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House of Holes
Shandee finds a friendly arm at a granite quarry. Ned drops down a hole in a golf course. Luna meets a man made of light bulbs at a tanning parlor. So begins Nicholson Baker's fuse-blowing, sex-positive escapade, House of Holes. Baker, the bestselling author of The Mezzanine, Vox, and The Fermata, who "writes like no one else in America" (Newsweek), returns to erotic territory with a gleefully over-the-top novel set in a pleasure resort, where normal rules don't apply. Visitors, pulled in via their drinking straws or the dryers in laundromats, can undergo crotchal transfers . . . make love to trees . . . visit the Groanrooms and the twelve-screen Porndecahedron . . . or pussy-surf the White Lake. It's very expensive, of course, but there are work-study programs. In charge of day-to-day operations is Lila, a former hospital administrator whose breast milk has unusual regenerative properties.
Brimful of good-nature, wit, and surreal sexual vocabulary, House of Holes is a modern-day Hieronymous Boschian bacchanal that is sure to surprise, amuse, and arouse.
Brimful of good-nature, wit, and surreal sexual vocabulary, House of Holes is a modern-day Hieronymous Boschian bacchanal that is sure to surprise, amuse, and arouse.
262 pages, Hardcover
First published August 9, 2011
212 people are currently reading
2564 people want to read
About the author
Nicholson Baker
37 books965 followersNicholson Baker is a contemporary American writer of fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Manhattan in 1957 and grew up in Rochester, New York. He has published sixteen books--including The Mezzanine (1988), U and I (1991), Human Smoke (2008), The Anthologist (2009), and Substitute (2016)--and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, the New York Review of Books, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Essays. He has received a National Book Critics Circle award, a James Madison Freedom of Information Award, the Herman Hesse Prize, and the Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1999, Baker and his wife, Margaret Brentano (co-author with Baker of The World on Sunday, 2005), founded the American Newspaper Repository in order to save a large collection of U.S. newspapers, including a run of Joseph Pulitzer's influential daily, the New York World. In 2004 the Repository’s holdings became a gift to Duke University. Baker and Brentano have two children; they live on the Penobscot River in Maine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 501 reviews
November 19, 2021
"I'd love to see your whole gaping snatch hole just munching on that orgasm, just chewing on that big sweet piece of half-melted pleasure that's hidden inside you," says Nicholson Baker, and what the hell is that? Who says that? Why would you say that? Is it supposed to be funny? Sexy? Naughty? It isn't any of those things, this weird combination of baby talk and overwrought metaphor that's Baker's unfortunate trademark. "His cock train was commuting in and out of her pussyhole," he says, and okay I guess that one's a little funny, but the problem is there are like 250 pages of shit like that and it gets so boring. This is, like, you know that one uncle you have who still wears his hair in a pony tail even though he's got a massive bald spot? And he wears silly t-shirts that say "No One Knows I'm a Lesbian"? Nicholson Baker writes for that guy. It's not for you. You should snicker half-heartedly at the quotes in my review - "she DJ'd herself as if her clit was a scratch record," he says - and then go read a book for grown-ups. "I'll spunk ham juice out everywhere," Nicholson Baker warns. Don't let Nicholson Baker get his ham juice near you, friend. Stay away.
February 27, 2012
This is the easily the worst book I've read (let alone bought new in freaking hardcover!) in as long as I can remember. I want my money back and the time it took to read the first 100 pages and skim the rest. The tone is off, I think. If you're gonna basically present pornographic magical realism without much character development or plot, the language should probably be a lot more elevated so there's at least a bit of titillating conflict between form and content, and this author knows how to elevate language. Instead, everything is flattened, debased, there's nothing interesting except the occasional clever name for genitalia ("purple cameroon"), it's cartoonish but I didn't laugh because there was nothing to really bring me into it. That is, the simplicity of the language worked against engaging me. There were also errors, a misspelling and an unnecessary preposition in the first sentence of a chapter. Mainly, I thought this would be fun and it really bored me. I'm no prude but this stuff isn't even raunchy. It's about as sexy or edgy as Donald Barthleme and Donald Duck doubtleteaming Jessica Rabbit. At best it could have been like a hypererotic version of Padgett Powell's The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? or more recent George Saunders, but this doesn't try to suggest existential or sociopolitical dealios beyond its surface. It doesn't seem to critique a sex-crazed culture of idiocy at all and really just complies with it, more like a product of the author's childish prurient imagination than anything anyone could get anything from -- not even turned on. For all the genitalia on display it's not even arousing. It's a good idea, I'd say, but the execution just seemed to miss by miles. Disappointingly lame, ultimately.
March 17, 2012
You know how there are certain writers -- Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Peter Carey-types -- who are such darlings of the literary world that we joke that they could probably write anything and be lauded by The New York Times?
This is Nicholson Baker writing that "anything" book, trying that experiment.
There is a blurb on the back of House of Holes from Charles McGrath, of The New York Times Magazine, that reads: "When he is not writing about sex (and also when he is), Baker is one of the most beautiful, original, ingenious prose stylists to have come along in decades."
And here is an excerpt of beautiful writing from this book: "He breathed little panting breaths, his hips rocking as he flummoxed his beatstick."
OK. I get that this is satire of our oversexed culture. I get that it is super nasty and lewd and full of crazy kinks, because that's how people are under our polite societal veneer, and that is OK. But..."beautiful"?
This is a book that has multiple instances of Bad Sex Award quality writing. In fact, there is probably one passage every fifteen pages that is deserving of such nomination. I respect Baker really shooting for the stars of ludicrousness (pun totally intended). But I don't have much love for seeing it called "beautiful." A writer with no reputation producing the same sort of material would almost certainly get laughed off the page. I think next year Gary Shteyngart should write an entire book about scat fetish and see what happens; it'll probably be nominated for the National Book Award.
Two stars because even though I sort of like what Baker was trying to do here, the long, detailed, purposely vulgar and purple descriptions of sex are boring. I would have liked to see more world-building and less, uh, play-by-play, because the House of Holes sexual theme park is a great idea.
This is Nicholson Baker writing that "anything" book, trying that experiment.
There is a blurb on the back of House of Holes from Charles McGrath, of The New York Times Magazine, that reads: "When he is not writing about sex (and also when he is), Baker is one of the most beautiful, original, ingenious prose stylists to have come along in decades."
And here is an excerpt of beautiful writing from this book: "He breathed little panting breaths, his hips rocking as he flummoxed his beatstick."
OK. I get that this is satire of our oversexed culture. I get that it is super nasty and lewd and full of crazy kinks, because that's how people are under our polite societal veneer, and that is OK. But..."beautiful"?
This is a book that has multiple instances of Bad Sex Award quality writing. In fact, there is probably one passage every fifteen pages that is deserving of such nomination. I respect Baker really shooting for the stars of ludicrousness (pun totally intended). But I don't have much love for seeing it called "beautiful." A writer with no reputation producing the same sort of material would almost certainly get laughed off the page. I think next year Gary Shteyngart should write an entire book about scat fetish and see what happens; it'll probably be nominated for the National Book Award.
Two stars because even though I sort of like what Baker was trying to do here, the long, detailed, purposely vulgar and purple descriptions of sex are boring. I would have liked to see more world-building and less, uh, play-by-play, because the House of Holes sexual theme park is a great idea.
July 22, 2016
Many friendly men and women frequent a magical theme park of debauchery wherein they have copious amounts of consensual magical-realist sex in every nook and cranny they find. Think of a bordello conceived, designed and operated by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel, both in particularly pleasant and playful moods. It costs some big money to have all the sex you want with detached arms, phallus-bearing trees, sentient tanning beds and friendly staff studs whose bodily emissions boast holistic health benefits, but the HoH offers plenty of opportunities for debtors to wank, spank and buck their way out of the red. Not a mean-spirited thought is to be found amidst this novel's large cast of hyper-sexual cartoon characters, nor is there any serious metaphorical heft to the many brief vignettes that comprise this novel; instead, this novel is a celebration of climaxes every few pages, a pageantry of hilarious sexual phrases, a romance of the human body and its fluids, an argument that foreplay is all imagination, and the closest thing you will ever find to wholesome hardcore pornography. Perfect as a stocking-stuffer come the holidays or as a beach read that can double as a fetching codpiece.
September 13, 2011
What a great book. I am so glad this book exists. This book needed to exist. This book has no plot. This book has no character development. Aside from descriptions of sexual body parts, this book has very little character description. What it does have, though, are three things we can always use more of: first, it has lots of sex. Second, it has some of the best diction of any book I've ever read. So many great descriptive terms for body parts and acts that are always overly-purple in their word choice (I am reminded of Nabokov's calling the peen "the scepter of my passion." Thirdly, and perhaps least discussed but most impressive, it has amazing insights into human desire. The most gloriously realistic yet outlandish descriptions of secret human fantasies. A frank way of talking about the undiscussable. An insight into the longing so many humans have in common but never share. It seems to me that is the int of the book, and I think a lot of people miss that. But if you miss it, it's probably okay. You'll probably still get something out of this book. Literally.
December 23, 2013
HoH is perhaps the funniest Baker novel—U & I is a neurotic treat and parts of The Mezzanine and The Anthologist are rife with very precise hilarity—but for rollicking inventiveness, wordplay, and deep-throated porno-parody, this Book of Raunch shades the win. Imagine a pornographic utopia (the opposite of online porn portals and real-life sex rings) where all participants have manners and seek permission to poke into the desired holes, who during the coital acts never access the nastiest parts of their feral animal behaviour to cause pain or debasement. Those who have participated in an orgy will know that decorum is paramount alongside impeccable hygiene, and manners cost nothing even in a nine-way human conga line of buggery. Baker knows his porno politesse. Mike archived some memorable phrases from the book here. A real slapandtickle giggle—and about as erotic as a naked MJ slathered in salad cream.
