Thursday, December 03, 2009

Gorgon Pussy, Cyclops Vagina

Jonathan Littell, an American writer and winner of the Prix Goncourt (France's highest literary honor), has just received a new accolade. His novel The Kindly Ones is the winner of the Literary Review's 2009 Bad Sex in Fiction Award. And how very well deserved, this prize.

Littell compares a woman's privates to "a Gorgon's head" and "a motionless Cyclops whose single eye never blinks." (Guess he's never heard of queefs, which certainly come with some vibration.) Then the fool goes on to make the analogy even more egregious: "If only I could still get hard, I thought, I could use my prick like a stake hardened in the fire, and blind this Polyphemus who made me Nobody. But my cock remained inert; I seemed turned to stone."

Oh ferdachrissakes.

Now, any good editor would have asked (aside from the obvious question, Are you fucking high?) "Don't you realize you're mixing your mythological metaphors? The Gorgon and the Cyclops are two very different creatures. What's more, if the narrator couldn't get it up, how could he feel he'd turned to stone? Doesn't stone imply a really, really HARD dick? And, while we're on the subject, don't use 'get hard' and 'hardened in the fire' in the same sentence; it's an awkward and amateurish instance of repetition."

I suppose it isn't fair to pull these passages out of context, but I can't help wondering if it's typical of male "literary" authors to dream up such strained and repugnant images of female genitalia. I've read similarly weird comparisons before. How can gynecologists do their jobs without fleeing in horror from examining tables?

Nurse: "Doctor, what's wrong? Your patient is waiting with her feet in those cold stirrups!"

Doctor O. D. Seus: "By the gods, I can't bear to go near another pudendum writhing with serpents! And that cunt eye, it keeps staring at me!"

Nurse: "Well, doctor, all you need do is overcome the law of inertia, turn your flaccid weenie into a stake, and poke that eye out. Want me to help?"

Seus: "But what about those damned snakes? The fuckers bite!"

Nurse (sighing): "I can tell you're fresh out of medical school. Don't you keep a mongoose in your instrument cabinet?"


FOOTNOTE: Castanet Feldman served as the model for the Gorgon photo.

8 comments:

Katrina Strauss said...

When someone ignorantly states sex must be easy to write, I refer them to the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. I've determined the key to passing one's erotica and/or romance off as respectable "literature" is to simply present the sex act as a vile, ugly deed that none of the characters actually enjoy.

Tam said...

"Are you fucking high?"

Ha, I laughed out loud. You're so funny. Yeah, that was bad.

My friend Craig periodically writes these funnies about the future under the alien Culcari Overlords and one of his visions of the future is "...human evolution took the next logical step and women developed stinging vagina tentacles making sex completely impossible except for the most masochistic men and lesbos."

Soon as I read that about the Gorgon, I thought, OMG, he stole Craig's idea. Not that Craig has likely ever seen a vagina up close since he came out of the womb. LOL

Jeanne said...

KZ, please post a spewing warning before you post things like this.
Now, I read those awards previously, but it was your f***ing response that made me crack up!
Thanks, buddy; I needed that! ;~D

Too freaking weird.
Word veri: grinat
I kid you not. Spooky. Only at your blog, girl.

K. Z. Snow said...

Isn't it peculiar, Katrina? Real-life men don't agonize over sex; they just want to come 'n' go (often, to sleep). If we writers of "gutter fiction" are guilty of anything, it's perhaps prolonging the act and infusing it with a finesse that's beyond most men's capabilities. ;-)

K. Z. Snow said...

Tam, your friend Craig must be a real trip!

K. Z. Snow said...

I'm so happy I could brighten your day, Jeanne. Some things I come upon just trip my trigger...not to mention unleash the F word. :-) Ah, I do so love it!

What is it with you and my word verifications, anyway?

Tam said...

He is funny KZ. Here is one of his funny ones about the Culcari.

http://puntabulous.com/2008/12/16/guide-to-surviving-the-future-healthcare-of-the-future/

You can ignore me and Berndt chatting about drinking at work in the comments. :-P

Chris said...

I saw some of the other nominations. Obviously some "serious literary writers" need to pick up tips from some good erotica writers. Heh. Or maybe just pull their heads out of their pretentious behinds.