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Off topic: John Updike, Lifetime Achievement Award 2008
Thread poster: Vito Smolej
Vito Smolej
Vito Smolej
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Dec 8, 2008

in the Bad-Sex-in-Fiction category

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_Review

with some splendid (i.e. wet and glistening) examples here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/nov/28/fiction.awardsandprizes
 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
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Environmental damage Dec 8, 2008

Vito Smolej wrote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/nov/28/fiction.awardsandprizes


I think the author should be fined for making apologia of environmental damage: the crows will never, ever recover from the sight of an adulterous 'quickie'.
 
Helena Genel
Helena Genel
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Yikes! Dec 8, 2008

But thanks for the post.
 
Kevin Lossner
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Like Zorro? Dec 8, 2008

Those are some of the most comically awful texts I've read in a while, but I assume the authors meant them to be taken seriously. How frightening.
 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
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Gross covered with a thick layer of pink cream Dec 8, 2008

Maria Ayala wrote:
Yikes! But thanks for the post.


María, indeed they are blunt. But actually I thought the first fragment, that by John Updike (sorry folks, I did not continue reading after the fellatio scene in the second fragment), was not intentionally gross. Blunt, alright. Indeed the point of view of the character does not seem to be very romantic on a first reading, but there is a big chance that it could be reflecting a certain layer of thought of the male human being in love relations, a part of the male human being that deals with and remembers the mechanicals of sex, even with people you truly love and cherish in a romantic way. (I had to reread and edit this paragraph many times as I fear it could be misunderstood!)

I personally think that the worst kind of grossness is a piece of work in which gross feelings are delivered with a thick layer of cheap pink cream. I remember the chorus of a song by "Los Pecos", a Spanish teenage duet in the 70's, when my older sister was a teenager:

"¡Desnúdate mi vida,
rompamos la ignorancia!"

"Take off your clothes my love,
let's break ignorance!"

I cannot get rid of the image in my head!! That is grossness.
 
Vito Smolej
Vito Smolej
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I actually appreciate Updike... Dec 8, 2008

like the Rabbit saga and his short stories - I earned my first money translating some of his short stories (1970s New Yorker issues).

Those days however I was much more interested in Portnoy's complaint & Monkey and her likes (I still am actually), so I was lucky to miss out on the scenes quoted in connection with the award.
 


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John Updike, Lifetime Achievement Award 2008







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