September 21, 2013
Nicholson Baker has proven that he can make the familiar very strange. Consider his first novel, MEZZANINE, where a man is on a lunch hour hunt for shoelaces. All the odds and ends, the digressions and pop-up thoughts that can enter a desultory mind, are playfully and artfully presented in a readable and engaging manner. In VOX, a phone call between a lonely man and woman hook up on the phone. They are able to talk about everyday matters and lure the reader into their idle chatter, so that the sexual banter is fluid instead of gratuitous. In his last novel, THE ANTHOLOGIST, Baker uses stream-of-consciousness to wax poetic and edify the reader on verse. His non-fiction HUMAN SMOKE, my personal favorite, is an exquisite tome that shifts the kaleidoscope on history’s sacred cows.
Baker chose a small concept idea for his latest, HOUSE OF HOLES, a cheeky plunge into lust and vulgarity so steep and rank, so exhaustive and consummate, that it is recommended to be read in small doses. That’s easy, as each surreal chapter is its own short carnal experience. Although some characters appear in several chapters, they are not immersed into a tight, ongoing storyline, except for Shandee, who finds a male arm, which is detached from its owner (Dave), and seeks to find the rest of his body. The eponymous HOH is the main character, and everyone else is a fornicating subject. People come to the House of Holes to make their prurient dreams come true.
Somewhere or anywhere/everywhere are circles that are potential portals—the end of a straw, the putting tee of the seventh green, the fourth dryer from the left at the laundromat at the corner of 18th Street and Grover Avenue--that will suck up (or down) and send the willing concupiscent to the House of Holes. There are no limits to what you can do with your anatomy at HOH, and Baker will provide infinite LMAO and OMG moments as you read.
I don’t think any author has come up with so many creative terms for the most sexual parts of our body: meatstick, truncheon, peeny wanger, musclemeat, length of badness, bulldog, cockpoles, hamsteak, thundertube, peckerdickcock, beast, frilly doilies of labial flesh, slobbering kitty, bungee hole, purple cometwat, slippery salope—well, you get the point.
Highbrow and lowbrow blend together, and it is evident that Baker is a scholar with a wanton repertoire of ideas. Some chapters are more “fulfilling” than others, also. For example, a woman nose-dives into a portal and ends up inside her friend’s penis. Getting out was quite the liberating experience for both of them.
In another chapter, a woman, Zilka, gets her clitoris stolen at an airport security check, by someone known as the Purloiner.
“…we’ve determined that your clitoris is not a carry-on item…It’s swollen and oversized and over the weight limit, and I’m going to have to remove it now.”
Zilka sees it going into a clear plastic baggie with a numbered label on it. She seeks help from the HOH to get it back, as the Purloiner is known to loiter there.
Crotchal transfers, temporary scrotal removal, sex with headless men, Penis Washes, Hall of the Armless Men Who Still Want to Fuck Twat—this is just a fraction of the dizzying booty in this book, just an ampule of the sex blasts of comic and twisted derangement provided between these sticky pages. Rather than read it solo, this would make a humorously lewd parlor game between trusted friends at a dinner party (make that AFTER dinner). You could truth or dare it—read a chapter on a dare—but I wouldn’t advise trying any of these tricks yourself, or with each other!
Take a ride on the “Pornsucker” ship or gaze at the 12-screen Porndecahedron of licentious delights. This review comes with a warning, however, something that Erica Jong once said:
“My reaction to porno films is as follows; After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw, after the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.”
Baker chose a small concept idea for his latest, HOUSE OF HOLES, a cheeky plunge into lust and vulgarity so steep and rank, so exhaustive and consummate, that it is recommended to be read in small doses. That’s easy, as each surreal chapter is its own short carnal experience. Although some characters appear in several chapters, they are not immersed into a tight, ongoing storyline, except for Shandee, who finds a male arm, which is detached from its owner (Dave), and seeks to find the rest of his body. The eponymous HOH is the main character, and everyone else is a fornicating subject. People come to the House of Holes to make their prurient dreams come true.
Somewhere or anywhere/everywhere are circles that are potential portals—the end of a straw, the putting tee of the seventh green, the fourth dryer from the left at the laundromat at the corner of 18th Street and Grover Avenue--that will suck up (or down) and send the willing concupiscent to the House of Holes. There are no limits to what you can do with your anatomy at HOH, and Baker will provide infinite LMAO and OMG moments as you read.
I don’t think any author has come up with so many creative terms for the most sexual parts of our body: meatstick, truncheon, peeny wanger, musclemeat, length of badness, bulldog, cockpoles, hamsteak, thundertube, peckerdickcock, beast, frilly doilies of labial flesh, slobbering kitty, bungee hole, purple cometwat, slippery salope—well, you get the point.
Highbrow and lowbrow blend together, and it is evident that Baker is a scholar with a wanton repertoire of ideas. Some chapters are more “fulfilling” than others, also. For example, a woman nose-dives into a portal and ends up inside her friend’s penis. Getting out was quite the liberating experience for both of them.
In another chapter, a woman, Zilka, gets her clitoris stolen at an airport security check, by someone known as the Purloiner.
“…we’ve determined that your clitoris is not a carry-on item…It’s swollen and oversized and over the weight limit, and I’m going to have to remove it now.”
Zilka sees it going into a clear plastic baggie with a numbered label on it. She seeks help from the HOH to get it back, as the Purloiner is known to loiter there.
Crotchal transfers, temporary scrotal removal, sex with headless men, Penis Washes, Hall of the Armless Men Who Still Want to Fuck Twat—this is just a fraction of the dizzying booty in this book, just an ampule of the sex blasts of comic and twisted derangement provided between these sticky pages. Rather than read it solo, this would make a humorously lewd parlor game between trusted friends at a dinner party (make that AFTER dinner). You could truth or dare it—read a chapter on a dare—but I wouldn’t advise trying any of these tricks yourself, or with each other!
Take a ride on the “Pornsucker” ship or gaze at the 12-screen Porndecahedron of licentious delights. This review comes with a warning, however, something that Erica Jong once said:
“My reaction to porno films is as follows; After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw, after the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.”
October 30, 2011
Nicholson Baker writes three kinds of books: non-fiction, literary fiction, and porn. It's odd that although he's known for the phone-sex masterpiece Vox, the only thing I'd ever read by him was The Anthologist, a wonky first-person slow-moving story about a poetry writer and editor with a near-fatal case of writer's block. It was well-written and has a solid voice. So when his latest porn novel, House of Holes was released, I had to buy a copy.
House of Holes is an homage to the Golden Age of Porn that began in 1972 with Behind the Green Door and ended, thirteen years later, with New Wave Hookers. In it, Baker reveals three secrets about porn from that era that we should all be aware of.
First, there are only two kinds of women-shaped creatures in porn. But neither are really human women. The first are almost human women, but they lack a terribly deep inner life. They attempt to go about their daily business, but they all have a kind of attention-deficit disorder where the suggestion of sex may overwhelm their attention at any moment, turning them into happy, cock-hungry fuckbunnies. A rare few are fuckbunnies in potentia, but this can be resolved within a day or two. If no cock is available, at least an orgasm must happen and another woman will do. When all else fails, she can do it herself. The second kind are man-eaters, always on but exhaustingly dangerous to know.
Secondly, the men in porn are ordinary men. Most of them are confused about sex, confused about what women want-- even when said women are simply cock-hungry-- and confused about their place in a world full of maneaters and fuckbunnies. They're just trying to get along and get laid. Some are well-hung, some aren't; some can last a long time, some can't. They like a little variety, but can be tempted to a long span of monogamy by a particularly beautiful or wonderful woman, and sex doesn't really enter into their motives for a relationship. It can, however, tempt a man to do wrong.
Third, Golden Age Porn is absolutely full of magical realism. For no explicable reason, and often with an "it happens" shrug of the shoulders, clitori move to unfamiliar parts of the body, men swap penises, penises and vaginas develop minds and voices of their own, various accessories (hats, scarves, belts, shoes, watches) give people unusual powers, usually to either spy on people having sex or increase the user's chances of having sex. And over all there is just a sudden increase in people having sex: the pornoverse is a localized phenomenon, inconvenient but hardly tragic.
House of Holes is written like an acid-trip magical realism porn film, only put into the hands of a respected literary writer. The book opens up with Shandee who, while walking in the woods, comes across an arm. Just an arm. It waves at her, and she takes it home. Giving it a piece of paper and a pen, it introduces itself: "Hi, I'm Dave's arm." They have a conversation about how Dave's arm came to be independent of Dave: It turns out that, at the House of Holes, if you want a bigger dick, you have to give up another appendage to get it. You can get the arm back, but you have to fulfill a contractual obligation. The owner of the House, an ancient wise woman named Lila, knows exactly the right obligation.
There are all sorts of weird, arbitrary rules at the House, and a thousand and one different ways to have fun. Thousands of men, in quest of a great orgasm, have chosen to give up their penises in order to let the "jizm" build. The Hall of Penises has all of these, poking up, sagging down, all waiting to be re-united with their former owners. If someone else wants an especially large one, he might get it from that Hall, but only in exchange for a finger, or an arm, or something.
