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Book reviews |
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EROTICA A LA CARTE HALF-BAKED
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Reviews |
Book review by Giles Hugo SOME time back in the pre-holistic, hedonistic '70s, as I recall, a bunch of American advertising hotshots decided to lend their collective creative abilities to writing an erotic novel - each author followed on from his or her colleague's previous efforts, adding to the existing characters and inventing ever more complex sub-plots and sexual gymnastics as they progressed. The result was published under a nom de plume as 'Naked Came the Stranger' and became a best-seller. Twenty years on, Australian publisher Di Gribble and TV show personality and former Skyhooks muso Red Symons have seduced - not literally I trust - a bunch of Oz's finest wordsmiths into concocting a similar daisy-chained opus, titled 'The Stranger Inside'. The rules were simple: Each of the 10 authors had to write one chapter. Each chapter would have a first-person protagonist, inherited from the previous chapter, who would make a connection with a new character who would feature in the next chapter. Although the 10 participating authors are listed, alphabetically, on the book's cover, Symons undertook never to reveal who wrote which chapter. So part of the fun of reading this highly episodic 'novel' is trying to work out who might have created a character such as Laszlo Bath, of Jewish- Hungarian extraction, a Mesmeric faith-healer whose speciality is giving his 'patients' telepathically transferred orgasms but only loses his virginity at the age of 46, or Bonny, a seemingly 14-year-old dope-smoking, vegetarian, un- orgasmic Lolita-ish hooker. Because of the episodic framework and the way each writer inherits a character from a previous author, much of the writing is plot-driven and what style there is seems to belong to the genre rather than an individual artistic sensibility. While the craft may suffer, this does give the contributors the chance to act out their fantasies in public but remain anonymous. So, we do not know who might like to sow poetic justice with hot lead at the conclusion of a Nazi-esque whipping orgy. And we can but surmise who might be guilty of formulating this indigo atrocity: 'Bonny was panting, expressing wordless surprise and pleasure, moving her body in those long, Reichian heaves that indicate both breathing to fullness and sexual pulsing. Her small breasts were topped by puckered nipples and my wet finger gently touched her dewy clitoris.' I will spare you the rest. Indeed, my biggest problem with this venture is the unevenness of the writing. It seems most of the contributors have opted for pastiche rather than attempt to do something new and distinctive in erotic style. Few writers - Anais Nin and Violette Leduc spring to mind - seem to be able to use erotica without being seduced into swapping their brains and artistic sensibilities for their pudenda. In 'The Stranger Inside', the notable exception is the episode titled 'Hannah & Doda' which includes this evocative response to surrealist Rene Magritte's painting 'Chant d'Amour': 'It shows two mer-persons by the sea. They have human feet and legs and bellies, but no arms. They have fins, and fishes' heads. I wish they had been a sculpture so that I could walk round them. Their bellies are human... You cannot see their genitals. I think they are of the same sex, or perhaps in mer-persons of their kind there is a different sexuality. They have navels, but no nipples or breasts. They are coloured in the subdued greens and bronzes of the deep. They are close together singing. I wish I could be free of my human shortcoming and be one of their kind... They are plainly in a state of grace. They could both walk and swim. Their song, whatever it is, belongs to the singing sun, the creator of light, the singer of light. Sometimes I dream that I hear them, as a child in the womb hears its mother's heartbeat. I used to go fishing with my mother, and it was my task to take the hooks from the mouths of the fish she caught. I was troubled by their lips, but I ate fish with enjoyment until one day a friend sent me a postcard of Magritte's painting... There was a beautiful chorister. His under-lip was curved as the lips of those mer-creatures are. I used to gaze at him across the aisle to the choir stalls. His voice was shining. There is no recording of it , but I remember its glassy depth.' Now that is erotica operating at a variety of subtle levels. And I think I know whodunit. Bravo! Reviewed by Giles Hugo
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