All that elegance was what made the personage of Dr. Lewin seem so curious. Last week, when the class first met, he had worn a plaid cotton shirt and pants -- nothing remarkable about that. The shirt had had long sleeves, and the pants had been long pants. But this morning he had on a short-sleeved shirt that showed too much of his skinny, hairy arms, and denim shorts that showed too much of this gnarly, hairy legs. He looked for all the world like a seven-year-old who at the touch of a wand had become old, tall, bald on top, and hairy everywhere else, an ossified seven-year-old, a pair of eyeglasses with lenses thick as ice pushed up to the summit of his forehead -- unaccountably addressing thirty college students, at Dupont, no less.
August 28, 2006
A man in shorts.
Reading Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons," I was amused to run across this description of a man wearing shorts. (At page 99.)
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14 comments:
You, who hate fiction?
And, you're 100 pages in....
Good for you!
And, that's a long one, I noticed, almost something like 800 pages in large-print.
I had a bad experience with Tom Wolfe---as a reader, and I don't find him attractive, from his photo on the back cover, and John Updike says he is simply entertainment, not literature.
So, unfortunately, Wolfe is not one of my guys.
But, I think it's great that you are reading him, and hope you will continue to blog the experience.
Peace, Maxine
I don't hate all fiction, I'm just suspicious of novelists. Remember, I was married to one. Anyway, I'm listening to the Audible recording -- done very well by Dylan Baker. I listen to it while going for a long walk or while falling asleep.
As for whether Tom Wolfe is attractive: he doesn't wear shorts.
And I've liked him for a long time -- based on nonfiction. Chiefly: "The Painted Word" and "From Bauhaus to Our House."
I'll stop wearing shorts when women stop wearing pants.
Well, I know what not to wear to my first class next week. Not that I wear shorts outside of the house ever, but just in case the urge seizes me.
"From Bauhaus to Our House" is a brilliant little book. I do admire some of the architects he criticizes (Mies Van Der Rohe) and dislike some that he valorizes (Edward Durell Stone), but his basic premise is sympathetic and the writing makes it moreso.
"I Am Charlotte Simmons" won the myopic "Bad Sex in Fiction" award from the London based "Literary Journal" a couple of years ago.
It doesn't make much sense to give the award to a writer who's trying to portray sex in a negative way.
Ignacio: You prig!
Yeah, that's what I meant when I called it myopic. I couldn't believe they made such a stupid choice, though given the source of the award, I take it they were above reading the kinds of books with bad descriptions of sex that are not intended to be negative.
John Updike says he is simply entertainment, not literature.
Of course, almost nothing that was viewed as Great Art at the time it was made is actually remembered a couple generations later. Most of the Literature I studied in high school and college was nothing more than the Entertainment of earlier generations.
Besides, can there be any doubt that Updike's appeal would have been considerably less if his own work didn't frequently have prurient appeal?
"I think gay men who only wear pants are brilliant."
Thank you!
"Pants are male, skirts female; women can do both, but not men."
Oh really?
"Is this etched into our DNA by now, or is it just a chauvinist western construct-thang?"
Human sartorial customs do not get etched into our genetic code.
"Consider how there are robe-wearing men of the ME who are vying for world power and not commanding our respect."
Robe-wearing men don't command our respect?
Well, I'm confused:
Is the award for the best example of bad sex in fiction.....or just a bad description ???
Tom Wolfe is a die-hard Republican. If what you want is hot and steamy prose, good grief don't read a Republican.
Lord knows, I want Republican's running the Government, but when it comes to sex, nobody writes it like a Democrat!
Peace, Maxine
sartorial, sartorial, sartorial!
Nothing better than a good old fashioned adjectified Latin word!
"Lord knows, I want Republican's running the Government, but when it comes to sex, nobody writes it like a Democrat!"
Probably because they don't get enough of the real thing. If you want good sex, look for non-political partners. This might go for sex writers as well. Someone who is too far to the left is just using sex to get you to accept socialism. Which, ironically, will leave your society in the same state the sex will leave you: f**ked.
I think listening is different from reading. I know when I read I am focused in a way that I am not when I'm listening to a book on the old 'Pod (which I do in the car; where I live, it takes a half hour to get anywhere). The result is that complex stories (like the Dorothy Sayers I'm in the middle of now) don't "stick" as well as when I read. Maybe that's not an issue with Tom Wolfe, though.
I don't get this animus towards shorts on men. . . .
Try living in South Carolina in the summer, or Georgia, or anywhere down South, without 'em. If you're going to spend more than car-to-door time outside, you learn to love them.
"Lord knows, I want Republican's running the Government, but when it comes to sex, nobody writes it like a Democrat!"
Well, Democrats may write about sex better than 'Pubs, but are not better in practice.
Remember George magazine? I read an article in that mag about eight or nine years ago. The article was an interview with a prostitute that worked both the Democratic and Republican national conventions.
She says the Republicans are more fun than the Democrats. The Republicans still think sex is naughty and they therefore indulge it with more passion. She said business is better at the Republican convention.
As for Democrats, she said that half of them are gay and the other half spend their time screwing each other; so business with the Democrats was bad. Besides, the Democrats were no fun because they don't think sex is naughty and are accordingly blasé about it.
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