But it's 70's porn: nobody is mean, everyone says "please" and "thank you," and the banality of the porniverse is that, for these people, it's a pleasure as ordinary and as mainstream, and as separate from real human sex, as any porn film ever can be. It's blissfully a long way from the cruel gonzo porn that's fortunately fading away to a low roar.
If there's a weakness to the book, it's the way the literary form shows just how much the women of 70's porn were like William James' Automatic Sweetheart, "a soulless body which should be absolutely indistinguishable from a spiritually animated maiden, laughing, talking, blushing, nursing us, and performing all feminine offices as tactfully and sweetly as if a soul were in her." Books take us where movies cannot, into the mind of a character. For most of the women in House of Holes, there's no "there" there. To me, that expectation often ruined my suspension of disbelief.
Some reviewers, I think, read too much into the "horror" nature of the way Shandee has a loving relationship with Dave's arm, or Reese gets off with a "sexbody," a male body who's head is in cold storage, waiting to be reunited with the rest of his studly, getting laid, but generally mindless anatomy. For all we know, Baker was analogizing the way we compartmentalize our awareness that the food on our plates comes from cruel factory farms, or that our sexy life-conveniencing iPods are put together with slave labor. He's not saying.
There are some moments that come across with authorial voice, such as the character of Hax, whose mission is to convince women that their nakedness is beautiful-- and Hax has a long soliloquy about how both tattoos and shaved pubes are often forms of hiding one's self. Or the character of Dune, who says that all of the House of Holes, and its concentration on variety and fetish, is "too much," and that what one really needs for good sex is a man and a woman, "not too fat."
There are a lot of short scenes, set-ups of people doing it or planning to do it or getting ready to do it, with titles like "Shandee finds Dave's Arm," or "Dune takes a walk on the Boardwalk." They follow a small cast of people through this weird, psychedelic landscape.
House of Holes is sexy, inventive, and funny. It's also exhausting, full of a kind of humanity that is as distant from us as the New Soviet Man or the Randian Hero. It says things about human beings and about sex by showing wonderfully, creepily inhuman people having sex. But if you like really well-written, witty, and genuinely inventive erotica, I strongly recommend House of Holes. It has set a new standard, and if you're going to write erotica from this day forward, it is a standard that will challenge all of us.
House of Holes is an homage to the Golden Age of Porn that began in 1972 with Behind the Green Door and ended, thirteen years later, with New Wave Hookers. In it, Baker reveals three secrets about porn from that era that we should all be aware of.
First, there are only two kinds of women-shaped creatures in porn. But neither are really human women. The first are almost human women, but they lack a terribly deep inner life. They attempt to go about their daily business, but they all have a kind of attention-deficit disorder where the suggestion of sex may overwhelm their attention at any moment, turning them into happy, cock-hungry fuckbunnies. A rare few are fuckbunnies in potentia, but this can be resolved within a day or two. If no cock is available, at least an orgasm must happen and another woman will do. When all else fails, she can do it herself. The second kind are man-eaters, always on but exhaustingly dangerous to know.
Secondly, the men in porn are ordinary men. Most of them are confused about sex, confused about what women want-- even when said women are simply cock-hungry-- and confused about their place in a world full of maneaters and fuckbunnies. They're just trying to get along and get laid. Some are well-hung, some aren't; some can last a long time, some can't. They like a little variety, but can be tempted to a long span of monogamy by a particularly beautiful or wonderful woman, and sex doesn't really enter into their motives for a relationship. It can, however, tempt a man to do wrong.
Third, Golden Age Porn is absolutely full of magical realism. For no explicable reason, and often with an "it happens" shrug of the shoulders, clitori move to unfamiliar parts of the body, men swap penises, penises and vaginas develop minds and voices of their own, various accessories (hats, scarves, belts, shoes, watches) give people unusual powers, usually to either spy on people having sex or increase the user's chances of having sex. And over all there is just a sudden increase in people having sex: the pornoverse is a localized phenomenon, inconvenient but hardly tragic.
House of Holes is written like an acid-trip magical realism porn film, only put into the hands of a respected literary writer. The book opens up with Shandee who, while walking in the woods, comes across an arm. Just an arm. It waves at her, and she takes it home. Giving it a piece of paper and a pen, it introduces itself: "Hi, I'm Dave's arm." They have a conversation about how Dave's arm came to be independent of Dave: It turns out that, at the House of Holes, if you want a bigger dick, you have to give up another appendage to get it. You can get the arm back, but you have to fulfill a contractual obligation. The owner of the House, an ancient wise woman named Lila, knows exactly the right obligation.
There are all sorts of weird, arbitrary rules at the House, and a thousand and one different ways to have fun. Thousands of men, in quest of a great orgasm, have chosen to give up their penises in order to let the "jizm" build. The Hall of Penises has all of these, poking up, sagging down, all waiting to be re-united with their former owners. If someone else wants an especially large one, he might get it from that Hall, but only in exchange for a finger, or an arm, or something.
But it's 70's porn: nobody is mean, everyone says "please" and "thank you," and the banality of the porniverse is that, for these people, it's a pleasure as ordinary and as mainstream, and as separate from real human sex, as any porn film ever can be. It's blissfully a long way from the cruel gonzo porn that's fortunately fading away to a low roar.
If there's a weakness to the book, it's the way the literary form shows just how much the women of 70's porn were like William James' Automatic Sweetheart, "a soulless body which should be absolutely indistinguishable from a spiritually animated maiden, laughing, talking, blushing, nursing us, and performing all feminine offices as tactfully and sweetly as if a soul were in her." Books take us where movies cannot, into the mind of a character. For most of the women in House of Holes, there's no "there" there. To me, that expectation often ruined my suspension of disbelief.
Some reviewers, I think, read too much into the "horror" nature of the way Shandee has a loving relationship with Dave's arm, or Reese gets off with a "sexbody," a male body who's head is in cold storage, waiting to be reunited with the rest of his studly, getting laid, but generally mindless anatomy. For all we know, Baker was analogizing the way we compartmentalize our awareness that the food on our plates comes from cruel factory farms, or that our sexy life-conveniencing iPods are put together with slave labor. He's not saying.
There are some moments that come across with authorial voice, such as the character of Hax, whose mission is to convince women that their nakedness is beautiful-- and Hax has a long soliloquy about how both tattoos and shaved pubes are often forms of hiding one's self. Or the character of Dune, who says that all of the House of Holes, and its concentration on variety and fetish, is "too much," and that what one really needs for good sex is a man and a woman, "not too fat."
There are a lot of short scenes, set-ups of people doing it or planning to do it or getting ready to do it, with titles like "Shandee finds Dave's Arm," or "Dune takes a walk on the Boardwalk." They follow a small cast of people through this weird, psychedelic landscape.
House of Holes is sexy, inventive, and funny. It's also exhausting, full of a kind of humanity that is as distant from us as the New Soviet Man or the Randian Hero. It says things about human beings and about sex by showing wonderfully, creepily inhuman people having sex. But if you like really well-written, witty, and genuinely inventive erotica, I strongly recommend House of Holes. It has set a new standard, and if you're going to write erotica from this day forward, it is a standard that will challenge all of us.
August 9, 2012
A series of linked abusurdist erotic vignettes, with strong doses of surrealism and humor.
So this is a sex book, make no mistake. From reading formal book reviews beforehand I had the impression it was a novel with a plot, but it's not really that - though characters and places and concepts recur, there's no real extended story arc, it's more a series of delightfully absurd short stories. In a twisted kind of way, it reminded me of Louis Sachar's Sideways Stories From Wayside School, if the characters were all adults and were really, really into phalluses and fellatio and porn. As erotica, it's interesting because there's kind of a light, bubble-gum tone throughout - there is no particular darkness or sense of risk or danger here. It's very playful and unserious. I think it's rare that erotic writing can manage to be both arousing and funny, or arousing and light in tone, yet somehow I think House of Holes does it.
I found the writing wonderfully inventive and clever, and it was a pleasure to read. Just a lot of fun. I would recommend this to folks who are urbane and not offended by explicit references to human anatomy or variegated sexual practices. This is basically thinking persons' porn, without being too thinky.
So this is a sex book, make no mistake. From reading formal book reviews beforehand I had the impression it was a novel with a plot, but it's not really that - though characters and places and concepts recur, there's no real extended story arc, it's more a series of delightfully absurd short stories. In a twisted kind of way, it reminded me of Louis Sachar's Sideways Stories From Wayside School, if the characters were all adults and were really, really into phalluses and fellatio and porn. As erotica, it's interesting because there's kind of a light, bubble-gum tone throughout - there is no particular darkness or sense of risk or danger here. It's very playful and unserious. I think it's rare that erotic writing can manage to be both arousing and funny, or arousing and light in tone, yet somehow I think House of Holes does it.
I found the writing wonderfully inventive and clever, and it was a pleasure to read. Just a lot of fun. I would recommend this to folks who are urbane and not offended by explicit references to human anatomy or variegated sexual practices. This is basically thinking persons' porn, without being too thinky.
June 2, 2012
Imagine a cross between a hardcore porno and Alice in Wonderland, then throw in some excellent writing and some of the most imaginative descriptions of a man's penis you're ever going to read and you have Nicholson Baker's latest novel "House of Holes". Baker, if you're new to him, is a fantastically wide ranging writer who has written a novel about the hypothetical assassination of George W Bush, a non-fiction book about library cataloguing, two erotic novels, one of which was made famous by Monica Lewinsky after she handed a copy to Bill Clinton (the rest is history), a stream of consciousness non-fiction fan note to John Updike, and a history book highlighting the Allied leaders support of Hitler in the run up to WW2. In short, this writer's output is surprising to say the least.
