Nothing much to do with secularity or rightness, but heck, it’s Christmas, let’s have some light relief.<\/p>\n
My December\/January issue of Literary Review<\/em> arrived from London today, containing the finalists for the magazine’s annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award<\/a>. In a spirit of journalistic due diligence, I have been perusing the entries. I don’t think any of the extracts can be shown in full on a family website, but here are some random sentences, just to give the flavor.<\/p>\n Paulo Coelho’s Brida<\/em><\/strong> (about “a young Irish woman on a voyage of discovery”):\u00a0 “What she was feeling\u00a0\u2026 was the bringing together once more of herself and the meaning of life; it was a return to the Garden of Eden; it was the moment when Eve was reabsorbed into Adam’s body and the two halves became Creation.”\u00a0 [Whatever happened to “Brace yerself, Bridget!”?\u00a0\u2014 J.D.]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n James Buchan’s The Gate of Air<\/em><\/strong> (in which the hero does the deed with a ghost):\u00a0 “His arms and legs were as lifeless as fallen branches\u00a0\u2026 Light billowed out of her, and warmth in damp gusts as if from a garden after a rainstorm.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rachel Johnson’s Shire Hell<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 (Shire? Nothing to do with me, I swear.\u00a0 Some other shire):\u00a0 “I find myself gripping his ears and tugging at the locks curling over them, beside myself, and a strange animal noise escapes from me as the mounting, Wagnerian crescendo overtakes me.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Isabel Fonseca’s Attachment<\/em><\/strong>:\u00a0 “He placed her carefully like a large terra-cotta urn and skilfully set about his work, as concentrated as a specialist restorer focused on her intricate finish\u00a0\u2026”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Simon Montefiore’s Sashenka<\/em><\/strong>:\u00a0 “When it was over, they had become creatures of the sea, their bodies as sleek and wet as leaping dolphins\u00a0\u2026”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Kathy Lette’s To Love, Honour and Betray<\/em><\/strong>:\u00a0 “\u2026\u00a0was so big I mistook it for some sort of monument in the centre of a town. I almost started directing traffic around it\u00a0\u2026”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n John Updike’s The Widows of Eastwick<\/em><\/strong>:\u00a0 “God, she was antique, but here they were.”\u00a0 [Hey John:\u00a0You’re no spring chicken yourself, pal.\u00a0\u2014 J.D.]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So there you have it:\u00a0 Genesis, horticulture, G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung<\/em>, pottery restoration, marine biology, traffic management, and antiques. Are there any metaphors left?<\/p>\n [I see from Wikipedia that while Literary Review<\/em> was winging its way to me, Rachel Johnson was declared the winner. John Updike got a lifetime achievement award. Ah, literary glory!]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nothing much to do with secularity or rightness, but heck, it’s Christmas, let’s have some light relief. My December\/January issue of Literary Review arrived from London today, containing the finalists for the magazine’s annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award. In … Continue reading