In the Guardian, they're talking about literary sex. Most of the writers in the article seem to agree with Martin Amis that:
[I]t's "impossible" for a novelist to write about real, as opposed to pornographic, sex anyway. "Sex is irreducibly personal, therefore not universal," he later tells me.
"It's not that surprising. Of all human activities this is the one that peoples the world. With that tonnage of emotion on it, if there is going to be one thing you can't write about then that would be it. It's a bit like why it's so difficult to write about dreams."
Well, you know what I think about that: arrant nonsense. Good sex is easy as long as a) you know what good sex is and b) you're a good writer. You just have to be brave.
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Amen.
ReplyDeleteI think you also have to have curiosity about sex and a willingness to analyze and think about sexual behaviour in all its various permutations, in and out of the bedroom / treehouse / sling / boardroom / dungeon / orgy pit / romantic flower-filled field.
But I think you covered that under knowing what good sex is.
Kelly, yep, I don't think incurious people are likely to a) have good sex b) write good books.
ReplyDeleteI've heard this discussion,as well. I re-read your earlier "Good Sex is Easy" with interest. I just have a couple of thoughts (aside from agreeing with your points)
ReplyDelete1. I write Fiction.
2. If I create two authentic, compelling characters who have a powerful chemistry and attraction, why in the world would I want to write an awkward, fumbling or average to boring sex scene? Moreover, why would the reader want to read it?
phooey
jeanne
jeanne, readers wouldn't want to read it but, for some reason, a lot of writers are afraid of writing sex. It's connected to the whole 'let's maintain an ironic distance from our characters' stance that became fashionable in litfic in the second half of the 20th C. (I wrote a whole essay about that.) I think it might be beginning to change, but it's going to take a while.
ReplyDeleteBut people who are incurious about sex (or just use it to get their own rocks off, or who are neurotic about it) can write good books. I'm only speculating, of course, but I'm pretty sure that at least 50% of the books we love were written by people who were crap in bed.
ReplyDeleteThis is a conversation that needs to be had over a bottle of Barolo.
Kelly, yes! And/or possibly Barbaresco or a lovely Priorat. (Pauillac and Margaux don't suck, either, but are mostly out of our price range, except for Special.) With French 75 aperitif and Armagnac digestif...
ReplyDeleteI'm there.
ReplyDelete"[I]t's 'impossible' for a novelist to write about real, as opposed to pornographic, sex anyway."
ReplyDeleteWho was it that said sex is only pornographic if you do it right?
Oh, god--speaking of the 'let's maintain an ironic distance from our characters' applied to sex and resulting in me becoming infuriated, I've made it halfway through Adam Thirlwell's "Politics," and I need to just stop, because it's simply ... hateful. Julian Barnes' "Talking it Over," but without any scrap of empathy, or, well, humanity. And of course the sex is terrible (intentionally so, I'll concede).
ReplyDeleteNot something I've read. I don't think I will...
ReplyDelete