Kynlíf er kannski ekki svo slæmt eftir allt saman?

Það var forvitnilegt að lesa um árlegu „Bad Sex in Fiction Prize" eða slæmu kynlífslýsingaverðlaunin, sem stofnað var til af rithöfundinum og ritstjóra Literary Review, Auberon Waugh heitnum, og var ætlunin að sporna við óþarfa kynlífslýsingum í skáldsögum.

Ég leyfi mér að efast um að verðlaunin skili tilætluðum árangri, því óvíst er að verðlaunahafinn í ár, Ian Hollingshead, eigi aftur á rithöfundaferlinum eftir að vekja aðra eins athygli.

Hollingshead er yngsti verðlaunahafinn frá upphafi, 25 ára, og fékk verðlaunin afhent af Courtney Love fyrir sína fyrstu skáldsögu, Twenty Something. Það voru orðin "bulging trousers" sem tryggðu honum þennan vafasama heiður og nú bunga buxur fréttastjóra um allan heim, danskra, þýskra, enskra  og jafnvel frá löndum óskiljanlegra hrognamála.  

En hvernig hljómar óskapnaðurinn? Svo gripið sé niður í Twenty Something:

I can feel her breasts against her chest. I cup my hands round her face and start to kiss her properly. She slides one of her slender legs in between mine.

"Oh Jack," she was moaning now, her curves pushed up against me, her crotch taut against my bulging trousers, her hands gripping fistfuls of my hair.

She reaches for my belt. I groan too, in expectation. And then I'm inside her, and everything is pure white as we're lost in a commotion of grunts and squeaks, flashing unconnected images and explosions of a million little particles.

Morgunblaðið reið á vaðið með þýðingu á hjartnæmasta augnabliki lýsingarinnar, „gauragangi stunda og tísts, blossandi ótengdum myndum og sprengingu milljóna lítilla agna."

En spurning vaknar hvort kynlífið sé nokkuð svo slæmt eftir allt saman. Sjálfur segist höfundurinn í pistli á Telegraph ekki hafa haft áhyggjur af tilnefningunni, þar sem rithöfundar á borð við Melvyn Bragg, Alan Titchmarsh, Tom Wolfe, AA Gill og Giles Coren séu á meðal þeirra sem hafi unnið verðlaunin. Og í gegnum tíðina hafi verið tilnefndir: Gabriel García Márquez, Paul Theroux, John Updike og Salman Rushdie.

Og Hollingshead gefur raunar ekki mikið fyrir listina að skrifa um kynlíf: „And, in any case, writing about sex is rather more technical, and less fun, than doing it. Either you descend into flowery metaphor or you indulge in the „naming of parts"."

Í raun er þetta enn eitt dæmið um að inngrip í hegðun fólks snúist upp í andhverfu sína. Auðvitað munu verðlaunin hafa þveröfug áhrif og rithöfundar bæta inn í sögur sínar algjörlega tilgangslausum lýsingum af kynlífi í þeirri von að þeir vinni verðlaunin og fái knús frá Courtney Love og hennar líkum. Viðbrögð útgefandans Peter Mayer benda til þess, en hann sagði þegar honum bárust tíðindin: „We're bulging with pride at the stand-out quality of our author's libidinal literary efforts. Every part of our international publishing family is standing up and saluting young Iain."

Best að ljúka þessum pistli á úrdrætti úr verkum höfunda sem unnið hafa síðustu árin. Ef menn stúdera stílbrögðin eiga menn kannski séns á að vinna verðlaunin einhvern tíma í framtíðinni, - og meika það?

Sean Thomas árið 2000 fyrir Kissing England:

She is so small and so compact, and yet she has all the necessary features... Shall I compare thee to a Sony Walkman, thou are more compact and more
She is his own Toshiba, his dinky little JVC, his sweet Aiwa.
Aiwa - She says, as he enters her slimy red-peppers-in-olive-oil cunt - Aiwa, aiwa aiwa aiwa aiwa aiwa aiwa aiwa aiwa aiwa aiwaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

Christopher Hart árið 2001 fyrir Rescue Me

Her hand is moving away from my knee and heading north. Heading unnervingly and with a steely will towards the pole. And, like Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Pamela will not easily be discouraged. I try twitching, and then shaking my leg, but to no avail. At last, disastrously, I try squeezing her hand painfully between my bony thighs, but this only serves to inflame her ardour the more. Ever northward moves her hand, while she smiles languorously at my right ear. And when she reaches the north pole, I think in wonder and terror...she will surely want to pitch her tent.

