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Review
Leeds Guide, 8 September 2004: " The art is pretty spectacular, but it's the dialogue that really sparkles...Morrison has created a kaleidoscopic world in which nothing is as it seems." Go! 1st October 2004, : " Quite simply unique, and it's not often you can say that about any work of fiction these days."; Lincolnshire Echo 1 February 2005: " ..tortuous but oddly compelling..."
Go! magazine, 1 October 2004, review by Matt Adams
"Quite simply unique, and it's not often you can say that about any work of fiction these days."
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In Britain ," Filth " is a word which can mean pornography,grime and dirt, or (in the expression "The Filth") can be slang for the police force. Grant Morrison,surrealistic graphic novelist supreme, plays with all three meanings,and combines them with his usual interest in the nature of reality,personality and the power of fiction to create new realities....the result?
A graphic novel which is confusing,stimulating,terrifying. hilarious and uplifting.
A graphic novel which is confusing,stimulating,terrifying. hilarious and uplifting.
Through a sad sack loner who is obsessed with his cat(autobiographical echoes of Morrison's own life here!), the reader is introduced to "the Hand" a reality police force,clearing up threats to existence itself....but what do they really represent? And what is reality?
Readers familiar with Morrison's wonderful "Doom Patrol"," Animal Man" and "The Invisibles" will be on home territory here,while the casual reader may find themselves thoroughly confused. This work is dense,allusive and mind-expanding and is nowhere near as easy to follow as Morrison himself thinks..But,by God,it's thought-provoking,beautifully drawn by the magnificent Chris Weston and will resonate for weeks after reading. This work,perhaps more than any other,repays careful rereading and consideration.
Ignore the grudging response of much of the comics community. This is a challenging and complex work,but it is very worthwhile.The sexual and violent content,whilst disturbing in many ways,is neither gratuitous nor pointless,and the message of the work is empowering and positive.
Another meaning of "Filth" is the manure that makes flowers grow, and this compelling and difficult graphic novel makes the flowering of new concepts and ideas possible.
Recommended to all open-minded readers, willing to work hard to explore the limits of reality.
And that should include YOU!!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I think the best word to describe this novel is 'funhouse'. I chose that word with some care, because I think it captures both the strength of the novel and its weakness. Basically, we have a collection of ideas, each fascinating in itself, thrown together with little apparent attention to conventional narrative or plot. So, in the course of the book a number of strands run relatively parallel to one another, with little or no contact, but even within each strand there are shards or fragments, as if the strand were a collection of icebergs moving freely, so sometimes the touch briefly, but there is no obvious way in which they fit together.
So, this could be infuriating if what you are looking forward to is a simple narrative where good guys kick butt, or even a less simple narrative where everything is horribly complicated but at least you understand how all the parts fit together to produce a greater whole. But then again, what ideas they are. Gilbert and George images brought to life; a man whose official spokesperson is a woman who has been subjected to surgery so invasive that she is now simply a highly concupiscent automaton; extremely ambitious nanobots; mind-reading toupees; the 'paperverse' of superhero comics, whence characters can emerge into our world; chemically induced alter-egos leading to weird existential debates about which is the real personality; and so on.
So okay, loads of brilliant ideas. What about the novel as a whole? Well, this is my theory, and Grant Morrison may disagree, but here goes. In my opinion what we have here is almost the raw material for making a graphic novel. That is to say, we have a number of only very loosely connected fragments, and it is up to us to make a narrative of them that works for us, but may, of course, not work for anyone else. Trying not to sound pretentious, this is very similar to the idea Woolf used in Jacob's Room (Oxford World's Classics), where she presents fragments from the life of the eponymous protagonist, and it is up to us to assemble them into a life. So the real story of The Filth lies in the intertextual gaps that you, the reader fill from within your own mind, inspired by what Grant Morrison has told you.
So, this could be infuriating if what you are looking forward to is a simple narrative where good guys kick butt, or even a less simple narrative where everything is horribly complicated but at least you understand how all the parts fit together to produce a greater whole. But then again, what ideas they are. Gilbert and George images brought to life; a man whose official spokesperson is a woman who has been subjected to surgery so invasive that she is now simply a highly concupiscent automaton; extremely ambitious nanobots; mind-reading toupees; the 'paperverse' of superhero comics, whence characters can emerge into our world; chemically induced alter-egos leading to weird existential debates about which is the real personality; and so on.
So okay, loads of brilliant ideas. What about the novel as a whole? Well, this is my theory, and Grant Morrison may disagree, but here goes. In my opinion what we have here is almost the raw material for making a graphic novel. That is to say, we have a number of only very loosely connected fragments, and it is up to us to make a narrative of them that works for us, but may, of course, not work for anyone else. Trying not to sound pretentious, this is very similar to the idea Woolf used in Jacob's Room (Oxford World's Classics), where she presents fragments from the life of the eponymous protagonist, and it is up to us to assemble them into a life. So the real story of The Filth lies in the intertextual gaps that you, the reader fill from within your own mind, inspired by what Grant Morrison has told you.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book tells the tale of a middle aged bachelor with a cat who finds out that he's actually part of a secret inter-dimensional police force called "The Hand".
The art is good and the individual stories in each chapter are interesting. Some of the plot lines don't seem to go anywhere, but overall I'd say this book is worth reading. If you want to see a dope smoking communist assassin chimp, this book is for you!
The art is good and the individual stories in each chapter are interesting. Some of the plot lines don't seem to go anywhere, but overall I'd say this book is worth reading. If you want to see a dope smoking communist assassin chimp, this book is for you!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Grant Morrison's Naked Lunch
A scenario: Shaven-headed sequential art auteur, Grant Morrison, reads Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Greywolf
Unbelivable
Simply put this book is UNBELIVABLE. Excellent piece of writing, magnificent graphics and a brilliant story. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Bucur Radu Daniel
A highlight of the British graphic novel
'The Filth' is an extraordinary achievement: an original illustrated narrative that sustains itself over 320 pages without once flagging. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Paul Bowes
A whirlwind of the abstruse and the obtuse.
I don't get it.
I doubt that this is an uncommon reaction to the book among non-fans of Grant Morrison's work. Read more
I doubt that this is an uncommon reaction to the book among non-fans of Grant Morrison's work. Read more
Published on 13 April 2010 by Pygmallion
NO WAY!
I read this and I can stay it stands well out there on it's own. I am amazed this work exists at all, I say that because its the most dense and strange and funny and disturbing... Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2010 by J. K. Christopher
Made Of Awesome
I have a golden rule: If the only poor reviews of a book or movie are due to offense taken over taste and decency, then it's probably worth a look. Read more
Published on 6 Oct 2009 by J. Webb
a mess with no message
This book is, to put it bluntly; a mess. While the invisibles was always abit erratic and somewhat weighed down by the sum of its parts, you always felt like Morrison was in... Read more
Published on 23 Jun 2009 by Oliver Wood
Pays the bills
A bit like the Doom Patrol, but unlike Seaguy, this feels a bit pedestrian. I may be very spoilt - Seaguy is suberb writing and is clearly a pet project. Read more
Published on 20 May 2009 by Mr. Phillip Robinson
Not for the faint hearted
Grant Morrison has brought us many great comic books and The Filth certainly doesn't disappoint. Following the life of Greg Feely a sad loner who also happens to be secret agent... Read more
Published on 9 Mar 2009 by Bill Brasky
Daring
Grant Morisson's 'The Filth' represents a daring vision of human insights and hidden characters. Through a dirty - and yet classic - story telling, the author is provocative and... Read more
Published on 22 Nov 2006 by R. G. W. Pires
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