check out more of my reviews on my blog.


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The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones | Jack Wolf
Apr10 by anninyn

The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones by Jack Wolf is a a literary historical.

Explosive, transgressive and wildly inventive, Jack Wolf’s novel THE TALE OF THE RAW HEAD AND BLOODY BONES (Penguin Original; March 26, 2013; 978-0-14-312382-8; $16.00; also available as an ebook) is arrestingly authentic. UK based author Jack Wolf, who wrote the novel as a woman and has since transitioned to being a man, has fully embraced both the language and ideas of eighteenth-century England to create a beautiful and startling novel that contemplates questions of good and evil, faith and science, that are still relevant today. Moreover, while it does not explicitly deal with issues of gender identity, Wolf’s experience of transitioning from female to male is reflected in the writing, in particular in its focus on identity and what it feels like to be uncomfortable in one’s own skin.

I can see why the way it’s written -using period spelling and capitalisation (though fortunately not the most extreme versions) could put an unaware or unexperienced person off. But I strongly advise you to try to get through it, like I advise people to try with Wuthering Heights (if you can get through that you can get through this. At least this isn’t in dialect).

Provided for free by Penguin Group through NetGalley.

I really struggled with this, hence the long gap between my acquiring the book and my review. It’s a difficult book, not just in the language, but in the pace and the themes. A long book like this is always going to be a slow starter, but I wasn’t, at the beginning, entirely sure we had started. I got the concepts that Wolf was going for fairly early on, and became frustrated when the viewpoint character couldn’t see it as clearly as I could.

Once you get into it, the writing is beautiful. So many authors would use the fact of writing in an archaic form of the language to ignore poetry, meanignful metaphor, or truthful description, but Wolf doesn’t, and the result can be something magical at times. I warn you, that this descriptive ability could put a person off who doesn’t want to read about the darker desires of the human being – the desire to hurt, to cause suffering. Also, there are some quite forthright descriptions of prostitution and BDSM within, so be aware.

Plot wise it’s a slow but good ‘un, with many interesting and exciting twists and turns. It’s solidly constructed, with no major WTF moments. It also manages to discuss gender, class and other, related subjects without ever falling into the trap of inappropriate attitudes for the era. No politically correct history here! But there is an intelligent use of the attitudes of the time to examine our own, modern attitudes which I very much approved of.

So, this is a damn fine book, and you should probably read it. 4 out of 5. ( )

Please check out more of my reviews on my blog.


Bookmark the permalink.
The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones | Jack Wolf
Apr10 by anninyn

The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones by Jack Wolf is a a literary historical.

Explosive, transgressive and wildly inventive, Jack Wolf’s novel THE TALE OF THE RAW HEAD AND BLOODY BONES (Penguin Original; March 26, 2013; 978-0-14-312382-8; $16.00; also available as an ebook) is arrestingly authentic. UK based author Jack Wolf, who wrote the novel as a woman and has since transitioned to being a man, has fully embraced both the language and ideas of eighteenth-century England to create a beautiful and startling novel that contemplates questions of good and evil, faith and science, that are still relevant today. Moreover, while it does not explicitly deal with issues of gender identity, Wolf’s experience of transitioning from female to male is reflected in the writing, in particular in its focus on identity and what it feels like to be uncomfortable in one’s own skin.

I can see why the way it’s written -using period spelling and capitalisation (though fortunately not the most extreme versions) could put an unaware or unexperienced person off. But I strongly advise you to try to get through it, like I advise people to try with Wuthering Heights (if you can get through that you can get through this. At least this isn’t in dialect).

Provided for free by Penguin Group through NetGalley.

I really struggled with this, hence the long gap between my acquiring the book and my review. It’s a difficult book, not just in the language, but in the pace and the themes. A long book like this is always going to be a slow starter, but I wasn’t, at the beginning, entirely sure we had started. I got the concepts that Wolf was going for fairly early on, and became frustrated when the viewpoint character couldn’t see it as clearly as I could.

Once you get into it, the writing is beautiful. So many authors would use the fact of writing in an archaic form of the language to ignore poetry, meanignful metaphor, or truthful description, but Wolf doesn’t, and the result can be something magical at times. I warn you, that this descriptive ability could put a person off who doesn’t want to read about the darker desires of the human being – the desire to hurt, to cause suffering. Also, there are some quite forthright descriptions of prostitution and BDSM within, so be aware.

Plot wise it’s a slow but good ‘un, with many interesting and exciting twists and turns. It’s solidly constructed, with no major WTF moments. It also manages to discuss gender, class and other, related subjects without ever falling into the trap of inappropriate attitudes for the era. No politically correct history here! But there is an intelligent use of the attitudes of the time to examine our own, modern attitudes which I very much approved of.

So, this is a damn fine book, and you should probably read it. 4 out of 5. ( )

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.



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. ( )

This is a messed up book. It's also odd, imaginative, a little gimmick-y, gross, captivating, fascinating, horrifying, and weird.

Set in the mid-1700s, our narrator is Tristan Hart, a young man of some means and some madness. Growing up with a depressed widower father, Tristan's best friend was the ethereal Nathaniel Ravenscroft, a handsome and daring young man who eventually runs off with gypsies. Tristan grows up a rather ordinary boy until an incident with a tutor brands him high-strung and prone to nerves.

It is only his father's friend, novelist and magistrate Henry Fielding, who prises Tristan from the country and into medical school in London. There, Tristan learns he is gifted at the art and science of surgery and that his sole sexual pleasure comes from provoking pain.

That's just the first half of the novel; the other half is Tristan learning to live with himself, his bouts of 'illness' and brushes with the supernatural, his love affair with a young teenager who matches his hunger for pain, and his passion for medical research.

The novel is written in an archiac homage to 18th century literature, with all nouns and some adjectives capitalized, and unusual spelling. Although I started to grow accustomed to Wolf's archaic writing style, I also found it slightly obfuscated the action, especially the moments when Tristan was going mad/experiencing something supernatural. I'm undecided if this purposefully overwrought manner is awesome or too much of a gimmick. Here's a sample:

I bade my Father's Gamekeeper bring me live Subjects for Experimentation and Study, and within a Fortnight of my Return my Cages had begun to fill, and my Laboratory to rustle. Yet, despite my stated Design, I found My Self incapable of performing a Dissection upon any of these, for the mere Effort of preparing Board and Instruments seemed beyond me. (p311)

This book is gruesome and at times, was almost too disturbing (for me) to read. Wolf -- through Tristan -- lingers over his experiments in pain, his fantasies, which are not my speed and I found this book distressing at moments -- and suuuuuuuuuuuper addictive.

While reading, I was reminded of Patrick Süskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Bret Easton Ellis if he adopted 18th century literary stylings, and the film Secretary.  I'm totally undecided about how I ultimately feel having finished this novel.  If you like dark, evocative, brilliant, chilling, creepy, overwrought, twisted and wicked fun, some literary gymnastics, historicals that feel historical, and very unreliable narrators, this is your book. ( )