Novelist Will Self - who complicates the simplest thoughts with big or obscure words * - writes an entertainingly discursive diary for the London Review of Books (Feb 25 edition). In an appreciation of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time on Radio 4, he sidetracks to his walk across London's Clapham Common with his doggy, Maglorian. And what an event it turns out to be.
He notes of the south side of the common: "The area around here is a notorious cruising ground for men in search of casual homosexual encounters, and often when I walk through it in the mornings I will spot a used condom, as if it were some strange kind of latex airborne slug that, having leaped for the skies, has ended up dangling from the brambles." This is a very fine, well described image, and we should be grateful to the cruisers for inspiring Will's natural outburst of creativity, certain to be recycled in one of his novels. A family picnic, with a plaid tablecloth spread of chicken sandwiches and Thermos tea, would perhaps not stir his imagination.
Further along in his peregrination he freezes at the sight of a 10"-long dildo on the path. It's "made of red, slightly translucent plastic, and fashioned artfully in the manner of an engorged penis, right down to its exposed dome and network of veins." He is distrubed by the "juxtaposition between the mechanical and the faked organic." Civic mindedly, he picks it up with the intention of bin disposal, but Maglorian mistakes the dildo for a play stick and begins "yapping frantically". Odd to handle it: I'd wonder where it's been.
Once again I found myself grateful to the shadowy al fresco nymphs and satyrs who gambol about our city parks at night: they can never know of their contribution to literature.
* Some big or obscure words from Will's piece for you to look up
Dehiscent
Therianthropes
Smirr
6 comments:
Will is such an innocent but still makes Martin Amis seem like an uptight bank manager. Did either of them ever try cock? Or are they strictly mid-twentieth century blokes?
I don't know. Amis is pathologically, genetically, blokily cock-cunting I'd say, one of Mother's snooker players with a woodbine for the bj tease. Self I'm not so certain of, Sebastian Horsley made an odd remark once on the radio about his close friendship with Self; it was a remark that suggested at the very least a disappointed intimacy - not necessarily sexual of course. Perhaps they just got whoozy together.
Is Madame just having a giggle here or are you making some other point? Amusing though.
I'm always interested in how one thing in real-world leads to another in fiction (or literary) world. Where was Amis precisely in real world when he alighted on American doctors in Time's Arrow? What led him to go on and on like that? Forster's wasp - where was he when he went all cosmic?
I can't believe he actually picked it up! Hope all's well with you. I have left a blog award at mine for you xx
I saw Sebastian the other day. I have a strange fascination for him for some reason. Can't believe Will actually picked up the dildo, God knows where it had been. Hope all's well with you. I've left you a blog award at mine xx
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