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----- Forwarded message from spklein52@hotmail.com -----
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 23:23:05 -0500
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: SPKlein52@HotMail.com
Subject: Since DH Lawrence and Nabokov's time ...
To: spklein52@hotmail.com
[1] http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/29083.html[2]# Who wants a bad
sex prize panting hot on their neck?
The Herald, UK - Dec 5, 2004
... Since DH Lawrence and NABOKOV\'S time, however, the issue has not
been one of explicitness but of effect, of navigating that hairline
path between Mills & Boon ... [3]
Who wants a bad sex prize panting hot on their neck?
ROSEMARY GORING December 06 2004
When the first snow gilds the hills and morning frost glazes the
windscreen, many novelists start to suffer pangs of profound anxiety.
What are they worried about?, you may ask. How to pay for their
oil-fired central heating perhaps? Or whether their royalties will
cover Christmas and leave enough for thermal underwear? The answer is
far more basic. December, for the British novelist, brings the threat
of the sort of sexual humiliation once reserved for fornicators in an
age when wrong-doers spent a day in the stocks.
You'd think that in winter, when no more flesh is on show than is
strictly necessary for respiration and navigation, sex would be lower
on the novelist's list of preoccupations than usual. Not so. Even as I
write, there will be a few poor souls wondering why on earth they did
it, and why, having done it, they weren't more careful.
Their crime? Sexual explicitness. Their punishment? The most feared
literary award in Britain: the Bad Sex prize. The London magazine,
Literary Review, is the guardian of this dreaded
accolade. It's no surprise that its co-founder, in 1993, was the
Literary Review's late editor, Auberon Waugh, who seems to have liked
nothing better than mocking other writers.
A few days ago, the shortlist for this year's prize was announced.
Those who now await ritual mortification include Andre Brink, Will
Self, Tom Wolfe and Nadeem Aslam. The purpose of the prize, we're
told, is "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often
perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the
modern novel, and to discourage it. The prize is not intended to
cover pornographic or expressly erotic literature, and is limited to
the literary novel."
There's a disturbing whiff of repressive authoritarianism about this
desire to stamp out crassness or embarrassment. The problem is, one
person's bad taste is another's delight.
The emotionally costive might find the depiction of nothing more than
a lingering kiss distasteful, whereas others would eagerly turn the
page, hoping for the action to escalate, and willing to wade through
fields of metaphors to see the scene brought to a satisfactory
completion.
The question of how or whether to depict sex has dogged writers from
the start. Early novelists had to contend with social opprobrium and
obscenity laws, which made the issue considerably more urgent than
merely a matter of aesthetic debate. Since D H Lawrence and Nabokov's
time, however, the issue has not been one of explicitness but of
effect, of navigating that hairline path between Mills & Boon slush,
pornography and offputting clinical precision.
In The British Museum is Falling Down, David Lodge, master of comedic
cavorting, wrote: "Literature is mostly about having sex and not much
about having children. Life is the other way round." Nearly 20 years
later, however, he suggested that, in the post-Aids era, writing
about sex would get harder. As far as I can see, though, it's not
Aids that's done the damage but the Bad Sex award.
Which novelist today does not have it breathing down their neck as
they write, like a homunculus with halitosis? You can understand why
some, such as Terry Pratchett, avoid the pitfall altogether. "There
is sex in the Discworld books," he said, "but it usually takes place
two pages after the ending."
American novelist Barbara Kingsolver speaks for many when she wrote:
"I've mostly written about sex by means of a space break." Yet 70 or
so years earlier, W Somerset Maugham advocated a healthy dose of
realism: "We have long passed the Victorian era when asterisks were
followed after a certain interval by a baby."
But if the Bad Sex award had its way, we'd be returned to the
Victorian era before you could write "With fumbling fingers he
unbuttoned her shirt "
Admittedly, there's a lot of terrible writing about sex in literary
fiction. But then, there are a lot of bad sunsets and pretentious
conversations too. I'm all for graphic sex in novels, just as I'm all
for nothing more explicit than nuance. In general, when it comes to
describing sex, less is more.
That judgement, though, should lie with writers and readers, not a
panel of critics foraging for an easy laugh at what is, when
objectively described, one of the most unflattering of human
activities. It is also, however, one of the most important. It's the
currency of human contact, a crucial element in the unfolding of most
dramas. Anything that inhibits writers' freedom in trying to convey it
honestly is an insidious form of censorship.
The Bad Sex prize is based on the premise that writing about sex can
be tasteful. Which is to say that sex itself is tasteful. But, of
course, it's not. Or if it is, then it's not the kind of sex anybody
would either want to have, or wish to read about.
