Yesterday, one of my friends sent me a link to an article about all that's wrong with Dan Brown's writing (check it out here, it's hilarious http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
It brings to mind another of my favourite lines from a book, this time by Martina Cole. Martina, if you haven't read her before, bills herself as "the person who tells it like it really is", which makes me think of Deborah Patta; although I think their writing styles might be a little difference. For example, I don't think Deborah would ever write something like, "One drink had turned into nearly a whole bottle and now she was out of her brain. She was also up for a fight, or failing that, a takeaway." Because the two are completely interchanegable, you know. Often, I'm craving pizza so much that the person I'm talking to starts to resemble a chatty margharita, but because it's one of those weeks when I'm watching the carbs, I'll put down the Mr. D menu and ask them to punch me in the nose instead.
Another favourite bit of writing comes from Wilbur Smith. Now, before I read my first Wilbur Smith novel I didn't know that he was famous for his sex scenes. And my word, what sex scenes they are. The one that particularly grabbed my notice described the heroine's 'Tammy' (clearly, this was in the days before Gray's Anatomy introduced the world to the vajayjay) as being so proud and beautiful it belonged on the head of a lion. A vagina-headed lion. If that wouldn't make the cars pile up at the Kruger Park, then I don't know what would.
Of course, no discussion of sex and books would be complete without, you guessed it, Fifty of Shades of Grey. I have not read this trilogy - if there are fifty shades of grey in my private life, they refer to the washed out hue of my granny pants, not my proclivities. I therefore can't cast any aspersion on the writing, but what I do find interesting about this phenomena is the gigantic proportions it has taken on. I have always found it rather endearing that the literary world has it's own fashions. Remember, for instance, when dog books were the 'new black'; a fad started by Marley and Me. But now sex, something people have been doing something for centuries, has become, well sexy. Never mind that it's like eating; something that, for most people, is just there. No longer does it hover politely in the corner, waiting for someone to introduce it with a smirk and a snigger. Oh no, EL James has succeeded where Justin Timberlake left off, and if the giant stand of 'erotic literature' at Exclusive Books is anything to go by, sexy really is back. To the extent that, alongside the also-rans that inevitably pop up in the wake of a tremendous success, there is the the Fifty Shades of Grey diary, presumably a little journal for you to write down your dirtiest imaginings.
It would be interesting to find out whether anyone has mentioned any vagina-headed lions in theirs.
It brings to mind another of my favourite lines from a book, this time by Martina Cole. Martina, if you haven't read her before, bills herself as "the person who tells it like it really is", which makes me think of Deborah Patta; although I think their writing styles might be a little difference. For example, I don't think Deborah would ever write something like, "One drink had turned into nearly a whole bottle and now she was out of her brain. She was also up for a fight, or failing that, a takeaway." Because the two are completely interchanegable, you know. Often, I'm craving pizza so much that the person I'm talking to starts to resemble a chatty margharita, but because it's one of those weeks when I'm watching the carbs, I'll put down the Mr. D menu and ask them to punch me in the nose instead.
Another favourite bit of writing comes from Wilbur Smith. Now, before I read my first Wilbur Smith novel I didn't know that he was famous for his sex scenes. And my word, what sex scenes they are. The one that particularly grabbed my notice described the heroine's 'Tammy' (clearly, this was in the days before Gray's Anatomy introduced the world to the vajayjay) as being so proud and beautiful it belonged on the head of a lion. A vagina-headed lion. If that wouldn't make the cars pile up at the Kruger Park, then I don't know what would.
Of course, no discussion of sex and books would be complete without, you guessed it, Fifty of Shades of Grey. I have not read this trilogy - if there are fifty shades of grey in my private life, they refer to the washed out hue of my granny pants, not my proclivities. I therefore can't cast any aspersion on the writing, but what I do find interesting about this phenomena is the gigantic proportions it has taken on. I have always found it rather endearing that the literary world has it's own fashions. Remember, for instance, when dog books were the 'new black'; a fad started by Marley and Me. But now sex, something people have been doing something for centuries, has become, well sexy. Never mind that it's like eating; something that, for most people, is just there. No longer does it hover politely in the corner, waiting for someone to introduce it with a smirk and a snigger. Oh no, EL James has succeeded where Justin Timberlake left off, and if the giant stand of 'erotic literature' at Exclusive Books is anything to go by, sexy really is back. To the extent that, alongside the also-rans that inevitably pop up in the wake of a tremendous success, there is the the Fifty Shades of Grey diary, presumably a little journal for you to write down your dirtiest imaginings.
It would be interesting to find out whether anyone has mentioned any vagina-headed lions in theirs.
No comments:
Post a Comment