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I was writing this spoof on author Alan Elsner's dismissive article about how romance books today killed romance (but not his romance book) on HuffPo to the kewl tune of Milkshake....then I changed my mind about putting it out in public because, you know, it's Christmas time and...and...my readers won't care about being indirectly called stupid by Alan Elsner, great love story writer.
So, anyway, I thought I'd just show the link to bad sex passages (Literary Review entries) of non-romance writers who are probably great love story writers like Alan Elsner instead. I'm sure you'll agree these are gems. Like:
She puts her hands flat against his chest and leans into him in a simulacrum of a swoon, making a mewling sound. Her hips are goosefleshed and he can feel all the tiny hairs erect on her forearms. When he kisses her hot, soft mouth, which is bruised a little at one corner, he knows at once that she has been with another man, and recently - faint as it is there is no mistaking that tang of fish-slime and sawdust - for he has no doubt that this is the mouth of a busy working girl. (The Infinites by John Banvilled)
or, for the win:
Then, Bobby starts scrabbling frantically across the carpet for Mr Condom, sending five or six multicolour Durexes flying through the air, and he struggles getting the packet open and Georgie has to roll Mr Condom down Mr Penis for him and she has to help insert him into Mrs Vagina (Ten Storey Love Song by Richard Milward)
Oh yes, these entries certainly beat my little rap song about Alan Elsner's milkshake getting all the boys. Hee.
Get thee there and tell me how you love these great sex scenes!
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7 comments:
Are these for real? Someone actually wrote these on a book and then sold the thing?! Fish Slime and sawdust!? what she do, suck on a carp at a lumber yard?
Lady Z.,
What, you don't find them romantic?
Oh. my.
To paraphrase Opus the Penguin, those passages brought the word "BAD" to new levels of badness. Bad verbs. Bad adverbs. Bad everything. These passages just oozed rottenness from every bad paragraph. Simply bad beyond all infinite dimensions of possible badness….
Well maybe not that bad, but Lord, they weren't good.
Vince,
I thought some of them began quite nicely, and then sort of fell over the Overzealous Cliff with certain...ah...descriptions of body parts.
The thing is, if you ck out these bks as a random bunch like Elsner did with romance, you might jump into the conclusion that actually, it is Elsner's kind of "Romance" that is taking the romance out of romance.
That's great stuff. Yep, I'm stuck at the fish slime and sawdust too.
Sometimes it's so bad, it's good. Fish slime, how sublime.
I find the difference between women and men writing about sex fascinating. I don't think those paragraphs were bad, but rather a different way of seeing it. Women are definitely more verbose in their descriptions. I had the impression of snap shots while I read it. Now I'm trying to figure out which way is more mentally visual.
Deborah,
The descriptions of a woman's sex as being sawdust-ish and oyster-ish are damn funny. Or the one about Mr. Condom. I don't think the authors wanted their readers to laugh. And even Vince, our male reader, think those passages a bit much for sex scenes.
I think, male writers, trying to avoid purple prose, make their version pukepurple prose, LOL.
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