Tuesday, November 25, 2008

"Animal Noises Escape Me"

It's not quite the Nobel Prize, or the Booker Prize, or the Pulitzer Prize, or even the Miss Johnson's 3rd Grade Best Short Story Award. But it is something. And that something is...the Bad Sex in Fiction Award!

Take a gander at the winner, from Rachel Johnson's "otherwise excellent" (or so they say) book "Shire Hell":

I find myself gripping his ears and tugging at the locks curling over them, beside myself, and a strange animal noise escapes from me as the mounting, Wagnerian crescendo overtakes me.

A Wagnerian crescendo? Really? Does it involve leitmotifs or continuous music? Is it indicative of the German Romantic style? Does it draw upon ancient German and Norse mythology? Would Hitler have liked it?

Let me add: here's a major literary award that I could possibly win someday!

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