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Aug. 9th, 2012 01:20 pmPursuant to my previous post on Piers Anthony, I've started rereading A Spell for Chameleon. I was wondering how much it would wig me, reading it as an adult.
About that...
So. Chapter one. On the second page, Bink is already thinking about how he "has needs." He of course has a girlfriend, who is referred to extensively by her physical beauty. When she talks, he tunes it out cause he's thinking about fucking her. No mention of her personality at all, or why she likes him, just that she's hot.
A little bit later, he remembers when he "sewed his wild oats." Which, in typical Piers Anthony fashion, means planted wild oats and watered them by peeing on them so that when they ripened, he'd havesex slave nymph bound to him. His father chastises him about this, if by "chastise" we mean reminisces about the nymph he once had with "flowing green hair and a body like the great outdoors." And how Bink's mother was irrationally jealous about this nymph and all unreasonable about it. Women, amirite?
The father then tells Bink he needs to get a real girl. And that there's the perfect girl moving to the village that will be just right for him, and will like him and not bruise his ego by making fun of him. This girl is of course the girlfriend. So their entire relationship is Bink's dad pimped her out to him so he wouldn't bang the shrubbery. And she of course loves him and will wait for him on his quest cause...she has no personality and the hero plot requires that the preliminary soon-to-be-replaced girlfriend wait for him.
Chapter one of a book whose main plot is not actually romantic or sexual, and, though it is a kind of coming of age, in which the main character is 25 and not a randy teenager, and I am already cringeing.
God.
About that...
So. Chapter one. On the second page, Bink is already thinking about how he "has needs." He of course has a girlfriend, who is referred to extensively by her physical beauty. When she talks, he tunes it out cause he's thinking about fucking her. No mention of her personality at all, or why she likes him, just that she's hot.
A little bit later, he remembers when he "sewed his wild oats." Which, in typical Piers Anthony fashion, means planted wild oats and watered them by peeing on them so that when they ripened, he'd have
The father then tells Bink he needs to get a real girl. And that there's the perfect girl moving to the village that will be just right for him, and will like him and not bruise his ego by making fun of him. This girl is of course the girlfriend. So their entire relationship is Bink's dad pimped her out to him so he wouldn't bang the shrubbery. And she of course loves him and will wait for him on his quest cause...she has no personality and the hero plot requires that the preliminary soon-to-be-replaced girlfriend wait for him.
Chapter one of a book whose main plot is not actually romantic or sexual, and, though it is a kind of coming of age, in which the main character is 25 and not a randy teenager, and I am already cringeing.
God.