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Monday, December 13, 2004
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UD feels compelled to say something ...
...about Tom Wolfe’s having been declared this year’s winner of the Bad Sex Contest, a British competition for the worst writing about sex in a novel. After all, Wolfe won it for a university novel, and this is University Diaries, etc. But UD is disappointed in this year’s decision, which seems to her to have been cynical and corrupt. Wolfe’s bad sex writing is unimaginative, unmetaphorical, unmetaphysical. It is not artistically bad; it is just bad. In year’s past, the prize committee has judged among the contenders based on their literary worth, not on the fame of particular authors, and the result has been a short list of fantastic hardcore crapola. This year this committee seems merely to have gone for a big name, with no concern for first-rate bad sex writing. Perhaps they saw this as a way to publicize the award. UD thinks they’ve lost a lot of credibility. |