Saturday, December 15, 2012

Book Review: Satan Burger [Carlton Mellick III]

RATING: Pretty good! :D
Mmm... Appetizing :/


Imagine this world is a child, and God its indulgent father. Child Earth is bored with his human toys, so God opens up a soul-fueled portal called the Walm that leads to different universes to give his child new toys.

So now our world is overrun by different species: tiny cockroach people, gorgeous hermaphroditic blue women, incredibly wealthy Hogs, poisonous giant scorpion flies that are terrified of female baboons, and a myriad of other creatures that live in Carlton Mellick’s grotesque imagination. 

In the midst of this chaos, God decides to stop letting people die, to keep Heaven from overpopulating. So on one hand, we’ve got the soul-ful dead rotting away while still very conscious about it and the soulless living staring at walls and shrugging, without a care in the world.

Our narrator is an ex-junkie named Leaf who sees himself in a third-person perspective. He and his friends are the few people in this world who have managed to hang on to their souls, and still have a passion to live.

Enter Satan. 

Satan, who is in the soul business, is worried he might not have any more souls to reap. And if there are no more souls to reap, Hell will cease to exist. So Satan opens up a burger joint called “Satan Burger”, which sells deep-fried burgers “so good, you’d gladly sell your soul for one of ‘em”. 

Unfortunately, every un-living thing Satan touches comes to life, so he offers Leaf and his friends to work for him. After all, nobody wants to buy demon burgers that eat and shit and scream when you try to eat them now, do they? Leaf and his friends agree to form an alliance with the devil to keep hanging on to their souls, and to find a niche in a world that no longer has a place for them.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Satan Burger is at times hilarious, at times angry, at times depressingly desperate. The story is very much alive not only because it is jam-packed with emotions, but also because it is richly detailed. Each place gives off its own atmosphere. Each species has its own culture, its own unique anatomical features and functions. (Read, and you'll see.) Mellick hasn't just created a world, he's created an entire fucking universe!

Satan Burger is long, roughly about 230 pages, single-spaced, size 8 TNR font. The in-depth descriptions are something to rave about, though there are parts that read like ramblings that felt more like fillers than actually having something to do with the novel at all.

Although I couldn't totally relate with the characters because I’m not into the punk scene, I admire Mellick’s character creation. It’s something he’s really good ateach character has his own backstory, his own idiosyncrasies. For example, Leaf and his addiction to drugs, leading to his third-person perspective of himself. Or the brothers Gin and Vodka, the vampire-wannabe (guess what their father was drinking during the time of their births? :P). Or even Mortician, the Japanese guy who dresses and talks like a pirate. 

However, my favorite character would be the Devil himself. I applaud Mellick’s version of Satan. He’s powerful, fearsome, and gayer than a goose. The scene where Nan screams bloody hell at Satan for keeping on touching her dead boyfriend Gin and bringing different body parts alive (Gin’s hand, pinkie, dreadlocks, and right butt cheek now has their own lives) is classic:


Nan: “What the hell did you touch his penis for??”
Satan (shaking his head childishly): “I didn’t touch it.”
(Nan unzips Gin’s pants to reveal a dancing worm. The worm wriggles excitedly. Its mouth has developed from Gin’s pisshole and Gin’s bladder is now its stomach sack, two small eyes on the sides of its head, quite like a snake’s.)
Satan: “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. You know, it’s not easy being the only gay person left. I have urges that are hard to resist."
Nan: “What the hell am I supposed to do with a living penis??

On a deeper level, Satan Burger is a reminder for each of us to keep on being children – to have a zest for living, to hold on to our ideals and to fight for them. As Mellick puts it, “The world becomes clearer and clearer the older we become, much less mysterious/exciting and all its appeal we experienced during childhood turns logical, and logic is a dirty and boring word.”

Four stars.

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