Re: Just a little way into _Spiders_, and...

Yup. I just finished reading that scene. Reading _Spiders_ is feeling
like a chore more than a delight. There is, as always, some beautiful
writing, even within that scene. But I feel worn down. (It also
doesn't help that I usually only get time to read fiction while
eating, and in this case... ick.)

I get what he's trying to portray, I think, that in this subculture
connections are made through sex. But it drags on and on, feeling, as
Dan'l said, almost mechanical. It was pretty clear, from the repeated
mentions of the Mexican at the toilet, that Eric was going to make his
way through having sex with just about every man in the place, ending
with the Mexican. (I'm reminded of the character counting orgasms (or
something like that) in _Equinox_.)

I love Delany's writing, and have read just about everything I could
lay my hands on (except _Hogg_ and _Phallos_, and I never got through
the Neveryon series, though the last book is one of my favorites of
his). But there's a good chance that I may bail out on this one before
long.

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 10:16 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> ...I've realized that I'm no longer (if I ever was) the "target audience" for Delany's fiction.
>
> I've only read one major sex scene -- the mini-orgy in the truck stop -- and I realized: this not only doesn't turn me on, it doesn't even turn me _off_! It doesn't bore me, exactly, but it has no emotional or erotic effect on me. Granted, I'm about as straight as they come, but some of Delany's previous scenes (I mind me of one in the third Neveryon book...) have done it for me.
>
> This one was ... mechanical? Perhaps that's too harsh; but certainly _choreographed_ would not be far off the mark. There is nothing that seems spontaneous about the scene, and nobody seems to be doing more than going through their motions -- even Eric, to whom this scene is new.
>
> I'm going to continue, but if the whole book is like this, I think I'm out of Delany's fiction (unless he miraculously produces _Splendor_). Which is a damn shame, because I thought his last few books, and especially _Dark Reflections_, were the best things he's ever written.
>
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-- 
Joseph Zitt ::http://www.josephzitt.com