Apr 16, 2014

Handsheets for the erotic writer (6) --- from Catherine Millet to James Joyce

Not really a handsheet, but anyhow:

We haven't seriously researched this, but writing style is not different from finger prints or irises, every author has her own. And the spread of the distribution is wider, think of comparing the foot print of a dinosaur with the touch of an ant or the mark of a rabbit (even inside a genre, just compare erotic writers Susan Johnson and Ludmilla Sanders).

We had this idea to look at a few female erotic authors, their rendering of the climax, the crest, the moment, when he
brings you off with that extraordinary precision soon unbearable, sooner or later after having you mounted with the vacant expression of a mating animal, having you kept there for an hour with his extraordinary erotic fabulations, perhaps after he would have tried out the most acrobatic positions, and the most improbable substitutes (cucumbers, sausages, Perrier bottles, a policeman's luminous white trunchheon), and then he would suddenly become quiet a few moments before orgasm...

...and compose all this into a report of last night's meeting of minds and bodies of John ("Ben") Fletcher and erotic author Brigitta Haagen-Dasz in the second part of the Green Eyes.

Yes, along those lines, more or less, although we'd like it to be a bit more poetic.

Let's think.

Okay, let's proceed this way, let's try to apply a simple elimination filter, not really modifying anything, just eliminating unnecessary, extraneous, or otherwise irritating expressions.

Catherine Millet at home

So, for example, let's not employ the verbification (yes, it exists, and an ugly word it is) the verbification of climax.

By the way, all expressions above are from Catherine Millet, founder and editor of France's leading art magazine Art Press, you may have heard of her and her book The sexual life of Catherine M. It is---spoiler alert---extraordinary---her book, and there's this familiar clustering of superlatives that we will now try to tackle:




He brings you off with that extraordinary precision soon unbearable,
(doesn't make sense, so:)
He brings you off with precision

(somehow sounds precise if one would only know what precision means here)


Having you mounted with the vacant distant expression of a mating animal, 
(either "vacant" or "distant" is redundant)
("vacant" is a bit nicer, so:)
  Having you mounted with the vacant expression of a mating animal, 

Having you kept there for an hour with his extraordinary erotic fabulations,
(an erotic text should avoid trivial self-reference, so words like "sexual," "erotic," should go;)
("fabulations" is wishy-washy, so:)
Having you kept there for an hour

(yes, folks, this is the way to go:)

He would have tried out the most acrobatic positions, and the most improbable substitutes 
 ("improbable" acts like a comparative here, so:)
  He would have tried out acrobatic positions, and substitutes

(cucumbers, sausages, Perrier bottles, a policeman's luminous white truncheon), 
(no superlatives here, just a list of substitutes, lets make this a bit shorter)
(cucumbers, sausages, Perrier bottles, a policeman's luminous white truncheon), 
(I guess Millet (or her translator) put the policeman in there to render the "truncheon" plausible, but there's some poetic value to the unqualified stick)
(cucumbers, sausages, Perrier bottles, luminous truncheons),

 And then he would suddenly become quiet a few moments before orgasm
(Elmore Leonard somewhere suggests never to use the word "suddenly;" "a few" is obviously redundant here, "orgasm" is too closely associated with sexuality) 
And then he would become quiet moments before... 

There you have it; not exactly a Nobel prize, but better:

He brings you off with precision
  Having you mounted with the vacant expression of a mating animal, 
Having you kept there for an hour
  He would have tried out acrobatic positions, and substitutes
(cucumbers, sausages, Perrier bottles, luminous truncheons), 
And then he would become quiet moments before... 

A few more, obvious changes...

He brings you off with precision
  Mounting you with the vacant expression of a mating animal, 
Keeping you there for an hour
 Trying out acrobatic positions, and substitutes
(cucumbers, sausages, Perrier bottles, luminous truncheons), 
Getting quiet moments before... 

...and a few more...

He brings you off with precision
  Mounts you with the vacant expression
of a mating animal, 
Keeps you there for an hour
 Tries acrobatic positions, substitutes
(cucumbers, sausages, Perrier bottles, luminous truncheons), 
Goes quiet moments before...

...and a few more... 

He brings you off with precision,
  Mounts you with vacant expressions, 
Of mating animals, 
Keeps you for hours,
There,
 In acrobatic positions,
Tries substitutes,
(Cucumbers, sausages, Perrier bottles, luminous truncheons), 
Goes quiet moments before...


We're not there yet, but you get the gist. It's a pity the word "acrobacy" doesn't exist. How about "hold," instead of positions? Also an idea: drop the singulars all together so, "We---or they; we is better--bring you off with precision..." For whatever it's worth, we have a new blog post.

(Yes, right, Ludmilla Sanders doesn't exist either, which is possibly for the better.) (Wrong, wrong, she does exist, of course, is 83 years old, and lives in South Orange, NJ.)

Update, update. We simply can't get enough of this, so we submit the final stanza to the YouWriteLike site that analyzes your writing style, and, yes folks:

Here's the pluralized version. You're possibly getting tired of this, but you don't have to read it:

We bring you off with precision,
  Mount you with vacant expressions, 
Of mating animals, 
Keep you for hours,
There,
 In acrobatic positions,
We try substitutes,
(Cucumbers, sausages, Perrier bottles, luminous truncheons), 
Go quiet moments before ... we come.


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