Wednesday, December 22, 2004

And the unsexy writing award goes too...

...American Author Tom Wolfe. Congrats Tommy! As a writer who has also received the obscure and utterly lame S.H.I.N.E. Award (Sexual Health in Entertainment) for my hilarious Jesse episode where, now get this brilliant comedic twist, While on a scavenger hunt Jesse (Christina Applegate) finds a lost BABY. How outlandishly genius of me.

*sigh* I sure miss sitting around a table of bitter rich TV writers mining for that comedy gold until 4am in the morning.

But this post isn't just about me. I love the "sexy" writing examples they give.

According to the Associated Press, the acclaimed A
merican author and journalist Tom Wolfe won one of the world's most dreaded literary accolades -- the British prize for bad sex in fiction.

The prize is awarded each year to "draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel."

Wolfe won it for a a few passages from his latest novel entitled "I am Charlotte Simmons," a tale of campus life at an exclusive American university. Sex on college campus? A sacred place of learning?!

"Slither slither slither slither went the tongue," one of Wolfe's winning sentences begins.

"But the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns -- oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest -- no, the hand was cupping her entire right -- Now!"

Wow he just used the naughty "O word" I'm steaming in my jeans.

The British Judges described Wolfe's prose as "ghastly and boring." Can't you just picture these pompus judges like a bunch of sex-crazed school lads stumbling on some of Father's nudie mags? Does that mean that somebody goes through all the books each year to read just the naughty parts? Sounds like a job for a certain Sheriff I know.

Wolfe, the former Washington Post correspondent, whose debut novel "Bonfire of the Vanities" was a highly regarded text of the 1980s, fought off stiff competition from 10 other authors including South African Andre Brink, whose novel "Before I Forget" contains the following description of a woman's vulva:
"It was like a large exotic mushroom in the fork of a tree, a little pleasure dome if ever I've seen one, where Alph the sacred river ran down to a tideless sea. No, not tideless. Her tides were convulsive, an ebb and flow that could take you very far, far back, before hurling you out, wildly and triumphantly, on a ribbed and windswept beach without end." Wait, tides huh? Who doesn't find confusion to be really sexy.

Another writer who only narrowly escaped the prize was Britain's Nadeem Aslam for his novel "Maps for Lost Lovers" a tale of life in a Muslim community in an English town.
"His mouth looked for the oiled berry," one of his raunchiest passages starts. Hmmm... oiled berry? That must refer to-- yipes! Might it have been sexier to say "an engorged clitoris coated in vaginal secretions."

Another Aslam passage starts with, "The smell of his armpits was on her shoulders -- a flower depositing pollen on a hummingbird's forehead." My, my, birds and pollen. Who could possibly keep their hand from speeding southbound on the I-69 after reading that raunchy love metaphor?

The winner of the award, presented by the London-based Literary Review, gets a little Oscar-style statuette and a bottle of champagne -- but only if he or she comes to the awards ceremony in person. Tom Wolfe, was the first writer in the 12-year history of the competition to decline his invitation.

"Slither, slither, slither, slither went the tongue." Is it just me or is it getting exceedingly hot in here? Okay, admittedly, had I written that "sexy sentence" I wouldn't have the nerve to show my face either. In fact, I'd stop putting my picture on the back of the book jacket.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hot beef injection sounds sexy compared to that slither slither crap!