Tom Wolfe wins bad sex award

[scarlett1]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/13/odd.literature.sex.reut/index.html

Passage in 'Charlotte Simmons' called 'ghastly'

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- American author and journalist Tom Wolfe won one of the world's most dreaded literary accolades on Monday -- the British prize for bad sex in fiction.

The prize is awarded each year "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel."

Wolfe won it for a couple of purple passages from his latest novel "I am Charlotte Simmons," a tale of campus life at an exclusive U.S. university.

"Slither slither slither slither went the tongue," one of his winning sentences begins.

"But the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns -- oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest -- no, the hand was cupping her entire right -- Now!"

[redqueen]

1. Wow...

And I thought *I* was bad at writing that stuff!

[davidinalameda]

2. Tom Wolfe is ghastly

slither slither slither?

oh baby oh baby oh

do me hard

[Richardo]

3. Has he been going to O'Reilly's writers' group?

What happened to his editor? That reeks!

[WI_DEM]

4. geez, that is pretty bad.

sounds like a cheap pulp sex novel.

[Elidor]

5. Hacktacular!

Wolfe seems a parody of himself anymore. The passage above is just beyond belief. What happened to him? He had potential, once upon a time. Now he's just another self-important hack.

[mitchum]

11. He became a very bad novelist...

instead of the groundbreaking journalist he once was. He's also a very smarmy pig who will seize any opportunity to cheer lead for the power structure.
Just a silly man in a stupid white costume living off of past glory.

[Sabriel]

6. Yep, that sounds just like Tom Wolfe!

Why does it surprise anyone? So his sex scenes should be any different from the rest of his writing?

[underpants]

7. Otorhinolaryngological Caverns -I think we went there on a field trip once

they had the stalagtites hanging down or is it the stalamites ...anyway it was pretty cool. We didn't have juice boxes back then or we probably would have got one that day.

[mitchum]

8. Just more evidence of what a BAD novelist Wolfe is...

he was a very good journalist a looooooooong time ago, but that reactonary hack has lost it.

[name not needed]

9. Ashley signaled her desire by removing her...

Bill O'Reilly was robbed of this award!

[The Zanti Regent]

10. He loves Bush too much

just like that other guy who has gone to seed--Ray Bradbury!

[Elidor]

12. I wasn't aware he was a Bush fan

So obviously his mind is going, eh?

[Jack_Dawson]

17. He likes Bush? Link?

[The Zanti Regent]

20. Here's your link showing Tom Wolfe slobbering over Bush!

From the UK Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1340525,00.html

The key part:

"I think support for Bush is about not wanting to be led by East-coast pretensions. It is about not wanting to be led by people who are forever trying to force their twisted sense of morality onto us, which is a non-morality. That is constantly done, and there is real resentment. Support for Bush is about resentment in the so-called 'red states' - a confusing term to Guardian readers, I agree - which here means, literally, middle America. I come from one of those states myself, Virginia. It's the same resentment, indeed, as that against your own newspaper when it sent emails targeting individuals in an American county." Wolfe laughs as he chastises. "No one cares to have outsiders or foreigners butting into their affairs. I'm sure that even many of those Iraqis who were cheering the fall of Saddam now object to our being there. As I said, I do not think the excursion is going well."

And John Kerry? "He is a man no one should worry about, because he has no beliefs at all. He is not going to introduce some manic radical plan, because he is poll-driven, and it is therefore impossible to know where or for what he stands."

Hear that vast sucking sound, now?

[Elidor]

21. What a toad!!!

He's a little natty neocon! Fuck all people who wear white suits.

[mitchum]

25. Wolfe has ALWAYS played the neocon game of celebrating the gleeful...

philistinism of the yahoos while, of course, being an elite himself. He has always done this (even when he was good)

[Elidor]

13. Now this runner-up is more my style:

"(It was) like a large exotic mushroom in the fork of a tree, a little pleasure dome if ever I've seen one, where Alph the sacred river ran down to a tideless sea. No, not tideless. Her tides were convulsive, an ebb and flow that could take you very far, far back, before hurling you out, wildly and triumphantly, on a ribbed and windswept beach without end."

Is that so bad? I kinda like it. *sigh* I guess I'll never develop any taste.

[Richardo]

14. I don't know - between the fungal reference and the sea imagery...

...I'm having difficulty finding a sex scene that 'does its job', so to speak.

[Logansquare]

39. Ooohff, I'm getting seasick. n/t

[Jack_Dawson]

15. Tom Wolfe Rules!

Have you read Bonfire of the Vanities? (Seeing the crappy movie does NOT count). Great read. So was "A Man in Full" up until the end anyway. Ease up. I haven't read Charlotte Symons, but my brother (a snobby lit major) is 2/3 done and likes it so far...

[mitchum]

27. No! He's a fucking awful novelist...

the quick cartoon-like sketch ability which served him well in his new journalism days leaves him at a distinct disadvantage as a novelist. His characters are flat and have no dimension.
Apparently, I am an even snobbier lit major than your brother :)

[scarlett1]

36. I'm one of the few people who actually liked Bonfires.

My husband and I realized it was satirical. It drives me crazy when I go into the Video store and invariably the video is in the drama section. It is a comedy, a statement about the excess of the 80's and the Subtle Al Sharpton reference. Most of the viewers just didn't get it.

[Tony_Illinois]

16. It is awfully tacky (obviously) in a few places . . . BUT I liked

this book and I think you would too. Don't judge this 600+ page book by a couple of sentences... It is not Tom Wolfe's best work, but so what--it's fun reading.:thumbsup:

[Radical Activist]

18. I once gave someone a bad sex award

but it wasn't for what she wrote. hehe

[Placebo]

19. "Slither slither slither slither went the tongue,"...

one of his winning sentences begins.

"But the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns -- oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest -- no, the hand was cupping her entire right -- Now!"

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Thanks, I needed that. That's f'n hillarious.

[blondeatlast]

22. And so very rightly so. Is it a given that flaming Repukes either have no

sex or really, really bad sex?

Discuss.

[Placebo]

23. Is Tom Wolfe a GOPer?

[mitchum]

28. Always has been...

Go back and read those 60s pieces. He was not happy with the changes in American culture.

[Placebo]

30. And he does wear that white suit.

Interesting. Hmm...*scratches chin*

[mitchum]

31. Wolfe's "Radical Chic" is the most devastating portrait of...

"liberal do-gooders" one can imagine. Granted, it is hilarious, but his intentions are very clear. Slack-jawed reactionary apes like Limbaugh and PJ O'Rourke can only dream of possessing a fraction of the talent of Wolfe during his prime.
Wolfe has been playing shrub's game for almost forty years now. Wolfe has ALWAYS mocked intellectuals (while he himself is a writer with an MA in American Studies) and championed the gleeful philistinism of the American yahoo (while, once again, Wolfe himself is a member of the social and economic elite) Sounds a lot like *, doesn't it?

Wolfe was once talented, but no more. However, he remains a hypocritical piece of shit.

[Placebo]

33. It sure does sound like *.

[Redneck Socialist]

34. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is brilliant

but his novels suck, I'll give you that.

[WildEyedLiberal]

37. Haven't read any of his books, but

I did read a passage from "I Am Charlotte Simmons" that was printed in Rolling Stone, and I didn't like it at all. Quite frankly, I was having some trouble understanding the hype; and if all of his books are written like "Charlotte," then I'm completely befuddled as to his literary appeal. It's not that the structure of his sentences was terrible, as is the case in many books published nowadays, but his characterizations and descriptions were simply awful. His title character and her parents, hillbillies from North Carolina, were the most terribly stereotyped cookie cutter "mountain folk" characters I've ever encountered in a novel that purported to take itself seriously. He seems to have this quaint, patronizing view of rural people that I found quite subliminally offensive (though I'm not from the mountains), and his portrait of life in the dorms I found to be a ridiculous parody. I don't go to an "elite" school, but I find it really hard to believe that boys in dorms at Yale, Harvard, et al still actually say "whazaaaaaap!!!" I mean, come on. NO ONE has said "whazaaaaap" for AT LEAST five years. To me, the book seemed to be a rather sad attempt by a seventy year old man to capture the feel of the "hip" and "cool" preppy elite college scene. Also, it doesn't help that his characters were crudely constructed two dimensional regional and class-based stereotypes for whom it's hard to have any deep or genuine sympathy.

And it REALLLY doesn't help that he's a freeper. In fact, that's probably a good reason why his text is so terribly artificial - conservatives tend to have an atrocious grasp of modern culture or authentic life experiences, preferring instead to live in their rose-colored dream world in which men are hard working, women are pretty, kids are quiet, and everyone who isn't is a part of the liberal counterculture.

[mitchum]

40. WEL, you are my kind of literary critic

Honestly, you really do understand the failings that make Wolfe a terrible novelist. His characters are two-dimesional. Wolfe obviously does not care about them. Why should the reader?

[Killarney]

38. Yeah, I was watching him on BookTV last week and he was

jabbering about how horrible liberals are and how he's the only conservative living in NYC and that liberals don't understand real America and real Americans. :eyes:

[NashVegas]

24. Just In Case Someone MIGHT Get Turned On ..

he had to throw a "otorhinolaryngological" in there.

eesh.

[Placebo]

26. Nothing gets the mouth watering...

quite like "otorhinolaryngological" :eyes:

[Blue_Tires]

29. ugh

let's submit that shit for the Bulwer-Lytton contest!

[PittPoliSci]

32. wow, he should win an O'Reilly for that passage.

:gag:

[IHeart1993]

35. Was that sex writing or an anatomy exam?

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