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by Derek Pell

Derek Pell is a wordplay master and parodist of great wit and cunning. In this volume, he sets his sights on some of the classics of “dirty literature,” producing such masterpieces as “Naked Lunch at Tiffany’s,” “Up Fanny Hill,” “Sexlus,” and “Lady Chatterley’s Loafer.”

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of well-executed pastiches of erotic classics, with takes on Rabelais, the Kama Sutra, Sade, D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, et al. ‘Up Fanny Hill’ sees Bell stitch together the first few words from each page of Cleland’s novel to create an expurgated (and more pleasurable) version, ‘A Man with a Maid with Flowers’ is a riotous pastiche of the trend in early erotica to deploy horticultural imagery to mask the rudeness, and ‘Madeline’s Answer’ is a six-letter lipogram that is among the finest examples of that form you’re likely to read outside the walls of the Oulipo. Several miss the mark (the Henry Miller and Madame Bovary ones espesh), and some are one-gag wonders, such as the ‘Ode to Gertrude Stein’ and ‘Sox’, where the Nicholson Baker phone-sex classic is reimagined with various layers of thermals. On the whole, this book is a feat of witty, well-observed pastiche ribbed with exuberant wordplay for your pleasure.