Wendy Perriam árið 2002 fyrir Tread Softly

She closed her eyes, saw his dark-as-treacle-toffee eyes gazing down at her. Weirdly, he was clad in pin-stripes at the same time as being naked. Pin-stripes were erotic, the uniform of fathers, two-dimensional fathers. Even Mr Hughes's penis had a seductive pin-striped foreskin. Enticingly rough yet soft inside her. The jargon he'd used at the consultation had become bewitching love-talk: '... dislocation of the second MTPJ ... titanium hemi-implant ...'
'Yes!' she whispered back. 'Dorsal subluxation ... flexion deformity of the first metatarsal ...'
They were building up a rhythm, an electrifying rhythm - long, fierce, sliding strokes, interspersed with gasping cries.
'Wait,' Ralph panted. 'let's do it the other way.' Swiftly he withdrew, arranged her on her hands and knees and knelt above her on the bed. It was even better that way - tighter, more exciting. She cupped his pin-striped balls, felt him thrust more urgently in response.

Anruddah Bahal árið 2003 fyrir Bunker 13

She sandwiches your nozzle between her tits, massaging it with a slow rhythm. A trailer to bookmark the events ahead. For now she has taken you in her lovely mouth. Your palms are holding her neck and thumbs are at her ears regulating the speed of her head as she swallows and then sucks up your machinery.
She is topping up your engine oil for the cross-country coming up. Your RPM is hitting a new high. To wait any longer would be to lose prime time...
She picks up a Bugatti's momentum. You want her more at a Volkswagen's steady trot. Squeeze the maximum mileage out of your gallon of gas. But she's eating up the road with all cylinders blazing.

Tom Wolfe árið 2004 fyrir I am Charlotte Simmons:

Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns - oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest - no, the hand was cupping her entire right - Now! She must say 'No, Hoyt' and talk to him like a dog...

Giles Coren árið 2005 fyrir Winkler:

And he came hard in her mouth and his dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth and he blacked out and she took his dick out of her mouth and lifted herself from his face and whipped the pillow away and he gasped and glugged at the air, and he came again so hard that his dick wrenched out of her hand and a shot of it hit him straight in the eye and stung like nothing he'd ever had in there, and he yelled with the pain, but the yell could have been anything, and as she grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath, she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands and he shot three more times, in thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro.

Má ég þá heldur biðja um Bósa sögu og Herrauðs. Kannski Dr. Sýngmann hafi hitt naglann á höfuðið í Kristnihaldi undir jökli: „Að elska, er það ekki undanfari hvílubragða; eitthvað bundið við kynfærin; þegar best gegnir hjónabandstragedía meðal apa."

Athugasemdir

[TómasHa, 19.12.2006 kl. 22:18]

Fékk hann einhvern pening í verðlaun, bikar eða var þetta bara heiðurinn?

[TómasHa, 19.12.2006 kl. 22:18]

Fékk hann einhvern pening í verðlaun, bikar eða var þetta bara heiðurinn?

[TómasHa, 19.12.2006 kl. 22:19]

Fékk hann einhvern pening í verðlaun, bikar eða var þetta bara heiðurinn?

[TómasHa, 19.12.2006 kl. 22:23]

Hmm, verð að viðurkenna að ég veit ekki afhverju þetta birtist svona oft! Það var eitthvað sambandsleysi við mbl... ég vona bara að þessi birtist í 1 eintaki.

 Sorry!

[Pétur Blöndal, 19.12.2006 kl. 23:47]

Hollingshead fékk víst styttu sem er "táknræn fyrir kynlíf á sjötta áratugnum", hvað sem það nú þýðir. Styttan sést á myndinni, en er afar ógreinileg. Svo fékk hann kampavín. Og daðursfullt knús frá Courtney Love, sem er táknræn fyrir kynlíf á tíunda áratugnum.

[Árni Matthíasson , 20.12.2006 kl. 14:49]

Gaman að því að Hollingshead skuli vitna óbeint í ljóðið Naming of Parts eftir Henry Reed sem birtist í New Statesman í ágúst 1942 - afskaplega skemmtileg (og erótísk) lýsing á atriði í herþjálfun. Læt það fylgja, en það og fleiri ljóð má lesa hér.

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
          And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
          Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
          Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
          They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
          For to-day we have naming of parts.