Should I or shouldn't I?
First addition to my bookpile arrived today; I found a second hand copy of Naked Came The Stranger by Penelope Ashe (1969) - author's name is a pseudonym for a group of -male- journalists who were appalled at the poor writing in the then-current best-sellers, so they decided to have a contest to see who could write the best/worst smut/pulp. Can't
( Read more... )
i actually liked Tampa, and interestingly, probably for the same reason that you didn't like it, although i wasn't a huge, huge fan of the style, and perhaps the narrator herself. when i read it, it was (mostly) about the kink for me, and i really dug how the narrator was unapologetic about the kink. she looked it right in the eye, wanted what she wanted and didn't hold back. there weren't any excuses, not even after she was convicted and everything had been exposed. admittedly, much of this is informed by my fic reading preferences, so there's that. i tend to like things that make me squirm a bit, and in those terms the book was pretty effective.
the thing that sorta left a bad taste in my mouth was the style, i suppose, and again, the fic i choose to read and the authors i tend to gravitate toward both have a particular level of grit to them. i like authors to use dirty, grimy language to describe dirty things. this narrator came across as aloof, something of a snob, and there was a formality to the narration and a bend toward purple, flowery prose--particularly in the sex scenes--that kept making me wish that one of my favorite fic writers had written it instead, if that makes sense.
this isn't to say that i didn't get into it. homopink recommended it to me, i downloaded it and read the whole thing over the course of an evening, so it certainly had me in its clutches.
Reply
I absolutely understand what you mean with the comparison to fanfic authors, because I thought the same: imagine what one of those could have done with this subject! This narrator's language just felt so distant and sort of unattached to her (non existant?) feelings. It just made me squirm for the wrong reasons.
Nice to know some people liked the book for more than its cover though *grins* You never know, I might try finishing it again some day...
Reply
Leave a comment