Thursday, January 1, 2009
Books Abandoned: Erotomania
Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 12:02 PM
(Once in a while, you've just got to stop reading a book before the last page. Abandoned explores the reasons behind flagrant book-dropping.)
What's the abandoned book?
Erotomania, by Francis Levy.
Why'd you pick it up?
Well, first of all, the cover features monkeys fucking. Plus, I tend to read erotic fiction, because it's very hard to do well.
What's it about?
"Although ostensibly about the search for a real-life woman who can live up to the narrator's vision of sexual bliss, the novel is really about the way we long for intimate connection in and beyond bed. Written in the form of spiritual quest for a carnal idee fixe, this novel wears its avid penis on its sleeve and is all the more surprisingly affecting because of it."
How far did you get into it?
Only about forty pages.
Was there one sentence that put you off?
Nope.
Why can't you finish it?
I never thought I'd say this, but there's too much sex. Consider this sentence: "I'd be flown out to Duluth or Boise for a day's work on shows that were already running and return home in time to find my dick as deeply embedded in the soft wet folds of her pussy as the engravings are on the sarcophagus of an Egyptian empress." It's like Henry Miller on speed and without an editor.
Should everybody avoid this one?
Nope. I think Henry Miller fans might like it a lot. It's certainly not for fans of erotica, but for people who still experience a flush of titillation every time they hear the words "fuck," "dick," or "pussy," this might be their kind of thing.
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New words, people! Use new words!
I'll bring my copy to the next Slog Happy and I challenge someone else to read- and finish!- it.
Well, first of all, the cover features monkeys fucking.
Minor correction, those are bonobos. Like the rest of us apes, they are not monkeys. Apes and monkeys are both primates, but apes are not monkeys and monkeys are not apes. We, like the bonobos, are apes.
Bonobos are, however, an extremely interesting species, sometimes called the hippie chimps. They truly do make love not war. There has never been a recorded case of intra-species violence among bonobos. All members of the species are perfectly bisexual. The troops are led by females. They resolve both intragroup and intergroup conflict through sex.
Chimps and bonobos are more closely related to each other than either is to us. However, both species are equally closely related to us and more closely related to us than to gorillas.
The social behavior of chimps is more like our own, from having warfare and lethal violence to throwing feces at those whom they do not like. (We call it mudslinging in the political arena.)
However, bonobos have some interesting features. In addition to having a lot to teach us about peace (as well as sex), they happen to have more slender bodies and longer legs than chimps. They also have more of a tendency to walk upright, especially when carrying tools.
Perhaps our own species would be better off if we were led by bisexual women. (Just a thought.)
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