The Guts and Nuts

"The Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk undoubtedly shares some distinctly transgressive traits evinced thus far in our explorations of transgressive British literature. To begin, the prevalent theme of sexuality, or moreover a search for some former clarity brought about by this activity. "The Guts", explores how this sexuality comes about for young men living in modernity or post modernity. Similar to Amis and Ballard, there is an obsessive and methodologically driven nature behind this sexuality. Indeed, young men and their obsessive relationship with their penis when they first discover the phenomenon of the orgasm is probably not a peculiarity one could ascribe to the postmodern condition. Regardless, the young men in "The Guts" and their extreme explorations of the means and ends of their own sexuality resonate well with the transgressive British fiction we have read thus far. Along a similar trajectory, each of the boys either explicitly, or implicitly, are exposed in one way or another for their freakish endeavors. This too, reminds us of both Amis's characters demise and Ballard's main characters obsession. In all of these works, what was meant to be private, or what perhaps should be private, becomes a spectacle in one way or another.