The novel centres around an otherworldy luxury brothel called House of Holes which is located in some dreamscape where the visitors pay extortionate sums of money to have their wildest dreams fulfilled. How they get there is a variety of ways - through a straw in a drink, a washing machine, via the hole in the end of a penis, through someone's fingers when they make an "O" shape. Couple this with scenes such as the opening chapter where a disembodied arm seduces a young woman followed by a woman in a singles bar who lays a silver egg and you realise this is a novel where you don't know what's going to happen next.
Other examples are the ways in which customers are punished. Heads are taken off of bodies and then reattached later, meanwhile the headless bodies wander about as normal. Arms and legs are taken off, while genitalia is removed and replaced with the opposite sex's, and so on. All very trippy, I know.
Here's a sample paragraph to give you an idea of the kind of inspired writing you get throughout the book: "Chuck's thundertube of d*ckmeat started sliding in... then he slammed into her train station again. His c*ck train was commuting in and out of her p*ssyhole, filling and emptying it by turns, and she loved it...then he made... a sound like a monster in a Japanese monster movie, and she felt a flowering of deep warmth inside her, and the sense of hot sperm that surrounded the prow of his still thrusting peckerd*ckc*ck." (p.20)
Baker's said in recent interviews that he had a great time writing the book and it's really obvious to reader that there is an exuberance in the writing of the strangest and most challenging scenes that really springs off the page at you. Dialogue like "Do you want this ham steak of a Dr D*ck that's so stuffed with sp*nk that I'm ready to blow this swollen sackload all over you?" "Yes Mr F*ckwizard, we want that fully sp*nkloaded meatloaf of a ham steak of a d*ck" (p.23)
I really laughed at several moments in this book. As bizarre as the book got, and if you're a plot driven reader then you'll be better off not picking this up as it's really a series of bizarre scenes merged with tons of sex rather than a story, I stuck with it just for the language. Some highlights include the various names given to penises - "hot w*nky stick" (p.27), "hunky sp*nk pipes" (p.248), "rogue jacquard" (p.206) and best of all "Dave angled out his Malcolm Gladwell" (p.184).
There are a number of characters in the book who go through strange adventures and scenarios, I won't go into them here as you'll want to discover them for yourselves, but I will say that apart from the Madam of the house, Lila, none of them were ever really memorably written. It's the situations they find themselves in that stick with you rather than the people involved. Similarly, because there is no plot, the book does become a bit tiresome by the end. I did finish and enjoyed it while it lasted but in the end I'm not sure I could have read it if it were longer than 262 pages.
If you've got a good sense of humour and are feeling adventurous, spend some time with this, possibly the most inventive novel of 2011. Read it for the language which is as spicy as the things the characters in the book get up to. You know every year in the UK they have a bad sex award for books? It's for sex scenes written embarrassingly in a work of fiction. I love that Baker saw that and thought "just a scene? Why not an entire book?", then went ahead and wrote it. Because while I did get tired of the endless sex and madness by the end, I'm thankful that somebody like Baker wrote it. 3 stars for the book and an extra star for the balls on this guy. God bless you sir, I hope your inspired work is read in the spirit in which it was offered - fun!
The novel centres around an otherworldy luxury brothel called House of Holes which is located in some dreamscape where the visitors pay extortionate sums of money to have their wildest dreams fulfilled. How they get there is a variety of ways - through a straw in a drink, a washing machine, via the hole in the end of a penis, through someone's fingers when they make an "O" shape. Couple this with scenes such as the opening chapter where a disembodied arm seduces a young woman followed by a woman in a singles bar who lays a silver egg and you realise this is a novel where you don't know what's going to happen next.
Other examples are the ways in which customers are punished. Heads are taken off of bodies and then reattached later, meanwhile the headless bodies wander about as normal. Arms and legs are taken off, while genitalia is removed and replaced with the opposite sex's, and so on. All very trippy, I know.
Here's a sample paragraph to give you an idea of the kind of inspired writing you get throughout the book: "Chuck's thundertube of d*ckmeat started sliding in... then he slammed into her train station again. His c*ck train was commuting in and out of her p*ssyhole, filling and emptying it by turns, and she loved it...then he made... a sound like a monster in a Japanese monster movie, and she felt a flowering of deep warmth inside her, and the sense of hot sperm that surrounded the prow of his still thrusting peckerd*ckc*ck." (p.20)
Baker's said in recent interviews that he had a great time writing the book and it's really obvious to reader that there is an exuberance in the writing of the strangest and most challenging scenes that really springs off the page at you. Dialogue like "Do you want this ham steak of a Dr D*ck that's so stuffed with sp*nk that I'm ready to blow this swollen sackload all over you?" "Yes Mr F*ckwizard, we want that fully sp*nkloaded meatloaf of a ham steak of a d*ck" (p.23)
I really laughed at several moments in this book. As bizarre as the book got, and if you're a plot driven reader then you'll be better off not picking this up as it's really a series of bizarre scenes merged with tons of sex rather than a story, I stuck with it just for the language. Some highlights include the various names given to penises - "hot w*nky stick" (p.27), "hunky sp*nk pipes" (p.248), "rogue jacquard" (p.206) and best of all "Dave angled out his Malcolm Gladwell" (p.184).
There are a number of characters in the book who go through strange adventures and scenarios, I won't go into them here as you'll want to discover them for yourselves, but I will say that apart from the Madam of the house, Lila, none of them were ever really memorably written. It's the situations they find themselves in that stick with you rather than the people involved. Similarly, because there is no plot, the book does become a bit tiresome by the end. I did finish and enjoyed it while it lasted but in the end I'm not sure I could have read it if it were longer than 262 pages.
If you've got a good sense of humour and are feeling adventurous, spend some time with this, possibly the most inventive novel of 2011. Read it for the language which is as spicy as the things the characters in the book get up to. You know every year in the UK they have a bad sex award for books? It's for sex scenes written embarrassingly in a work of fiction. I love that Baker saw that and thought "just a scene? Why not an entire book?", then went ahead and wrote it. Because while I did get tired of the endless sex and madness by the end, I'm thankful that somebody like Baker wrote it. 3 stars for the book and an extra star for the balls on this guy. God bless you sir, I hope your inspired work is read in the spirit in which it was offered - fun!
May 6, 2013
Hilarious, surreal, literate, erotic, great word coinages/metaphors.
notes/quotes
23..their slippy sloppy f fountains on display
26..ease into for 15 seconds..for femmes: The Squat Line
30..all whisper, whisper (cf UK idiom: softly softly: In a very tactful, careful, or nondisruptive manner.)
32..the Pearloiner..
39..scrub, don't tug.
42..in his thrummiest voice
47..sherry cobbler, slobbering kitty, he his bulldog
71..Rhumpa unbuttons her shirt...the N Haven people were wealthy & under-read
92..whip flick of silly string
96..you pass the testes
163..the Groan Room
165..shucked off her pants & scants...exposed wonderloaves, exposed innernesses
168..fixative..bring on the Man Line
189..Porndecahedron (cf Decameron?)..various fetishes
---good porn is just pretty smiley woman who's having fun, and a dude w/a hard d..who isn't fat
181..Edging..
183..you're going to bring your charlie horse out right now?
184..Dave angled out his MALCOM GLADWELL
197..twizzeld her riddle
200..i know she wants to see my mandingo...Do you say yes?
238..pornmonster Lake (surreal)..repository of distilled contents of the pornsucker missions
241..vulgarian
248..wank those hunky spunk pipes!
255..massive rude c*ckitude,..balls' hairy handbag..rigid stonker..testerod*ck
257..Atlas-shrug shuddering of arrival
notes/quotes
23..their slippy sloppy f fountains on display
26..ease into for 15 seconds..for femmes: The Squat Line
30..all whisper, whisper (cf UK idiom: softly softly: In a very tactful, careful, or nondisruptive manner.)
32..the Pearloiner..
39..scrub, don't tug.
42..in his thrummiest voice
47..sherry cobbler, slobbering kitty, he his bulldog
71..Rhumpa unbuttons her shirt...the N Haven people were wealthy & under-read
92..whip flick of silly string
96..you pass the testes
163..the Groan Room
165..shucked off her pants & scants...exposed wonderloaves, exposed innernesses
168..fixative..bring on the Man Line
189..Porndecahedron (cf Decameron?)..various fetishes
---good porn is just pretty smiley woman who's having fun, and a dude w/a hard d..who isn't fat
181..Edging..
183..you're going to bring your charlie horse out right now?
184..Dave angled out his MALCOM GLADWELL
197..twizzeld her riddle
200..i know she wants to see my mandingo...Do you say yes?
238..pornmonster Lake (surreal)..repository of distilled contents of the pornsucker missions
241..vulgarian
248..wank those hunky spunk pipes!
255..massive rude c*ckitude,..balls' hairy handbag..rigid stonker..testerod*ck
257..Atlas-shrug shuddering of arrival
December 10, 2011
I can't believe I spent valuable minutes of my life finishing this book, but I have liked most of his other works, and this one got a pretty good review in the NYT, so I kept hoping that something would happen to rescue what was, from start to finish, probably the most disturbing exploration (can it even be called that? I can't think of an adequate word) of sexuality that I've encountered. Not fun. Not sexy. Not liberating. Not witty. It's like a 15-year-old who has read some Tom Robbins novels and experienced sex only by means of some kind of virtual-reality video game decided to write an erotic novel to show off all the ways he can think of to say "penis." It's just like porn, in that there is no such thing as a character or plot, just cardboard figures banging, or whatever, but in very bizarre ways rather than in the tried-and-true stylized ways. Still, it's boring.
