A Delightful Surprise

A few months ago, when I was sorting out how I felt about P.G. Wodehouse, I posted this bit linking to an article Hugh Laurie/Bertie Wooster had written a few years back. I also learned during this Wodehousian adventure in Googling that Laurie had also written a novel, The Gun Seller.

It seems as if the guy who plays Dr. House is a talented gentleman.

I finally was able to lay my hands on a copy through the library and I have to say, it's just a wonderful read. It is, truly, something very special, or maybe I just feel that way because it's right up my alley. Who knows? Anyway, I finished it last night and I'll be purchasing a copy when I finally have some spare coin for such things. I was curious about some of the reviews, however, because they seemed to think this book was a "spoof" or a "satire" on the spy-novel genre. I don't think so. It's a thriller with a sense of humor and to imply that Laurie was simply spoofing the genre really doesn't give him the credit he deserves.

Ah, anyway...there was one part of the book that had me chuckling more than usual and appreciating the author's cleverness, so I had to share it with you. If you're interested read on after the jump.

Fortunately, it doesn't need any set up, so I don't have to waste your time explaining it. Just know that the hero of the book, Thomas Lang, occasionally goes off the reservation to explain how he feels about a few things. This excerpt covers how he feels about sex.

Chapter Twenty, pages 256-257, The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie, Copyright 1996. All rights reserved. (Well, actually, now that I look at the copyright, there's something odd going on there: there's an extra line that states, "The author has asserted his moral rights." What the heck does that mean?)

Ahem...

"When it comes to sex, it seems to me, men really are caught between a rock and a soft, limp, apologetic place.

The sexual menchanisms of the two genders are just not compatible, that's the horrible truth of it. One is a runabout, suitable for shopping, quick journeys about town, and extremely easy parking; the other is an estate, designed for long distances, with heavy loads---altogether larger, more complex and more difficult to maintain. You wouldn't buy a Fiat Panda to move antiques from Bristol to Norwich, and you wouldn't buy a Volvo for any other reason. It's not that one is better than the other. They're just different, that's all.

This is a truth we dare not acknowledge these days---because sameness is our religion and heretics are no more welcome now than they ever were---but I'm going to acknowledge it, because I've always felt that humility before the facts is the only thing that keeps a rational man together. Be humble in the face of facts, and proud in the face of opinion, as George Bernard Shaw once said.

He didn't actually. I just wanted to put some authority behind this observation of mine, because I know you're not going to like it.

If a man gives himself up to the sexual moment, then, well, that's all it is. A moment. A spasm. An event without duration. If, on the other hand, he holds back, by trying to remember as many names as he can from the Dulux colour chart, or whatever happens to be his chosen method of deferment, then he's accused of being coldly technical. Either way, if you're a heterosexual man, emerging from a modern sexual encounter with any kind of credit is a fiendishly difficult thing to do.

Yes, of course, credit is not the point of the exercise. But then again, it's easy to say that when you've got some. Credit, I mean. And men just don't get any these days. In the sexual arena, men are judged by female standards. You may hiss and tut and draw in your breath as sharply as you like, but it's true. (Yes, obviously, men judge women in other spheres---patronise them, tyrannise them, exclude them, oppress them, make them utterly miserable---but in matters of a writhing nature, the mark on the bench was put down by women. It is for the Fiat Panda to try and be like the Volvo, not the other way round.) You just don't hear men criticising women for taking fifteen minutes to reach a climax, and if you do, it's not with any implied accusation of weakness, or arrogance or self-centredness. Men, generally, just hang their heads and say yes, that's the way her body is, that's what she needed from me, and I couldn't deliver it. I'm crap and I'll leave at once, as soon as I can find my other sock.

Which, to be, honest, is unfair, bordering on the ridiculous. In the same way that it would be ridiculous to call a Fiat Panda a crap car, just because you can't fit a wardrobe in the back. It might be crap for all sorts of other reasons---it breaks down, or it uses a lot of oil, or it's lime-green with the word 'turbo' written pathetically across the back window---but it's not crap because of the one characteristic that it was specifically designed to have: smallness. Neither is a Volvo a crap car, simply because it won't squeeze past the barrier in the Safeways car-park and allow you to get out without paying.

Burn me on a mound of faggots if you like, but the two machines are just plain different, and that's that. Designed to do different things, at different speeds, on different types of roads. Not the same. Unalike.

There, I've said it. And I don't feel any better.

Latifa and I made love twice before breakfast, and once afterwards, and by mid-morning I'd managed to remember Burnt Umber, which made thirty-one, something of a personal record."

Heh.

{Insert a random aside here: BRITISH SPELLING SUCKS! What is it with you people? Is there not a 'z' to be found in all of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? You have gnomes and fairies and a freakin' Queen, but you have no 'z''s? Explain that one to me, would you? Because I'm just not getting it. Don't even get me started on "centre." Here I thought you people hated the French, but apparently not enough to boot any trace of their language from yours. Pfft. }

Posted by Kathy at May 6, 2005 03:40 PM