[lbo-talk] Mailer's prizewinning writing

B. docile_body at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 27 21:13:07 PST 2007


I'm a fan of atrocious writing -- I think it gives me comfort to know that even the greats can fall to abysmal depths.

Whitman’s _Leaves of Grass_ contains this line: “ a gigantic uvula with imperceptible gesticulations threatens the tubular downward blackness occasionally from which detaching itself bumps clumsily into the throat a meticulous vulgarity ”

It's reassuring to me to see stuff this bad.

-B.

Michael Pollak wrote:

"Now that is a prize that is deserved. Boy is that stunningly awful."

Norman Mailer actually wrote:

"So Klara turned head to foot, and put her most unmentionable part down on his hard-breathing nose and mouth, and took his old battering ram into her lips. Uncle was now as soft as a coil of excrement. She sucked on him nonetheless with an avidity that could come only from the Evil One - that she knew....So now they both had their heads at the wrong end, and the Evil One was there. He had never been so close before. The Hound began to come to life. Right in her mouth. It surprised her. Alois had been so limp. But now he was a man again!"



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list