← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

This year’s winner of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award…

… will be named on November 29. While we wait, here’s one of this year’s judges on the sort of thing they’re looking for.

[Christos] Tsiolkas’s Booker-longlisted novel, The Slap, was cited for a passage in which two characters “fucked for ages” …

“It’s very repetitive,” he said, “the sheer laziness of saying ‘they fucked for ages’ is just one example of slack writing.”

Margaret Soltan, November 18, 2010 1:14PM
Posted in: bad writing

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=27548

8 Responses to “This year’s winner of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award…”

  1. Dave Stone Says:

    “‘They f*cked for ages’ is such a cliche,”
    The critic intoned with dismay.
    “But your ‘f*cking for wages’
    Or ‘f*cking all ages’ . . .
    Now that’s writing with real cachet.”

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Effing brilliant, Dave.

  3. adam Says:

    They f*cked for ages, ‘twas said,
    Until they collapsed on the bed.
    Then panting and gasping
    And groping and grasping
    They gazed on each other and said…

    Halloo and halloo and halloo!
    Have you shown me all you can do?
    Or should I go seeking
    For someone who’s peaking
    Just when I think that I’m through?

  4. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Major Laugh Out Loud, adam. This one has the feel of an ancient ditty, a round, a song that never ends. Thanks.

  5. Dave Stone Says:

    Adam’s contribution reminded me of an old joke, from which I shamelessly steal the Thor / sore rhyme:

    Mighty Mars could f*ck four ages we’re told,
    Great Zeus managed just ages twofold.
    The thunder god Thor
    Made the wenches quite sore,
    But his stamina was much oversold.

  6. Margaret Soltan Says:

    LOL, Dave. My mind is reeling with limerick ideas…

  7. Jeremy Bangs Says:

    Rocks for ages,
    Cleft for me,
    Let me hide myself in thee

  8. Margaret Soltan Says:

    A lovely prayer, Jeremy.

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories