Wolfery

[jere7my]

As a professional pornographer, I resent big-name writers getting away with writing bad sex. That's why I'm pleased to see that Tom Wolfe has won the Bad Sex Award:

Judges poured scorn on a passage that reads: "Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns - oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest - no, the hand was cupping her entire right - Now! She must say ‘No, Hoyt’ and talk to him like a dog ..."

Slither slither slither. I'm exploring your otorhinolaryngological caverns.

(Thanks, supergee.)

[Edit: the long list of nominees is available at the Guardian.]

Comments

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Owwww.

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

It has the appeal of a train wreck.

Maturity

[miraling.livejournal.com]

Ewwwww.

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

*whimper*

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to believe it's a plot. He wants to make sex sound so tedious that even teenagers will stop doing it.

[crystalpyramid]

Ow, my imagination hurts. Make it stop.

[(Anonymous)]

In an interview I heard, Mr. Wolfe specifically talked about his intent to make the sex scenes as far from prurient as possible. The specific thing mentioned was a chapter break in the middle, rather than the use of typically Wolfian language, but the point, I think, is that he was writing about bad sex, rather than writing badly about sex. Of course, he was, as it turns out, writing badly about bad sex, but there you are.
I am pleased to see Weidenfield and Nicolson leading the publishers' race. They made their name (or names) in publishing Lolita, back in the day, although they were never actually prosecuted for it.

Thanks,
-Vardibidian.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

Ack! I am slightly more perturbed by Wolfe's passage than I am by your icon, which is an inexplicable Christmas-izing of KIT'S icon.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

You must have missed my last post (http://www.livejournal.com/~jere7my/71595.html).