I think the Ponceyness Police need to call in other departments (Vice Squad, perhaps)
I will concede, she concedes, that I have never read anything by Nicholson Baker, because just reading the reviews and descriptions of his books gives me a sensation somewhere between revulsion and apathy. (And don't we rather feel, gentylle readyrz, that if a woman wrote an entire book about her thoughts while feeding the baby or about domestic trivia it would not even get reviewed? but when a bloke does it is all about Teh Human Condition, right?)
(Plus, as a member of the information professions, could well do without him jeremiahing about the microfilming of newspapers - I'll bet he's never sat in Colindale with an awkwardly large bound volume of crumbling newsprint in front of him actually doing research.)
His first books were mostly on the apathy end of the spectrum, but when it got to the one about the guy who could stop time, and used that to grope unwitting women, we were well over into revulsion.
Anyways, his new book is called House of Holes. I have already seen 2-3 reviews which were all very thumbs down, but one never knows whether this is an allotrope of that phenomenon whereby journos who are sent to cover the Fetish Fair write pieces about Fat Unattractive People In Leather and Corsets and Not Turned On In The Slightest (coz I am cynical that way).
But it really does sound terrible, and, for something that is supposed to be a riot of erotica, distinctly hetero- and phallocentric. Okay, there is gender-swap, but this just seems about reversing male-female polarities - men and women exchange genitalia, but we don't seem to get much beyond the penetrative paradigm.
Will admit that I am so not tempted to read the thing to find out if this is truly the case.
Am also a bit beswozzled by a writer who plaintively asks 'Why would anyone read a novel rather than watch a movie?'. Well, duh???
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And to take the taste out of your mouths, go over here and nominate for the Alternative (to the NPR) Top SFF List.
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