Links:
------
[1] http://www.theherald.co.uk/
[2] http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/29083.html
[3] javascript:ol(\'http://www.theherald.co.uk/\');
----- End forwarded message -----
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 23:23:05 -0500
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: SPKlein52@HotMail.com
Subject: Since DH Lawrence and Nabokov's time ...
To: spklein52@hotmail.com
[1] http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/29083.html[2]# Who wants a bad
sex prize panting hot on their neck?
The Herald, UK - Dec 5, 2004
... Since DH Lawrence and NABOKOV\'S time, however, the issue has not
been one of explicitness but of effect, of navigating that hairline
path between Mills & Boon ... [3]
Who wants a bad sex prize panting hot on their neck?
ROSEMARY GORING December 06 2004
When the first snow gilds the hills and morning frost glazes the
windscreen, many novelists start to suffer pangs of profound anxiety.
What are they worried about?, you may ask. How to pay for their
oil-fired central heating perhaps? Or whether their royalties will
cover Christmas and leave enough for thermal underwear? The answer is
far more basic. December, for the British novelist, brings the threat
of the sort of sexual humiliation once reserved for fornicators in an
age when wrong-doers spent a day in the stocks.
You'd think that in winter, when no more flesh is on show than is
strictly necessary for respiration and navigation, sex would be lower
on the novelist's list of preoccupations than usual. Not so. Even as I
write, there will be a few poor souls wondering why on earth they did
it, and why, having done it, they weren't more careful.
Their crime? Sexual explicitness. Their punishment? The most feared
literary award in Britain: the Bad Sex prize. The London magazine,
Literary Review, is the guardian of this dreaded
accolade. It's no surprise that its co-founder, in 1993, was the
Literary Review's late editor, Auberon Waugh, who seems to have liked
nothing better than mocking other writers.
A few days ago, the shortlist for this year's prize was announced.
Those who now await ritual mortification include Andre Brink, Will
Self, Tom Wolfe and Nadeem Aslam. The purpose of the prize, we're
told, is "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often
perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the
modern novel, and to discourage it. The prize is not intended to
cover pornographic or expressly erotic literature, and is limited to
the literary novel."
There's a disturbing whiff of repressive authoritarianism about this
desire to stamp out crassness or embarrassment. The problem is, one
person's bad taste is another's delight.
The emotionally costive might find the depiction of nothing more than
a lingering kiss distasteful, whereas others would eagerly turn the
page, hoping for the action to escalate, and willing to wade through
fields of metaphors to see the scene brought to a satisfactory
completion.
The question of how or whether to depict sex has dogged writers from
the start. Early novelists had to contend with social opprobrium and
obscenity laws, which made the issue considerably more urgent than
merely a matter of aesthetic debate. Since D H Lawrence and Nabokov's
time, however, the issue has not been one of explicitness but of
effect, of navigating that hairline path between Mills & Boon slush,
pornography and offputting clinical precision.
In The British Museum is Falling Down, David Lodge, master of comedic
cavorting, wrote: "Literature is mostly about having sex and not much
about having children. Life is the other way round." Nearly 20 years
later, however, he suggested that, in the post-Aids era, writing
about sex would get harder. As far as I can see, though, it's not
Aids that's done the damage but the Bad Sex award.
Which novelist today does not have it breathing down their neck as
they write, like a homunculus with halitosis? You can understand why
some, such as Terry Pratchett, avoid the pitfall altogether. "There
is sex in the Discworld books," he said, "but it usually takes place
two pages after the ending."
American novelist Barbara Kingsolver speaks for many when she wrote:
"I've mostly written about sex by means of a space break." Yet 70 or
so years earlier, W Somerset Maugham advocated a healthy dose of
realism: "We have long passed the Victorian era when asterisks were
followed after a certain interval by a baby."
But if the Bad Sex award had its way, we'd be returned to the
Victorian era before you could write "With fumbling fingers he
unbuttoned her shirt "
Admittedly, there's a lot of terrible writing about sex in literary
fiction. But then, there are a lot of bad sunsets and pretentious
conversations too. I'm all for graphic sex in novels, just as I'm all
for nothing more explicit than nuance. In general, when it comes to
describing sex, less is more.
That judgement, though, should lie with writers and readers, not a
panel of critics foraging for an easy laugh at what is, when
objectively described, one of the most unflattering of human
activities. It is also, however, one of the most important. It's the
currency of human contact, a crucial element in the unfolding of most
dramas. Anything that inhibits writers' freedom in trying to convey it
honestly is an insidious form of censorship.
The Bad Sex prize is based on the premise that writing about sex can
be tasteful. Which is to say that sex itself is tasteful. But, of
course, it's not. Or if it is, then it's not the kind of sex anybody
would either want to have, or wish to read about.
Links:
------
[1] http://www.theherald.co.uk/
[2] http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/29083.html
[3] javascript:ol(\'http://www.theherald.co.uk/\');
----- End forwarded message -----