Essays

(Kelly Borberg)

Kelly Borberg holds multiple formal degrees - more than she needed, probably - in liberal arts disciplines. Her life education, however, extends further into her colorful childhood. Due to her father's work as a ship's captain, the family moved on average every two years. She has lived in 8 different states in the US, Germany, Austria, and Cyprus, where she graduated from a British high school. This has given her a unique perspective and a maddening case of itchy feet. She's currently at work on her first novel.

(Image Courtesy of Grove Press)

Explicitly Yours

The reviews of Charlotte Roche’s novel Wetlands are effusive: “explicit,” “shocking,” “accomplished,” and even “a feminine manifesto.” I was eager to tuck into the bold, brave book by this first-time novelist, a well-known TV personality in Germany. Reader, I am not easily shocked, nor does the explicit or erotic deter me; quite the opposite. But Wetlands had my jaw dropping from chapter one with its sheer lack of inhibition. The main character, eighteen-year-old Helen Memel, tells her story from the hospital as she recovers from an operation and reminisces shamelessly about her body, her sex life, and the pain of her parents’ divorce. It’s definitely one of those books which will fall into the love / hate category but in homage to the author’s German residence, let’s look at the ekelhaft (purely revolting) and fabelhaft (just fabulous) between the covers. There is a bit of both.

Ekelhaft
Being trapped in a hospital bed gives Helen time to delve into her fascination with bodily fluids and with sexual acts. Page after uncomfortable page, there is excrement, vomit, urine, semen, and blood, offered up with Roche’s childlike, in-your-face candor that feels stark. How much can we possibly take? There’s a lengthy discussion on smegma, a regrettably ugly word for something quite natural. I had to look it up. Helen waxes poetic on the fluid her vagina produces: “I’m ready to be looked at and tasted. The smegma has a bit of age to it, a truffle flavor, and that makes guys hot. Usually.” Helen also has a penchant for leaving used tampons where unsuspecting hospital employees will find them. And she imagines having sex with her father, remembering his “thick club” she saw as a child. Sex has never been less sexy.

Fabelhaft
Then again, sex isn’t always sexy. At the end of the day, this book is about things that are inherently human, visceral. As Helen says, “we’re all just animals who want to mate – preferably with someone who smells like pussy.” Helen also wants to be in control of her own body, cutting a hole in her undies so that when a date feels her up at the disco, they know she’s chosen to have sex with him. She also isn’t afraid to admit her deep vulnerability: “I’ll go to bed with any idiot just so I don’t have to be in bed alone or spend a whole night sleeping alone.” Even though I suspect some of her boldness is the way she plays out her feelings about her parents’ divorce and hormone-fueled teenage angst, it’s also refreshing to see a woman use her voice the way she does: loudly. “Let it all out, that’s my motto – otherwise you’ll get cancer,” she advises.

Wetlands is courageous and outrageous. I was disappointed that it was sometimes more a gruesome anatomical lesson than something that would help us see certain things in a new, positive light. Men in particular need to understand that the stickier features of a woman’s body are part and parcel of the feminine, just like our more pleasing curves and landscapes. I’m afraid that some men may walk away from this book with the wrong impression. However, any time a woman uses her voice to start a conversation about women’s bodies, I am on board. Any time someone breaks new ground and mentions the unmentionable. For anyone who says this book grosses them out, it’s only because Roche has daringly brought hidden fears and desires to light.

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