Hard to believe that the guy who wrote "The Mezzanine" thought this was a good idea. Maybe it's a joke. A big joke on all his readers, a way of thumbing his nose at those who have come to think of him as a "literary" novelist. But why would you do that? Eff you, Nicholson Baker.
Hard to believe that the guy who wrote "The Mezzanine" thought this was a good idea. Maybe it's a joke. A big joke on all his readers, a way of thumbing his nose at those who have come to think of him as a "literary" novelist. But why would you do that? Eff you, Nicholson Baker.
February 12, 2015
Ha! What the hell did I just read? House of Holes is gross, hilarious, surreal, occasionally sexy, but mostly just lots of fun. I honestly thought I would hate this book after reading several quotes but I was laughing too hard and marveling at the inventiveness of the world to care about the ridiculousness of the language. I bet listening to this on audio would be even more fun than reading it if you got the right people to do the job.
The only real disappointment was that it all seemed very white and mostly heterosexual. Mr. Baker you should pick other writers with great senses of humor and big imaginations from around the globe to write House of Holes - International!
The only real disappointment was that it all seemed very white and mostly heterosexual. Mr. Baker you should pick other writers with great senses of humor and big imaginations from around the globe to write House of Holes - International!
December 16, 2014
Weird; I was expecting it to be more disturbing. It's like if someone wrote a story based on a dream they had after reading a Murakami novel and replaced all the sheep and moping with penises and vaginas.
October 8, 2011
Very appropriately subtitled "A Book of Raunch" Nicholson Baker's delightful, completely filthy journey through the fantastical sex resort "The House of Holes" has got to be one of the most unexpectedly charming and uplifting books I've read in awhile.
It took me some time to figure out just what it was I was enjoying so much about this series of ever so slightly connecting and intersecting tales of the various patrons of a metaphysical, is it real or isn't it, sex resort where patrons can realize their innermost (to the point where THEY may not even know they have them) fantasies.
Having never read Baker before I've got nothing to compare this to, but I was immediately struck by the impersonal nature of his characters. His writing is very crisp and impersonal. No one is surprised by even the most bizarre sexual kink and everyone is willing to try anything! There is a jarring lack of feeling in Baker's character that is at first a little disturbing given the nature of his material. But about a 1/4 of the way through the book I realized I was kind of enjoying the distinct lack of emotional hang ups. His characters are just so happy! It's extremely liberating to read about people having lots of crazy, kooky, fantastic sex and using the most insane, filthy language while doing it and not having to wade through a lot of emotional drama. No one is worried about anyone's feelings or self esteem or whether they'll be respected in the morning. When love is discussed or mentioned its as a beautiful, warm bath, kind of sentiment that's meant to be enjoyed and given freely not treated like a sacred cow that needs constant stroking and analysis.
I'm not saying I'd like to live in Baker's House of Holes but damned if it doesn't sound like a nice place to visit.
If you're not bothered by epically filthy language (this man has invented ways to describe penis's and vagina's that no one in the history of language as even considered before) take a chance with this. Its just a real feel good read. A REALLLY feel good read.
It took me some time to figure out just what it was I was enjoying so much about this series of ever so slightly connecting and intersecting tales of the various patrons of a metaphysical, is it real or isn't it, sex resort where patrons can realize their innermost (to the point where THEY may not even know they have them) fantasies.
Having never read Baker before I've got nothing to compare this to, but I was immediately struck by the impersonal nature of his characters. His writing is very crisp and impersonal. No one is surprised by even the most bizarre sexual kink and everyone is willing to try anything! There is a jarring lack of feeling in Baker's character that is at first a little disturbing given the nature of his material. But about a 1/4 of the way through the book I realized I was kind of enjoying the distinct lack of emotional hang ups. His characters are just so happy! It's extremely liberating to read about people having lots of crazy, kooky, fantastic sex and using the most insane, filthy language while doing it and not having to wade through a lot of emotional drama. No one is worried about anyone's feelings or self esteem or whether they'll be respected in the morning. When love is discussed or mentioned its as a beautiful, warm bath, kind of sentiment that's meant to be enjoyed and given freely not treated like a sacred cow that needs constant stroking and analysis.
I'm not saying I'd like to live in Baker's House of Holes but damned if it doesn't sound like a nice place to visit.
If you're not bothered by epically filthy language (this man has invented ways to describe penis's and vagina's that no one in the history of language as even considered before) take a chance with this. Its just a real feel good read. A REALLLY feel good read.
March 3, 2016
"Do you like to eat salad? I do."
Surreal comical pulp erotica.
It's hard to classify this as erotica. It's a bunch of raunchy sex and comedy with some funny one-liners.
Entertaining but no depth.
Surreal comical pulp erotica.
It's hard to classify this as erotica. It's a bunch of raunchy sex and comedy with some funny one-liners.
Entertaining but no depth.
March 28, 2022
"Do you think God stays in heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he's created here on earth?"
-- Steve Buscemi, Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams
-- Steve Buscemi, Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams
April 7, 2018
This review initially ran in the New York Journal of Books. I reproduce it here:
“I imagine a sensual man . . . strong-jawed, financially secure, who understands my needs and is not threatened by them.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, honey, can you please cut the boilerplate?”
This exchange occurs halfway into Nicholson Baker’s provocative new novel, House of Holes. Except 'provocative' isn’t quite the word for it.
To provoke readers is to nudge them past their comfort zones, ask them to go places they’re not accustomed to going, understand characters they’re not inclined to understanding.
To that end, Mr. Baker has been provoking readers for two decades, first with the phone-sex dialogue of Vox and later 2004’s Checkpoint, in which two characters debate the merits of assassinating the president. He caused a ruckus in the library community with the preservation treatise Double Fold, and three years ago served up Human Smoke, a pacifist’s argument for non-intervention in World War II that a decidedly unprovoked New York Times critic called “a moral mess.”
No, provoking seems inadequate to the task here. House of Holes—without much question the most explicit novel ever released by a mainstream publisher—exists less to provoke than to throw down some kind of gauntlet, shatter any limits of literary decorum.
House of Holes is a series of episodes featuring characters who have entered an alternate sexual universe by being sucked through a straw, climbing into a laundromat dryer, disappearing into a pepper shaker, et cetera. Once there, they are presented with a bacchanalian utopia where fantasies are indulged, taboos disappear, and nonstop pleasure abounds.
We will be introduced to characters who exchange genitalia, have sex with trees, swim in lakes filled up not with water but with sexual fluids, and—get ready for this one—take a ride on the Pornmonster, a nebulous creature made up of errant penises and vaginas.
The literary community can and probably will resurrect the debate Mr. Baker faced with his 1990s sex novels Vox and The Fermata: Is this literature or officially sanctioned pornography?
Mr. Baker never lets on—and it’s unlikely he even cares. One imagines the author, drunk with unbridled glee at his computer keyboard, howling with laughter as he conjures up countless euphemisms for male genitalia (“Malcolm Gladwell” only the most memorable)—which is probably the best way for readers to enjoy it as well.
No honest appraisal of this novel can be written with mere plot summary, so let’s get specific.
In the excerpt that opened this review, a timid new visitor named Henriette has been chastened by Lila, the House’s director, for her “boilerplate” reasons for being there. Opening up, Henriette explains that frequent use of a vibrator has rendered her insensate and seeks a magical remedy.
Lila’s solution, like most of the narration, is an amalgam of fairy tale mythology, New Age mysticism, and Penthouse Forum smut:
“We’re going to help you with a dose of the House of Holes’s healing powers. You need a leg wrap with the Cable of Induhash, and you need the Belt of Jingly Bells, and you may need a squirt of my own titmilk. And you definitely also need much higher vantage. Much higher. You need perspective on your life.”
Where Henriette’s “operation” leads is unprintable, but rest assured it has a climax the likes of which you have never before read.
Much will be made about the outrageous sexual exploits and graphic language, but you may be surprised at how, well, childlike it all feels. Indeed, for a book whose subtitle is A Book of Raunch, the prevailing tone is not one of depravity but rather of a teenager whose imagination has been allowed to run wild and can’t believe he’s getting away with it.
Consider this passage, one of the tamest in the novel, about a woman named Polly who is taking a tour of the Hall of Penises, in which male units appear through holes in the wall. When Polly finds one she likes, she gets down to business:
“When she looked down she could see something major happening with his ballsack. It was lifting, the prune elevator was going up, and there was serious wrinkling, and she knew that meant he was almost there . . . a spume, a trilateral spray of jism came out like light through a prism. It was a jism prism, split into three parts, all of them white . . . as she was swallowing it she thought with an inner triumphant chuckle, I have just busted this man’s nut.”
This vivid debauchery is often hilarious and eye-opening, but it does come at the expense of emotional resonance. No one character is given the depth of Vox’s sex hotline couple Jim and Abby (though the Pornmonster has shown remarkable staying power), and after 250 pages of boundary-pushing sex scenes, a certain fatigue may set in.
Is the House a metaphor for something? Are we to take this sexual free-for-all as a piercing commentary on our own puritanical inhibitions? Is the barrage of gutter language meant to deaden its impact and show the absurdity of “dirty words”?
Who knows. If you can get past the first few chapters with your jaw squarely off the floor, you’ll be treated to a novel that’s about as fun and thoroughly unpretentious as literature gets. And that should be enough to provoke anyone to try it.
“I imagine a sensual man . . . strong-jawed, financially secure, who understands my needs and is not threatened by them.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, honey, can you please cut the boilerplate?”
