Two village idiots, Fart and Suck, try to overthrow the government. Being idiots, they fail. Nonetheless, King Prawn and Queen Clytoris go their separate ways inamicably (he bops her on the head).
It’s an epic battle of the sexes.
King Prawn wants to conquer the world with his army of (mostly) imbeciles. He battles Harry the vicious but lonely farmhouse, Mammon, a giant singing and dancing bottom, invades Hollywood with its vast cast of stars (Marilyn Monroe, the Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Fred Astaire, etc.), culminating in King Prawn getting an Oscar nomination.
Queen Clytoris wants to create a community to discuss issues. That doesn't work out well, so President Carol and her steroid pumped Amazon warriors get to kick butts (male).
Both a tale of power and love. Star-crossed, cross-eyed lovers - Virginia, the nymphomaniac who finds true love with a cat, St Claire, the romantic binge-eating philosopher, and Prince Jotel, (author of Three Turds) and part time cat.
So who wins in power and love?
Which fiction character kills the author?
A satire on everything – politics, love, death, art, philosophy, Hollywood, religion, literature, and everything under the sun and beyond.
Two village idiots, Fart and Suck, try to overthrow the government. Being idiots, they fail. Nonetheless, King Prawn and Queen Clytoris go their separate ways inamicably (he bops her on the head).
It’s an epic battle of the sexes.
King Prawn wants to conquer the world with his army of (mostly) imbeciles. He battles Harry the vicious but lonely farmhouse, Mammon, a giant singing and dancing bottom, invades Hollywood with its vast cast of stars (Marilyn Monroe, the Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Fred Astaire, etc.), culminating in King Prawn getting an Oscar nomination.
Queen Clytoris wants to create a community to discuss issues. That doesn't work out well, so President Carol and her steroid pumped Amazon warriors get to kick butts (male).
Both a tale of power and love. Star-crossed, cross-eyed lovers - Virginia, the nymphomaniac who finds true love with a cat, St Claire, the romantic binge-eating philosopher, and Prince Jotel, (author of Three Turds) and part time cat.
So who wins in power and love?
Which fiction character kills the author?
A satire on everything – politics, love, death, art, philosophy, Hollywood, religion, literature, and everything under the sun and beyond.
K is crazy, and I’m crazy about her. I guess that’s love. Come to think of it, dear readers, I’m crazy too. So beware, this novel, which I shall rip out of my soul, might hold a mirror to my sickness inside. Riddled with conflict am I, and I must out this conflict on these poor virgin pages. But don’t you fret, I am a clown/philosopher, and I’ll try my best to make you laugh, cry, think, ponder, scare, depress, and transcend. I hope this novel will make a million bucks so that I can marry K because I don’t want a job, which is a definite drawback of married life. K, K, K, care you not for an impoverished author and the riches of his mind? No, O well, bumeroo. Now let the novel begin!
Once upon a time...a good beginning that...saves me from doing a lot of historical research...there lived a king and a queen, who ruled over a tinyish kingdom located somewhere between the North Pole and the South Pole. It was a peaceful kingdom, most likely because no one, including myself, the author, knew where it was, and thus no one invaded it. Until one day, two village idiots, Fart and Suck, decided in their discombobulated minds to overthrow the King and Queen...now what were their royal names...let me cogitate upon it...King Prawn and Queen Clytoris! The two first names that popped up in my head. I value the unconscious as I inhabit its realm most of the time, usually supine. In other words, food and sex are always on my mind.
That day was bright and sunny, with very little wind frolicking, but historically, it was a tempestuous day, one of those forked days that tore lives apart like brother from sister, husband from wife, friend from friend, and humanity from God.
“Down with the King!” shouted the two village idiots, with explosive saliva, outside the castle of King Prawn and Queen Clytoris. The castle was one of those typical medieval castles you would find in a B grade Hollywood movie, complete with a moat, a drawbridge, portcullis, keep, baileys, and stuff...good word that. Outside the fortified castle, stretched to the horizon were forests and lakes and stuff and more stuff, especially green stuff. Clouds on the horizon, rising and looming, harbingers of war and doom and possible rain.
Hearing the ruckus and having nothing better else to do, King Prawn stepped out onto the battlements overlooking the village idiots. Two pairs of crazy eyes amid unruly hair glared back at him.
“What is your complaint, my subjects?” he bellowed to them below.
“I’m the rightful arse to sit on your throne, wrong-arse!” Fart shouted back at the robed King aloft in the battlements.
King Prawn scrutinised the insurgents. With their drool and amusing and ill-fitting attire, they were clearly village idiots, so he dismissed the potential danger of the situation.
“Your arse belongs to the dunny. Get thee there, idiot,” King Prawn replied.
Stabbing a finger at King Prawn. “Don’t you mock me. I may be a village idiot, but I’m a human being as well and deserve just as much respect.”
