French Canadians grow up on the fable of the dark, handsome stranger who comes from the faraway city and woos the innocent farm girl with his honeyed words. Beware, goes the moral, for he is the loup-garou.
I've also been thinking lots lately about what it would be like to be a writer. This is in part because I've been reading (loving) Timothy Findley's Journeyman. Also, I was a titch inspired by Shelf Discovery (should I own to that?).
But, this afternoon, our little book club absolutely ripped apart a sex scene in A Student of Weather. (I'm not excerpting it here. But you can find it on p. 155 of the 2001 McLelland and Stewart paperback, should you happen upon it. Some readers might question whether the acrobatics described are physically possible.) And so, I can't help but wonder how scary it would be to put a sex scene out into the universe. Imagine a living room of individuals you don't know trying to figure out what you meant to say, or what image you were trying to draw? Intimidating....
3 comments:
"He sucked her nipples, he took them between his teeth, he lowered his penis into her mouth and in the morning she discovered that though the grass was dry, the tent was dripping with dew."
- Elizabeth Hay, A Student of Weather p. 155
You're welcome, everyone.
Hm... this might be possible if she were doing a handstand, and he had a very, very low centre of gravity.
Or, it's just shitty writing.
I'm sure that when we win Giller Prizes, we will write much more accurate sex scenes.
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