The simplified Chinese version of Chuck Palahniuk's "sick and twisted" novel Haunted has turned out not to be the complete failure many expected, with sales being reported by publisher Chen Li.
Named after the infamous Guts (Changzi in Chinese) in a 23-story collection described by his US publishers as "the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you'll ever encounter," Haunted has been published in China's with its titular title removed.
"Eventually we were not able to publish the first story Guts, ironically, making it a book called Guts without Guts," reads a publishers' apology in the book that actually directs readers to a pirate site where the story is available: "you can still go to madmad.me for an unfettered reading experience."
Haunted became notorious in literary circles for containing the short story Guts, which had been previously published in the March 2004 issue of Playboy magazine as well as on Palahniuk's website prior. The fetishistic tale of a violent accident which befalls a teen masturbating in a swimming pool contains such explicit and, to many, disgusting sexual descriptions that readers allegedly began fainting when Palahniuk started to read the story aloud to audiences from 2003.
Around 70 listeners are said to have passed out over four years during such readings, a figure that has done more for Palahniuk's reputation as a bold and iconoclastic novelist than any amount of marketing.
Not surprisingly therefore, Palahniuk says he is not actually troubled by these incidents, which have not stopped fans from reading Guts or his other works. Indeed, audio recordings of his readings circulated on the Internet mean that the figure of 73 faintings reported in Palahniuk's afterword of the latest edition of Haunted (and prominently boasted about on the cover) may now have countless, unverifiable, additional others.
It was little wonder than the story of a man having his intestines sucked out by a water filter while pleasuring himself fell foul of Chinese censors. But how do readers view a book named after and publicized by a story that doesn't actually make the final cut?
For some, the view ranges from misleading to outright false advertising; for others, publication is still seen as a victory in China's ever-stricter censorship environment.
About 10 enthusiastic readers sat with publishers Saturday at a hutong caf in Beijing, talking about the book and the writer, part of a monthly book salon organized by Newriting, a literary magazine.
Xu Yi, a poet and publisher who introduced the book to the Jilin Publishing Group explained the background.
"The censor roughly read the very first story and made a quick decision not to publish, rather than revise the story, which might be too complicated."
But the title and author couldn't be changed once its ISBN was approved, he added. "The consequences would be serious enough that the boss may even have lost his job if he risked it."
"I'd rather thank [him] because he really wanted this book to be published, while many others simply turned us down after googling it online," said Xie Zhongwei, the book's Chinese editor, adding that they spent a long time finding the right publisher after acquiring the copyright early in August 2009.
They had planned to publish a booklet containing Guts separately, or hide it inside the middle of the book, which didn't work out either.
"From this incident, we can see that publishing restrictions haven't been lifted even though many state-owned publishing houses have transformed into corporations," Xu said. "Publishing [in China] is not a business, but a political means of controlling the right to speak out, no matter if it's about ideology or not."
The simplified Chinese translation follows the 2009 traditional Chinese version by Jing Xiang, and the cover, featuring a pink condom blown up like a balloon, was chosen to be a "better design" than the sewn-up wound on the cover of Taiwanese version, which resembles a lambskin condom referenced in the story.
Readers picked their favorite stories while expressing resonance with Palahniuk's concerns for humanity, despite some of their initial disgust. "Real terror can't be talked about. Just like guts, it can't be discussed even if it is a shared memory," said one surnamed Chen.
The event in the quiet bungalow ended by reading the forbidden Guts. Some couldn't help laughing, others were embarrassed to read along. Most, however, thought readers have a better tolerance for absurdity and perversity in China where the reality is often stranger than fiction.