This exchange occurs halfway into Nicholson Baker’s provocative new novel, House of Holes. Except 'provocative' isn’t quite the word for it.
To provoke readers is to nudge them past their comfort zones, ask them to go places they’re not accustomed to going, understand characters they’re not inclined to understanding.
To that end, Mr. Baker has been provoking readers for two decades, first with the phone-sex dialogue of Vox and later 2004’s Checkpoint, in which two characters debate the merits of assassinating the president. He caused a ruckus in the library community with the preservation treatise Double Fold, and three years ago served up Human Smoke, a pacifist’s argument for non-intervention in World War II that a decidedly unprovoked New York Times critic called “a moral mess.”
No, provoking seems inadequate to the task here. House of Holes—without much question the most explicit novel ever released by a mainstream publisher—exists less to provoke than to throw down some kind of gauntlet, shatter any limits of literary decorum.
House of Holes is a series of episodes featuring characters who have entered an alternate sexual universe by being sucked through a straw, climbing into a laundromat dryer, disappearing into a pepper shaker, et cetera. Once there, they are presented with a bacchanalian utopia where fantasies are indulged, taboos disappear, and nonstop pleasure abounds.
We will be introduced to characters who exchange genitalia, have sex with trees, swim in lakes filled up not with water but with sexual fluids, and—get ready for this one—take a ride on the Pornmonster, a nebulous creature made up of errant penises and vaginas.
The literary community can and probably will resurrect the debate Mr. Baker faced with his 1990s sex novels Vox and The Fermata: Is this literature or officially sanctioned pornography?
Mr. Baker never lets on—and it’s unlikely he even cares. One imagines the author, drunk with unbridled glee at his computer keyboard, howling with laughter as he conjures up countless euphemisms for male genitalia (“Malcolm Gladwell” only the most memorable)—which is probably the best way for readers to enjoy it as well.
No honest appraisal of this novel can be written with mere plot summary, so let’s get specific.
In the excerpt that opened this review, a timid new visitor named Henriette has been chastened by Lila, the House’s director, for her “boilerplate” reasons for being there. Opening up, Henriette explains that frequent use of a vibrator has rendered her insensate and seeks a magical remedy.
Lila’s solution, like most of the narration, is an amalgam of fairy tale mythology, New Age mysticism, and Penthouse Forum smut:
“We’re going to help you with a dose of the House of Holes’s healing powers. You need a leg wrap with the Cable of Induhash, and you need the Belt of Jingly Bells, and you may need a squirt of my own titmilk. And you definitely also need much higher vantage. Much higher. You need perspective on your life.”
Where Henriette’s “operation” leads is unprintable, but rest assured it has a climax the likes of which you have never before read.
Much will be made about the outrageous sexual exploits and graphic language, but you may be surprised at how, well, childlike it all feels. Indeed, for a book whose subtitle is A Book of Raunch, the prevailing tone is not one of depravity but rather of a teenager whose imagination has been allowed to run wild and can’t believe he’s getting away with it.
Consider this passage, one of the tamest in the novel, about a woman named Polly who is taking a tour of the Hall of Penises, in which male units appear through holes in the wall. When Polly finds one she likes, she gets down to business:
“When she looked down she could see something major happening with his ballsack. It was lifting, the prune elevator was going up, and there was serious wrinkling, and she knew that meant he was almost there . . . a spume, a trilateral spray of jism came out like light through a prism. It was a jism prism, split into three parts, all of them white . . . as she was swallowing it she thought with an inner triumphant chuckle, I have just busted this man’s nut.”
This vivid debauchery is often hilarious and eye-opening, but it does come at the expense of emotional resonance. No one character is given the depth of Vox’s sex hotline couple Jim and Abby (though the Pornmonster has shown remarkable staying power), and after 250 pages of boundary-pushing sex scenes, a certain fatigue may set in.
Is the House a metaphor for something? Are we to take this sexual free-for-all as a piercing commentary on our own puritanical inhibitions? Is the barrage of gutter language meant to deaden its impact and show the absurdity of “dirty words”?
Who knows. If you can get past the first few chapters with your jaw squarely off the floor, you’ll be treated to a novel that’s about as fun and thoroughly unpretentious as literature gets. And that should be enough to provoke anyone to try it.
May 13, 2013
What. The. Fuck? That is literally the question... House of Holes is, as far as I can tell, about sex—and nothing but sex. As the subtitle says (at least he's not burying the lede!), this is "a book of raunch."
Nicholson Baker starts as explicitly as he means to go on. In the first chapter, Shandee and her roommate Rianne have sex with a disembodied, still living arm. Baker's book proceeds from there like a whole series of Richard Brautigan's wet dreams, or maybe some of Rudy Rucker (author of The Sex Sphere)'s more febrile imaginings... from Dave's disembodied arm to penis trees, the twelve immersive screens of the Porndecahedron, the Masturboats, Pornsuckers and groanrooms... some really inventive concepts, but ultimately it all comes across as labored and unconvincing.
WIth such unrealistic situations, surely the characters have a compensatory depth and verisimilitude? No such luck... they're one-note, unrealistically passive and uniformly accepting of the surreal events, intrusions (and extrusions) going on around them (and being done to them). When, late in the book, one offstage character actually raises some objections to the way his wife is being importuned, his attitude comes as something of a surprise. And of course it has no effect.
But at least the dialogue is rich and heartfelt, right? Nope... Baker bends over backward straining for unique synonyms for body parts and for the uses to which they get put, and a lot of his choices just sound silly. Almost every page has something like this bit, randomly chosen from p.162:
Now, I'm sure there are plenty of blue-noses and their associated brown-nosers who'd object on principle to the relentlessly graphic sex in this book. I'm not in that camp at all—I'm fine with explicit prose (and in fact was hoping for a bit of a zipper-lifter, to appropriate a phrase which could easily have appeared in House of Holes itself, though it doesn't seem to have). Instead, I ended up simply mystified by this book—what was the point? Despite all of the relentless activity, it seemed to have no—you should forgive the expression—climax.
I suspect House of Holes may have been intended as a psychological test—interesting not so much for its own sake as for the reactions it provokes in its readers.
If it is such a test, though, I think I failed...
Nicholson Baker starts as explicitly as he means to go on. In the first chapter, Shandee and her roommate Rianne have sex with a disembodied, still living arm. Baker's book proceeds from there like a whole series of Richard Brautigan's wet dreams, or maybe some of Rudy Rucker (author of The Sex Sphere)'s more febrile imaginings... from Dave's disembodied arm to penis trees, the twelve immersive screens of the Porndecahedron, the Masturboats, Pornsuckers and groanrooms... some really inventive concepts, but ultimately it all comes across as labored and unconvincing.
WIth such unrealistic situations, surely the characters have a compensatory depth and verisimilitude? No such luck... they're one-note, unrealistically passive and uniformly accepting of the surreal events, intrusions (and extrusions) going on around them (and being done to them). When, late in the book, one offstage character actually raises some objections to the way his wife is being importuned, his attitude comes as something of a surprise. And of course it has no effect.
But at least the dialogue is rich and heartfelt, right? Nope... Baker bends over backward straining for unique synonyms for body parts and for the uses to which they get put, and a lot of his choices just sound silly. Almost every page has something like this bit, randomly chosen from p.162:
"Just the sounds of people just—just doing the happy humperdinkle, eh? Just doing it and loving it. Hooooooo."
Now, I'm sure there are plenty of blue-noses and their associated brown-nosers who'd object on principle to the relentlessly graphic sex in this book. I'm not in that camp at all—I'm fine with explicit prose (and in fact was hoping for a bit of a zipper-lifter, to appropriate a phrase which could easily have appeared in House of Holes itself, though it doesn't seem to have). Instead, I ended up simply mystified by this book—what was the point? Despite all of the relentless activity, it seemed to have no—you should forgive the expression—climax.
I suspect House of Holes may have been intended as a psychological test—interesting not so much for its own sake as for the reactions it provokes in its readers.
If it is such a test, though, I think I failed...
April 2, 2013
The House of Holes
With Fifty Shades of Grey giving pornography a bad name, it's time to turn to Nicholson Baker's The House of Holes. Unlike Fifty Shades of Grey, the prose in House of Holes in skillful, inventive, and playful.
This book is fun to read; it is fun for the lighthearted and imaginative sex, and its ever-bubbling imagination and use of language. The plot is episodic. There is an overarching story of the character Dave's Arm reuniting with Dave, but basically it is divided into many short chapter-length adventures with intermittently recurring characters. The House of Holes itself is a fantastic resort estate spacious and sunny, and the managers and staff of the resort play deus ex machina to resolve several crises, often with somewhat ritualistic healing powers. The characters are not stereotypes, but they are not deeply drawn. They are, mostly good-looking, unattached 20- or 30-somethings (no one under age) pining for erotic romance. Men and women are equally present, equally thoughtful and randy, equally initiators of action. They have a range of longings, needs, quirks, and oddities that distinguishes them and involves the reader in various ways. The sex is almost all heterosexual, with a few woman and woman bits, and a few gentle touches of S&M. The text is primarily action described from an omniscient third person point of view but the dialogue has what I would call a flirty, mischievous banality.
Here's an excerpt, which describes some paintings, but that gives a feel for the characterization:
They [five paintings] were all of women sitting on chairs wearing pants but not wearing anything over their breasts. Some sat relaxedly, some seemed tense. It caught something unusual in their expressions, which were sad and human.
This dialogue follows:
“I like their faces,” Jessica said.
“Thanks, will you excuse me for a moment? My underpants are wet with my come, and I am just going to take them off and throw them out.”
