The year's most excruciating literary award is announced tonight (give or take the international dateline) in London: the Literary Review's annual Bad Sex Award.
This year promises to be fabulous, with some of the most grandiose names in the literary world among the dozen nominees: John Updike, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Paul Theroux. Even Marlon "I coulda been a contender" Brando is a contender, for the "incomprehensible sex scene from his posthumously-released novel Fan Tan", according to the Guardian.
The prize was founded by Auberon Waugh and aims "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it."
Most winners have managed to retain a sense of humour, although Tom Wolfe refused to accept his prize last year - I can't wait to see what happens if Theroux wins this year.
I can't quote any of the nominated extracts because I don't have the stomach for it, but you can read them in all their context-free glory here.
No comments:
Post a Comment