Great Things I Have Received Lately, Part 5

A novel by John Hawkes.

I bought this at the Salvation Army store today for 1.99.

You can still see the price tag.

There was a pubic hair that got into the scan but I edited it out.

It wasn't mine.

Trust me.

I bought this because of this synopsis: "In keeping with his complex intentions, Hawkes has written two narratives, both of which feature the same eleven year old girl. Thanks to reincarnation, Virginie leads two lives. The first as as the servant and companion of an exquisitely depraved member of the ancien regime. Known only as Seigneur....

In her second life, Virginie finds herself in Paris just after World War II, the younger sister of a taxi driver named Bocage, who whiles away his evening with a circle of hearty streetwalkers and their companions, including the tattooed boxer, Lulu."

I wonder if he says "Thank you, Virginia Woolf" somewhere in this book.

And does the word "tattooed" annoy you in that sentence above as much as it did me? I realize that's a metaphysical question of the sort that people ask all the time. Wittgensteinian question?

Oh well. You know book jacket copy.

I spared you the misery of reading the whole thing, as I spared myself the misery of typing the whole thing.

But for two bucks I figured I'd give it a try.

I'm already feeling iffy on it.

And I haven't even begun reading it yet.

It's just there were some things I read further in the copy I didn't type here, touting the novel's "bawdiness" and such.

I know that's supposed to sell books, but nobody's used "bawdiness" to sell books for fifty years.

And "bawdiness" means exquisitely boring.

Bawdiness means fuckall when it comes to sex.

Even "depraved" is just another Crayola color now.

I don't know what adjective would suffice to entice today.

But I would have at least innovated something like "slutted-out."

"Let's just hope the protagonist's pussy is Vulcanized."

Say something like that.

If you're going to play games like that.

Okay?