Bosco went into the back and reemerged in a few minutes…
“Do you offer a modeling fee she asked?’ in order to preserve her dignity.
“Name it,” he said.
“When I modeled for the photographer, he paid me $200.”
He shook his head. "I'll sell the painting for eight thousand, of which the gallery will take fifty percent. So, I will gross four thousand dollars. Nothing that I paint would exist without your beauty. How about 2000 for you, 2000 for me?”
She thought. “That’s generous. But sure, yes.” He nodded. “Good. Now?”
She took a moment to reflect. “I’m kind of sweaty from walking,” she said.
Baker’s imagination and verbal inventiveness are ever present in this book. They are present for instance in the way people arrive at the House of Holes.
“Any hints on where to find a porthole?”
“Try the fourth dryer from the left of the laundromat on the corner of 18th St. and Grover Avenue,” said Jackie she waved. “Bye.”
Her face began to blur and liquefied, and then she poured herself down into her straw and was gone.
Cardell picked up the straw and look through it. There was no blockage. “Jackie?” He said. The bartender stood watching him, holding a glass. “What just happened?” Cardell said.
“Your lady friend seems to have been sucked into her straw,” the bartender said.
That’s what I think, too,” Cardell said.
The bartender shrugged. “It happens, man.”
Note also the meticulous punctuation.
It's hard to write well about actual sex, as any of you who have tried know, and Baker does it with apparent graceful ease.
Separation of parts from bodies is a common event in this book, which I don’t believe appears in most people’s erotic fantasies. Besides arms, and penises, of course, vaginas, and separately clitorises, heads, and other parts are painlessly detached, skillfully maintained, and ritually reunited. I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that the person who obsessively snatches clitorises, has a change of heart and returns them to their owners.
In his long and thoughtful review of Fifty Shades of Grey in New York Review of Books (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...), the distinguished critic Tim Parks attributes a substantial part of its popularity to the mixture of guilt and pleasure. That is, the characters and actions are so constructed that people can indulge in mildly S&M sex and at the same time feel bad about what they’re doing. Thus, they satisfy themselves in forbidden pleasures while maintaining the moral structure they believe in that sustains their self-image. The House of Holes gets a similar effect in a different way. In the House of Holes, it's all innocent fun.
This sense of fun made me puzzle a little about Baker’s lengthy and public admiration for John Updike. I have never been comfortable with Updike’s attitude towards sex, which seems to me to be squeamish and guilty in a way that denigrates pleasure. I remember two characters talking in his novel Couples, where among some suburban neighbors most of the heterosexual combinations have been guiltily realized. At one point a mopey woman is dancing with a man who has not shown interest in her, and she asks something like “Why don’t you want to fuck me?” I answered in my mind, 'because, in Updike, sex is no fun'. Quite the contrary in the House of Holes.
With Fifty Shades of Grey giving pornography a bad name, it's time to turn to Nicholson Baker's The House of Holes. Unlike Fifty Shades of Grey, the prose in House of Holes in skillful, inventive, and playful.
This book is fun to read; it is fun for the lighthearted and imaginative sex, and its ever-bubbling imagination and use of language. The plot is episodic. There is an overarching story of the character Dave's Arm reuniting with Dave, but basically it is divided into many short chapter-length adventures with intermittently recurring characters. The House of Holes itself is a fantastic resort estate spacious and sunny, and the managers and staff of the resort play deus ex machina to resolve several crises, often with somewhat ritualistic healing powers. The characters are not stereotypes, but they are not deeply drawn. They are, mostly good-looking, unattached 20- or 30-somethings (no one under age) pining for erotic romance. Men and women are equally present, equally thoughtful and randy, equally initiators of action. They have a range of longings, needs, quirks, and oddities that distinguishes them and involves the reader in various ways. The sex is almost all heterosexual, with a few woman and woman bits, and a few gentle touches of S&M. The text is primarily action described from an omniscient third person point of view but the dialogue has what I would call a flirty, mischievous banality.
Here's an excerpt, which describes some paintings, but that gives a feel for the characterization:
They [five paintings] were all of women sitting on chairs wearing pants but not wearing anything over their breasts. Some sat relaxedly, some seemed tense. It caught something unusual in their expressions, which were sad and human.
This dialogue follows:
“I like their faces,” Jessica said.
“Thanks, will you excuse me for a moment? My underpants are wet with my come, and I am just going to take them off and throw them out.”
Bosco went into the back and reemerged in a few minutes…
“Do you offer a modeling fee she asked?’ in order to preserve her dignity.
“Name it,” he said.
“When I modeled for the photographer, he paid me $200.”
He shook his head. "I'll sell the painting for eight thousand, of which the gallery will take fifty percent. So, I will gross four thousand dollars. Nothing that I paint would exist without your beauty. How about 2000 for you, 2000 for me?”
She thought. “That’s generous. But sure, yes.” He nodded. “Good. Now?”
She took a moment to reflect. “I’m kind of sweaty from walking,” she said.
Baker’s imagination and verbal inventiveness are ever present in this book. They are present for instance in the way people arrive at the House of Holes.
“Any hints on where to find a porthole?”
“Try the fourth dryer from the left of the laundromat on the corner of 18th St. and Grover Avenue,” said Jackie she waved. “Bye.”
Her face began to blur and liquefied, and then she poured herself down into her straw and was gone.
Cardell picked up the straw and look through it. There was no blockage. “Jackie?” He said. The bartender stood watching him, holding a glass. “What just happened?” Cardell said.
“Your lady friend seems to have been sucked into her straw,” the bartender said.
That’s what I think, too,” Cardell said.
The bartender shrugged. “It happens, man.”
Note also the meticulous punctuation.
It's hard to write well about actual sex, as any of you who have tried know, and Baker does it with apparent graceful ease.
Separation of parts from bodies is a common event in this book, which I don’t believe appears in most people’s erotic fantasies. Besides arms, and penises, of course, vaginas, and separately clitorises, heads, and other parts are painlessly detached, skillfully maintained, and ritually reunited. I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that the person who obsessively snatches clitorises, has a change of heart and returns them to their owners.
In his long and thoughtful review of Fifty Shades of Grey in New York Review of Books (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...), the distinguished critic Tim Parks attributes a substantial part of its popularity to the mixture of guilt and pleasure. That is, the characters and actions are so constructed that people can indulge in mildly S&M sex and at the same time feel bad about what they’re doing. Thus, they satisfy themselves in forbidden pleasures while maintaining the moral structure they believe in that sustains their self-image. The House of Holes gets a similar effect in a different way. In the House of Holes, it's all innocent fun.
This sense of fun made me puzzle a little about Baker’s lengthy and public admiration for John Updike. I have never been comfortable with Updike’s attitude towards sex, which seems to me to be squeamish and guilty in a way that denigrates pleasure. I remember two characters talking in his novel Couples, where among some suburban neighbors most of the heterosexual combinations have been guiltily realized. At one point a mopey woman is dancing with a man who has not shown interest in her, and she asks something like “Why don’t you want to fuck me?” I answered in my mind, 'because, in Updike, sex is no fun'. Quite the contrary in the House of Holes.
August 17, 2011
After reading nearly a hundred pages (not even halfway) of House of Holes, the word "monotonous" started to hover over the text like a cloud. There is a lot of fun to be had between the pages of Nicholson Baker's latest novel, and part of that fun is watching Baker let his imagination run wild — through a field of sex organs. Ultimately though, there is no character detail, or plot to follow. Just chapter after chapter of wild (predominately hetero-) sexual fantasies from the mind of one of America's premier literati.
House of Holes is a pleasant diversion, albeit a hellaciously sexual one. I would label it more bawdy and bizarre than erotic, and I certainly found myself chuckling along the way towards the only climax possible in a book of this type. As a novel though I think it works better as short stories: Since there is no genuine continuity — except a few names and the title location — I think it might work better if the reader picked it up periodically rather than wading through orgasm after orgasm for 262 pages straight. Then again...
House of Holes is a pleasant diversion, albeit a hellaciously sexual one. I would label it more bawdy and bizarre than erotic, and I certainly found myself chuckling along the way towards the only climax possible in a book of this type. As a novel though I think it works better as short stories: Since there is no genuine continuity — except a few names and the title location — I think it might work better if the reader picked it up periodically rather than wading through orgasm after orgasm for 262 pages straight. Then again...
March 1, 2013
House of Holes is porn in the same sense that Vonnegut's later output is science fiction (both use the conventions of those genres for a higher purpose; that purpose is more easily dismissed here)
but still this book is more A Dirty Shame than Vox. Vox was more fun in that there was real character development. Here, the characters start to run together a bit.
I happened to hear Baker read during his Human Smoke tour. It was in a basement with maybe ten other people. While getting stuff signed, I asked if he would ever return to smut. He looked startled. When I began to tell him it was an innocent question & all in good fun, he explained that he was embarrassed as his daughter was in the room—at which point she began listening to our conversation. He said he had one idea started but didn't think it was very good.
but still this book is more A Dirty Shame than Vox. Vox was more fun in that there was real character development. Here, the characters start to run together a bit.
I happened to hear Baker read during his Human Smoke tour. It was in a basement with maybe ten other people. While getting stuff signed, I asked if he would ever return to smut. He looked startled. When I began to tell him it was an innocent question & all in good fun, he explained that he was embarrassed as his daughter was in the room—at which point she began listening to our conversation. He said he had one idea started but didn't think it was very good.