His partner in treason nodded bouncily in agreement. “Yeyes. Respect. R.E.S.P.E.K.”
“I’m sorry, village idiots,” said King Prawn, with slightly insincere sincerity.
“We village idiots have had enough of all this mockery and humiliation. I am a village idiot and I’m proud of it.”
“I said I’m sorry. So why don’t you go back to your village where you idiotise in and go suck your thumb or whatever village idiots do.”
“We don’t suck thumbs!” shouted Fart, indignant at this vile slur on village idiots.
“Yeyes,” said Suck, and corrected King Prawn, “We suck dogs tails!”
“And whose dog’s tail are you sucking?” Fart inquired of Suck, before snarling, “Not with my dog, I hope.”
“What’s your doggie’s name?”
“Kitty Kat.”
“Nono, the name of the dog whose tail I suck is called Leroy.”
“Excuse me, befuddled gentlemen,” the King interrupted them. “Could you try concentrating on the task at hand?”
“Leroy the Great Dane who lives down the lane?” Fart asked.
“I wouldn’t say he was gweat. He’s okayey.”
“Yes, I agree. Not great, just average. How he got his reputation for being great I have no idea.”
“In my oponinion George the bulldoggie is the best.”
“He’s rather ugly, don’t you think?” Fart asked.
King Prawn waved his hands. “Hello, remember me? Hello...focus, please. Eyes on me.” He pointed two fingers at his own face.
“I like the ruggedy look.”
“For me,” replied Fart haughtily. “I have a weakness for the sophisticated type. I like a well-groomed perfumed French Poodle.”
Sock laughed derisively. “What a sissisy you are!”
“Don’t call me sissy!” shouted Fart angrily, and socked Suck on the jaw.
Naturally, Suck socked back.
Fart was about to launch a fist straight at Suck’s chin, but he stopped himself. In disgust he shook his head. “The idiotic things we village idiots must do in order to be village idiots.” And he screamed, anguished, pathetic, “No more!”
“Yes,” sighed Suck, feeling ashamed of himself. “It’s extremely hard work to be village idiots. So demeaning.”
Lamented Fart: “The pressure gets to me sometimes. There are days when I feel like chucking it all in. Get a job in an office, get married and have kids, read newspapers for information, eat white bread, suffer heartburn every night, indulge in intolerant remarks towards the minorities and less well off, watch dumb television, have meaningless monosyllabic conversations with my wife and kids, go to church, vote for the mainstream parties, and think that life can’t get any better than this. God, I envy normal people. They don’t have to work at being idiots, they just are. I work so hard at it, and with an IQ of 300, it’s not easy.”
King Prawn placed his elbow on the castle thingy (crenel?—according to my pictorial dictionary) and propped his jaw on his palm, yawned, and gazed at the horizon...yearning, big dollops of yearning...wondering what lay beyond the horizon?
“Yes,” said Suck. “I’ve got an IQ of 300 too. But what can a man of intelligence do in this crazy civilisation? Be a scientist, invent new weapons of mass destruction, or new deodorants. Learn all this outer knowledge to compensate for our lack of inner knowledge. Or be a philosopher or a writer and wallow in words so that nothing is real anymore. No, I’d rather be a village idiot. At least I’m not pretending to be intelligent.
Fart nodded his head in assent. “It’s the most honest way of living, expressing the true nature of existence, which is that it is absurd. Furthermore, it’s the only way for humans to render themselves harmless.”
Fart and Suck gazed into each other’s eyes and understood at once what they needed to do.
“Whowho said village idiots are harmless?” shouted Suck vehemently and bowed down to ram his head into Fart’s stomach.
Thus, angry Fart chased after stupid Suck and Bonk! Pow! Bam! their way back to the horizon, disappearing like dust into a vacuum cleaner.
“Bloody village idiots,” muttered King Prawn as he walked down the stone steps, across the cobbled courtyard, and trudged wearily into the tall tower. He was disappointed rather than angry. He had hoped for some action to take his mind off his boredom. His eyes lacked lustre, his mouth sagged, unable to form a smile or a snarl, his skin was grey and bloodless, his flesh sagged in folds of indolence, yes, his body screamed it: King Prawn was bored with his life.
The castle, however beautiful it was, suffocated his soul; he yearned for the world, for horizons of conquest. To wield a sword and spill blood and cut muscle in heroic battle. But something was holding him back. Some Ball and Chain. He fixed his dull, clouded eyes on his queen, who was sitting on the throne.
The court was empty; the only courtiers and knights were dust and cobwebs. Dust and cobwebs invading and clogging his entire body, fogging his brain, choking his soul, crushing him.
“Have they gone away?” asked Queen Clytoris, knitting a garment as if knitting a wall between her and her husband.
“Yes, when you show leadership, people respect you. I am King because I am stronger and wiser than they are.”
“Have you told the servants to clean the windows? They are so dusty and grimy.”
