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A review by jessferg
House of Holes by Nicholson Baker
2.0
Good lord, Nicholson, what happened here?!?!
It's subtitled "a book of raunch" so I knew I was in for something awful, but......wow. The stories are loosely connected and there are recurring characters but there is not real "plot" per se.
The "literary commentary" part is how Baker starts a scene and even though it is clearly pornographic, you see for a split second how it might also be erotic - and then he throws in something like a screwdriver in the ass or talks about someone playing with their "slobbering kitty" which, of course, is just ludicrously funny.
I don't know if it is meant to be part of the commentary on how ridiculous porn is overall, but the thing that stood out the most (not a penis joke) is how ALL of the women are forced to satisfy both others and themselves. And how the women seem to inherently be satisfied as long as the penis in question has an orgasm. Things like the guy who goes off too early: "That's okay, honey, I like that you had to come right away - that's supersexy." Or the woman who walks into a shop and the guy says she's so beautiful he's going to just cum in his pants. How about the room full of dicks where the women are just dying to stroke and blow them all? NOPE. NOPE. And NOPE.
I think there might be two or three stories where a guy actually makes a woman have an orgasm or there is any sense of mutual interest, and even then it isn't the point. In every other story, she's got to fuck herself or something else - trees, the aforementioned screwdriver, a host of fruits, disembodied hands.... I'm so tired of this fantasy that women are put on earth to serve men that it's just not even funny as satire.
Not that Baker treats men with respect either - both sexes are simply objects of attraction.
There is virtually no indication of sex other than man/woman (maybe a woman looking at another woman's boobs, at most) although multiple partners are well-represented.
We won't even talk about the complete lack of good hygiene. (That's only half a joke...)
There are one or two good punches here that seem Baker-esque (pooping out pinecones and statutes; genital reversal and crotchal transfers) but overall, the whole thing just gets rather tiresome before it's even halfway through.
Skip it.
It's subtitled "a book of raunch" so I knew I was in for something awful, but......wow. The stories are loosely connected and there are recurring characters but there is not real "plot" per se.
The "literary commentary" part is how Baker starts a scene and even though it is clearly pornographic, you see for a split second how it might also be erotic - and then he throws in something like a screwdriver in the ass or talks about someone playing with their "slobbering kitty" which, of course, is just ludicrously funny.
I don't know if it is meant to be part of the commentary on how ridiculous porn is overall, but the thing that stood out the most (not a penis joke) is how ALL of the women are forced to satisfy both others and themselves. And how the women seem to inherently be satisfied as long as the penis in question has an orgasm. Things like the guy who goes off too early: "That's okay, honey, I like that you had to come right away - that's supersexy." Or the woman who walks into a shop and the guy says she's so beautiful he's going to just cum in his pants. How about the room full of dicks where the women are just dying to stroke and blow them all? NOPE. NOPE. And NOPE.
I think there might be two or three stories where a guy actually makes a woman have an orgasm or there is any sense of mutual interest, and even then it isn't the point. In every other story, she's got to fuck herself or something else - trees, the aforementioned screwdriver, a host of fruits, disembodied hands.... I'm so tired of this fantasy that women are put on earth to serve men that it's just not even funny as satire.
Not that Baker treats men with respect either - both sexes are simply objects of attraction.
There is virtually no indication of sex other than man/woman (maybe a woman looking at another woman's boobs, at most) although multiple partners are well-represented.
We won't even talk about the complete lack of good hygiene. (That's only half a joke...)
There are one or two good punches here that seem Baker-esque (pooping out pinecones and statutes; genital reversal and crotchal transfers) but overall, the whole thing just gets rather tiresome before it's even halfway through.
Skip it.