The Bad Sex Award longlist has been announced. And it looks like John Updike, ever the fey pervert, has finally made it into the mix. About damn time, if you ask me. I love Updike to death, but I cannot read any of his novels without that inevitable WTF moment, where an introspective sexual description comes out of left field. (Immediate example that comes to mind: early moment in The Witches of Eastwick where character is preparing salad and suddenly starts comparing cherry tomatoes to testicles without any particular impetus.)
I REMEMBER those cherry tomatoes! Also experienced similar dissonance with some passages in his novel “Brazil,” I think.
Given the quality of writers on this list, this just proves that purveyors of literary fiction should never, ever, describe a sex scene. Great sex is one of those things, like a beautiful sunset, that it’s impossible to describe. But these guys keep trying, anyway. They deserve all the scorn they can get from this award.
Did anybody else notice how much fellatio is going on in these (male) writers’ imaginations? And every woman seems to be giving it not only unbegrudgingly, but with downright enthusiasm. Yeah, right. That’s plausible.
Actually she was picking tomatoes, not cherry tomatoes.