Dethroned. “No. I was too busy putting down a rebellion.”
“But you’re not busy now.”
He felt defiant, standing his ground like General Custer at Little Big Horn. “But I am. After all, I am the King. I have to deal with so many important issues...like war, famine, high interest rates.”
“It will only take a second to tell the servants to clean the windows,” she said, persisting like a knitting needle.
King Prawn was losing his patience and pride. “Why do you want clean windows? There’s nothing to look at outside. Just stupid, boring natural scenery: mountains, lakes, trees, birds, cute animals. Instead of clean windows, let’s have large canvasses of epic battles, with buckets of alizarin crimson for blood, or if you prefer to be modern, paintings of the Irish master, Francis Bacon, with his screaming popes and posing corpses. Now that’s beauty—the distillation of horror!”
“Men and your definition of art. Beauty is something you want to rape and destroy,” said the Queen.
“Men need to be men, daring, adventurous, dangerous. And women such as you want men to be sissies. You want men to be caring, loving, sensitive, understanding, sharing, as well as be doting parents to spoiled obnoxious brats. Even sex has been sissified. My idea of good masculine sex is no foreplay, premature ejaculation, and a good night’s sleep. Instead, you want us to perform to the best of our abilities before the female critic. Men must combine the feats of a ballet dancer, a gymnast, and a marathon runner. Sex takes so much energy that I have little left of it to do the more important things, things that matter, things historical and glorious.”
“Why have sex with me then?” she asked, looking up from her knitting and observing his demeanour, sensing something new, ominous.
“Because I need that one second of orgasmic ecstasy.”
“Do stop whining. If you were the man you fantasise yourself to be, you would have done something by now.”
Now. That word hit him hard like a divine revelation, the hammer of God bopping him on his noggin. For Now existed before a thought was formed. Now!
He spoke, and he was surprised by how passionate he felt. “You think manhood is a childish, immature thing. Men were born to be warriors, to feel power and strength, to kill with their hands. Let there be war!”
He picked up the royal sceptre that slept on his empty silk throne and raised it high like a sword. Be a man now. The time for love and conscience and peace and talk was over. When he felt himself wince at her bright reasoning eyes, he knew that he must snuff the light out of those orbs and bring in the rule of darkness. He swung it down hard on the queen’s head, and she slumped and slipped off her throne. The ball of yarn tumbled away and scurried for help. But she didn’t die from his blow. Instead, it woke her up from her inner slumber, deep within her psyche, the sleeping beauty snoring her life away. She understood at once that she had to be free from his chains. Blood trickled down her forehead, the pain intensifying and throbbing, but she felt stronger than ever.
She would rise as someone new and powerful.
Oh what a violent beginning to my novel. Blame it on K, she makes me suffer so. Before I get to the next chapter, let me tell you, dear readers, this is an abstract expressionist novel. I can’t write about reality. Since birth I have been alienated from reality—family, country, nature, God—so I am not in any position to write about reality. Who is to blame for this separation? Who drove me to this gaping hole in my soul? I don’t know. Maybe this novel might enlighten me a bit. Or perhaps drop me into darkness? Anyway, I’ve always lived in my head, and this is where my novel is set and where the characters live and die. Enjoy! Or maybe not...
Does the concept of a killer house interest you? Yes? No? Either way, you're going to come out of this disappointed.
The Golden Rhinoceros tells the story of... you know, I'm not sure. The two main characters are bloodthirsty King Prawn and wise Queen Clytoris, but neither of them are giving any depth as characters. The real star of the book is the author, Ranulfo, who inserts himself into the narrative every now and then while tackling issues in his own life, including work, college, and a toxic relationship with his on-again off-again girlfriend, K. With little regard for the rules of writing, Ranulfo considers himself a gangster in the land of literature, armed with the weapons of Truth and Satire.
This may sound engaging, but there's not enough foundation in this story's universe to be invested. Ranulfo writes in layers upon layers of symbolism, which is at odds with his convention of giving his characters names like Suck and Fart. If this was written by a more experienced author, they could have turned this into something great, but alas that's not to be. Imagine if a character named Fart was as three-dimensional and complex as somebody like Elizabeth Bennet. That would challenge the norms in a humorous and clever way. Instead, the shallow characters are constantly stuck in absurd situations that, half the time, aren't relevant to the plot. It became a struggle to finish this; the zany antics descended into the literary equivalent of White Noise. Not the sound, I mean the 2005 film. Remember that movie? With Michael Keaton? Yeah, it's like that. This may sound harsh, but in the preface of the book it's made clear that this novel is just a quick cash grab released posthumously by Ranulfo's son. I can say whatever I want, in that case. I'm the gangster of reviews, I guess. (Who says I don't understand the source material?!)
There may be one or two funny bits in this book, and a more experienced writer could have taken this premise to great places, but that's not what we have here. You should avoid this one.
-Mark "The Regular Rhinoceros" Dellandre