THE CUTTING ROOM is Louise Welsh's debut novel, published for the first time by Text Publishing in Australia in 2006.Rilke's not exactly the archetypal hero accidental investigator. He's in his 40's; his personal hygiene is a bit offhand; he's an auctioneer for one of Glasgow's less than salubrious auction houses and he's gay with a taste for anonymous sexual encounters anywhere, anytime.When summoned by Miss McKindless to her recently deceased brother's home, stuffed full with antiques, the likes of which Rilke's firm have never been able to get hold of. Despite her demand that the entire house be cleared in a week, Rilke readily agrees to the windfall. When she insists that Rilke personally clear her brother's private room in the attic he goes along with that as well, although she's very particular that everything in it must be destroyed. Naturally Rilke can't resist a very good look around and in amongst the very impressive collection of exclusive erotica, he finds a cache of photographs. The photographs include some of the dead man along with many that have a snuff porn theme. Rilke is immediately drawn to finding out where these photos came from and who the girl depicted could be.Despite the fact that the search for the origins of the photos and the girl herself is a very fruitless task - the photos are obviously old, there is no indication of where they came from or where taken or anything that could possibly provide any sort of lead, Rilke can't leave well enough alone. He says himself "Let's just say I can't leave her there" when pressed to chuck it all in. And herein lies one of the great dichotomy's of the book. Rilke is in many ways a very confrontational character. His pursuit of sexual pleasure is, well, not to put too fine a point on it, a bit mucky. His (and those of his boss Rose's) ethics are a tad on the questionable side, and yet he continues the quest to find out something about these photos in a way that is extremely human and decent. At the same time, he's not depicted as a lone wolf, hard man who cares - typical of many crime fiction books. He is extremely cynical, he's a realist.Along with Rilke there's a supporting cast of wonderful characters - Rose, his slightly overblown, vaguely past it, sexual predator boss, whose best friend is ultimately Rilke - the one man who just isn't vaguely interested in her sexually no matter what she does. There's Les the drug-dealing transvestite. There's a bunch of reprobate second hand dealers in everything from books to porn, furniture to junk. There's the old schoolfriend, now policeman, who does Rilke more than one favour by dragging him out of some difficult 'legal' situations. All of the supporting characters are drawn as vividly as the Rilke and again, there are some things to like and some things to loathe about many of them.Ultimately THE CUTTING ROOM is a fascinating book - part morality tale, part crime fiction, part character study, vaguely Gothic, grotty and steeped in a sense of place and people. If you are interested in the non-black and white, if you can let the obvious flaws in somebody's character roll and look beneath to find a true nature, you should enjoy this book.
There's something about rummaging through an elderly person's effects that attracts me. As does an explicit gay sex scene. If this doesn't grab you, The Cutting Room probably isn't your cup of tea.Rilke, hired to auction the contents of a massive home in a once wealthy region Glasgow, comes across articles that require his discretion. A selection of impossible to find period pornographic novels, a ivory carving depicting sex and death, and photographs of torturous sexual acts. Fetish much? (So now I discover that the genre of writing is called "noir". Hmmm... not what I think of when the word is used, but I digress.)The results of Rilke’s findings lead to an underground adventure that is hard to classify. It’s dark, dreary, odd, dirty and depressing… but because Rilke is un-attracted to women, he loathes pornography and the sexual perversion of women in a way that only a woman can appreciate. It’s that underlying aspect that truly reaches out to the reader, even when in the midst of lewd descriptiveness. And yes, the description is so well done it’s difficult to believe that it was written by a straight woman! I admit, I really liked the end of the book, even though it was so fast paced that I had difficulty keeping up… AND Louise Welch used my HUGEST pet-peeve and introduced a new character… IN THE LAST CHAPTER! But, yeah…. The ending is quite worth the slow pace of the previous 4/5ths of the story – in which, consequently, you can feel Rilke digging himself deeper in a hole with each passing chapter. However, none of your fears are realized at the end; a whole new set of them are thrown at you! I am curious though… what’d Rilke do with those books???
Do You like book The Cutting Room (2003)?
I read this in a day, it was such a cracking, addictive read. I'm going to have to keep an eye open for her other books.Set in Glasgow, this tale takes you into the underbelly of auction houses, antiques and the world of drugs and pornography. The narrator is an auctioner, Rilke, who is hired by an eldery woman to clear her recently deceased brother's town house (full of expensive antiques) in a third of the usual time, with a request that Rilke destroys everything in her brother's private study up in the attic. During his first assesment of this room, he finds a large collection of what I suppose you'd call literary pornography, and a collection of photographs depicting sado-sexual scenes, and what appears to be a sequence of snuff photographs. But are they staged fakes, or did it really happen? Rilke, who seems to be a bit of a mess himself, gets drawn into an obsession with these photographs, trying to find out the truth, without possibily getting anywhere, but in the process uncovering a lot more nasty things....
—Ape
I originally got the book on tape for this because someone told me it was about 6 hours of Robert Carlyle talking and I could listen to that guy read cooking recipes for six hours if that existed. I actually ended up liking this book enough that I bought a paperback copy also.The narration is wonderful. The main character Rilke has a very blunt, sometimes morbid, way of describing everything that works with the plot and setting. Even though Rilke is the narrator and protagonist, I'm not sure if the reader is supposed to like him. The author goes to great lengths to mention his flaws. Rilke has a heavy smoking habit, drinks quite a bit, fancies men half his age almost exclusively, and beats people up. He also has several moments of kindness and heroism. One moment in particular that stands out to me is how he unintentionally starts a bar brawl because he was upset at the way a trans woman was being treated. In general I would say that Rilke's heart is in the right place, but he often goes about things in exactly the wrong way. In that respect, he works as an anti-hero. I read on wikipedia that this could have been a movie but plans fell through, which is a shame.
—Rose
This is a very dark and stylized novel and is not for the squeamish. When auctioneer Rilke is called to a deceased man's house to clear its contents, he finds disturbing photos that may depict a snuff scene. His curiosity gets the best of him and he delves into the seedy underworld of Glasgow to discover whether these photos are authentic. From drug dealers to pornographers, Rilke seeks answers to a mystery that runs far deeper than he realizes. Welsh writes in a very distinct style and it took me a few chapters to adapt to the Scottish inflection and vernacular in the dialogue. There is a good amount of sexual content that many readers might find distasteful, but it is necessary considering the subject and Rilke's own homosexuality. While I appreciate a moderately disturbing and gripping read, The Cutting Room is not for everyone. However, it has great character development, a unique voice, and it delivers a very effective mystery.
—Julie