August 23, 2011
The book was honestly titled, to say the least. When I was asked, while reading this, what it was about, I could only communicate my emotional reaction to it: reading this book was like being trapped inside a Salvador Dali painting only with a lot more semen everywhere. I don't really recommend this book as I cannot say I enjoyed the experience of reading it. It was more a queasy, confused and disturbed feeling than I usually enjoy getting from my reading material!
January 27, 2015
OK, I've tried twice now, and aside from some clever prose, I just don't get the Nicholson Baker appeal. However, if there's one thing I learned from the book, other than a bunch of new dirty words, is that there is not a spot on a woman's body that she doesn't like to be jizzed on...and that's information someone can take into the real world.
September 10, 2011
I think Nicholson Baker is an extremely good writer. A cliche-bustin', sentimentality-defyin' writer, impatient with taboo and glib generalisation. The kind of writer I admire, who can make you see the mundanities of everyday life anew. His novella 'The Mezzanine' was my first encounter with Baker's work, and I liked it more than anything I'd read for a very long time.
House of Holes ain't no Mezzanine. For a start — on the face of it — it's bizarre and outlandish as hell. It's about sex. About pornography. About the differences between male and female sexuality. It's an X-rated Alice in Wonderland — a series of surreal sexual escapades, virtually bereft of plot. It's as if Baker recognised (correctly) Lewis Carroll's novel for the brilliant portrayal of dream logic that it is — and decided to do the same, but for a *wet* dream.
It's kind of hard to tell what exactly Baker's up to with this. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I'm still not sure.
At times, it's pretty sexy. In a hilarious sort of way. And I wonder whether this is what he's getting at: that the excesses of human sexuality can be simultaneously arousing and laughable. Sympathetically laughable. There's a kind of submissive pathos to it all — even in the midst of a sex theme park in which characters say things like, 'Mm, twat yourself, Mindy, bat your bug, that's the way' and 'Pump your lovely Lincoln Stiffins' — that seems to me to be bang on the money.
And there *are* moments that are genuinely touching (in a briefly asexual way). I love the way that — despite the crazed pornographic excesses open to the characters, they nevertheless all too often resort to sweetly stunted prosaic exchanges and awkwardness. I read in a review somewhere (maybe the Guardian?) that the novel's all about sex without love. But that's not true. It's in these flashes of the prosaic that Baker grounds us. Even in a world of detachable penises, masturbation chambers and arse-enlargements, we humans have this lovely yearning for the simple:
"'It was good but I don't think we're really soul mates.'
'And what after all is a soul mate?'
'A soul mate is when you really think someone is great. You really like her a lot. You like when she explains things to you. You love her. That's a soul mate.'
'Oh,' said Trix.
'Will you take me to the groanrooms?'
They went to a groanroom…
…
'Just remember, we can't talk in here at all, only groan,' said Trix, her hand on the door. 'It's like meditation except it's more fun.'
They went in together and closed the door very quietly."
(My italics)
***
It's that line 'You like it when she explains things to you,' that got me. A beautiful piece of clearly-observed modernist realism slipped into a surreal sexcapade.
So it's actually doing something pretty clever, and (as is Baker's wont) telling us something pretty acute and unexpected about human psychology.
That said, I'm not convinced it delivers its insightful payload as effectively as it might've done. And it's arguably a bit long. Its dreamlike shapelessness is understandable — but a little wearisome at times, nevertheless.
House of Holes ain't no Mezzanine. For a start — on the face of it — it's bizarre and outlandish as hell. It's about sex. About pornography. About the differences between male and female sexuality. It's an X-rated Alice in Wonderland — a series of surreal sexual escapades, virtually bereft of plot. It's as if Baker recognised (correctly) Lewis Carroll's novel for the brilliant portrayal of dream logic that it is — and decided to do the same, but for a *wet* dream.
It's kind of hard to tell what exactly Baker's up to with this. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I'm still not sure.
At times, it's pretty sexy. In a hilarious sort of way. And I wonder whether this is what he's getting at: that the excesses of human sexuality can be simultaneously arousing and laughable. Sympathetically laughable. There's a kind of submissive pathos to it all — even in the midst of a sex theme park in which characters say things like, 'Mm, twat yourself, Mindy, bat your bug, that's the way' and 'Pump your lovely Lincoln Stiffins' — that seems to me to be bang on the money.
And there *are* moments that are genuinely touching (in a briefly asexual way). I love the way that — despite the crazed pornographic excesses open to the characters, they nevertheless all too often resort to sweetly stunted prosaic exchanges and awkwardness. I read in a review somewhere (maybe the Guardian?) that the novel's all about sex without love. But that's not true. It's in these flashes of the prosaic that Baker grounds us. Even in a world of detachable penises, masturbation chambers and arse-enlargements, we humans have this lovely yearning for the simple:
"'It was good but I don't think we're really soul mates.'
'And what after all is a soul mate?'
'A soul mate is when you really think someone is great. You really like her a lot. You like when she explains things to you. You love her. That's a soul mate.'
'Oh,' said Trix.
'Will you take me to the groanrooms?'
They went to a groanroom…
…
'Just remember, we can't talk in here at all, only groan,' said Trix, her hand on the door. 'It's like meditation except it's more fun.'
They went in together and closed the door very quietly."
(My italics)
***
It's that line 'You like it when she explains things to you,' that got me. A beautiful piece of clearly-observed modernist realism slipped into a surreal sexcapade.
So it's actually doing something pretty clever, and (as is Baker's wont) telling us something pretty acute and unexpected about human psychology.
That said, I'm not convinced it delivers its insightful payload as effectively as it might've done. And it's arguably a bit long. Its dreamlike shapelessness is understandable — but a little wearisome at times, nevertheless.
August 17, 2014
This is the book I've been looking for all my adult life - finally a porno that doesn't make me cringe or giggle. Some people said they weren't turned on - I definitely was. In all honesty it may not be the best book I've read, but it's certainly my favourite. I have now ordered a swanky nice hard back copy for my home and I'm keeping the paperback for dipping into, as a travel Bible, if you will.
Certainly more entertaining than a travel Bible.
I particularly enjoyed that Baker doesn't shy away from the stranger aspects of human sexuality. Still, it's not just a fun book. Many comment on its magic realism, but with its references to the format and devices of traditional fairy tales I found it reminiscent of Canterbury Tales.
Aside from Baker's lightness and his way with language, at the heart of these stories is usually a fable about the trade-ff between pleasure and whatever we are willing to give up for it. In real life, you might lose a friend, embarrass yourself or suffer heartbreak. In House of Holes, your balls will get lopped off and live in a jam jar before being reattached several weeks later. Puts perspective on things.
Certainly more entertaining than a travel Bible.
I particularly enjoyed that Baker doesn't shy away from the stranger aspects of human sexuality. Still, it's not just a fun book. Many comment on its magic realism, but with its references to the format and devices of traditional fairy tales I found it reminiscent of Canterbury Tales.
Aside from Baker's lightness and his way with language, at the heart of these stories is usually a fable about the trade-ff between pleasure and whatever we are willing to give up for it. In real life, you might lose a friend, embarrass yourself or suffer heartbreak. In House of Holes, your balls will get lopped off and live in a jam jar before being reattached several weeks later. Puts perspective on things.
February 18, 2019
Zany, racy, wordy, weird, ribald, touchingly odd, a great fucking book, as if the spasms of laughter and orgasm were conjoined. There's lots of gripping but none for the narrative arc, no significant difference between one character/hole/pole and the next, very little besides the gratuitously lavish imagination of bodies at play. The blurb on the back describing it as the work of Dr. Seuss-cum-pornographer can't be topped, but it doesn't quite prepare you for Baker's cunning linguistricks. Compared to run-of-the-mill smut, this is veritably Joycean (surely everyone who thought Joyce was smutty is dead now, right?). Know what you're in for: buy the ticket, take the ride... but maybe not all at once. I'm sure the climactic 1/3 of the book was just as penetrating as the luscious beforeplay, but it gets kinda samey, attention flags, it's-not-you type apologies are implicit, maybe we should take things slower, but Baker's inventive techniques and prowess just don't quit and the stunning neolojisms keep coming to the very end, closing the covers on a satisfying, exhaustive, endorphin-fueled, scatterbodied cliterary encounter. Puts the MANIA in erotomaniacal.
December 14, 2020
First off, this book is not for everyone. But if you have a sense of humor about sex, love silliness and clever wordplay, and think a magical sex resort is the ideal summer getaway, I'm pretty sure this book is for you. I loved it. I thought it was laugh-out-loud funny, and affectionately showcased the ridiculousness, vulnerability, excitement, awkwardness, and beauty of the human quest for sexual fulfillment. If I wanted to offer a criticism, it would be that it is entirely heterocentric, which seems a bit unlikely. But, since the author is probably hetero, and EVERYTHING in the book is pretty unlikely, I don't see that observation as being all that important. If you think this book might make you uncomfortable, you're probably right. But my recommendation is that you relax a little, take the twist out of your panties, and read it anyway. After all, if you can't get a giggle out of a collection of goofy sex stories, you have bigger things to worry about than whether or not this qualifies as "literature".
August 13, 2011
This novel is a celebration of sexuality and the language we use to heighten physical pleasure. While it's mostly all in good fun, it's also missing much of what to me constitutes a fully realized literary work. It's funny, but in the end, empties into numbness. In that way, it is most like pornography itself, good for a few moments and then quickly abandoned for sleep.
July 15, 2013
Not for prudes. Weird book with a sense of humor-- as if Douglas Adams had written porn. Hilarious at times. Arousing at others. Disturbing at still others. I have dipped back into this book a few times to reread certain chapters, which stand alone as short stories.
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