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In silk jammies chatting about Nabokov . . . (review of Playboy
anthology)
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[EDNOTE. Sandy Klein sends this link to John Leland's review of “The New Bedside Playboy: A Half Century of Amusement, Diversion & Entertainment,” which just appeared in the New York Times. -- SES]
Books of The Times
The Stories You Hid From Mom
New York Times, NY
By JOHN LELAND
Published: December 28, 2006
[. . .] The mix of writers comprises a dream party guest list, albeit heavy on the Y chromosomes: Vladimir Nabokov, T. C. Boyle, Michael Chabon, Jorge Luis Borges, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jimmy Breslin, Thom Jones, Norman Mailer, John Updike and dozens more boldface names. But if you have read any of these writers before, you have probably caught them in better form. No man who knows his way around a coverlet needs Nabokov to supply pickup lines like: “Yes, we Russians are sentimental eccentrics, but believe me, we can love with the passion of a Rasputin and the naïveté of a child. You are lonely and I am lonely. You are free and I am free. Who, then, can forbid us to spend several pleasant hours is a sheltered love nest?” A sheltered love nest? Tell me there’s not a plot afoot here.
[. . . ]
Was there really a time when swingers imagined themselves in silk jammies chatting about Nabokov and Brubeck and the latest Cognac? No doubt. Ring-a-ding-ding. The right literary reference, the right hi-fi gear, and voilà: the freedom to go home alone, unswung, to a bit of light fiction, corny jokes and an airbrush that liberated the white-collar male from the uncomfortable burden of human curiosity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/books/28lela.html?bl&ex=1167454800&en=26d94baf7961a2a3&ei=5087%0A
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Books of The Times
The Stories You Hid From Mom
New York Times, NY
By JOHN LELAND
Published: December 28, 2006
[. . .] The mix of writers comprises a dream party guest list, albeit heavy on the Y chromosomes: Vladimir Nabokov, T. C. Boyle, Michael Chabon, Jorge Luis Borges, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jimmy Breslin, Thom Jones, Norman Mailer, John Updike and dozens more boldface names. But if you have read any of these writers before, you have probably caught them in better form. No man who knows his way around a coverlet needs Nabokov to supply pickup lines like: “Yes, we Russians are sentimental eccentrics, but believe me, we can love with the passion of a Rasputin and the naïveté of a child. You are lonely and I am lonely. You are free and I am free. Who, then, can forbid us to spend several pleasant hours is a sheltered love nest?” A sheltered love nest? Tell me there’s not a plot afoot here.
[. . . ]
Was there really a time when swingers imagined themselves in silk jammies chatting about Nabokov and Brubeck and the latest Cognac? No doubt. Ring-a-ding-ding. The right literary reference, the right hi-fi gear, and voilà: the freedom to go home alone, unswung, to a bit of light fiction, corny jokes and an airbrush that liberated the white-collar male from the uncomfortable burden of human curiosity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/books/28lela.html?bl&ex=1167454800&en=26d94baf7961a2a3&ei=5087%0A
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm