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The Fermata
Having turned phone sex into the subject of the bestseller, Vox, Baker now outdoes himself with an outrageously arousing, acrobatically stylish "X-rated sci-fi fantasy that leaves Vox seeming more like mere fiber-optic foreplay.
303 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1994
About the author
Nicholson Baker
55 books890 followersNicholson Baker is a contemporary American writer of fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Manhattan in 1957 and grew up in Rochester, New York. He has published sixteen books--including The Mezzanine (1988), U and I (1991), Human Smoke (2008), The Anthologist (2009), and Substitute (2016)--and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, the New York Review of Books, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Essays. He has received a National Book Critics Circle award, a James Madison Freedom of Information Award, the Herman Hesse Prize, and the Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1999, Baker and his wife, Margaret Brentano (co-author with Baker of The World on Sunday, 2005), founded the American Newspaper Repository in order to save a large collection of U.S. newspapers, including a run of Joseph Pulitzer's influential daily, the New York World. In 2004 the Repository’s holdings became a gift to Duke University. Baker and Brentano have two children; they live on the Penobscot River in Maine.
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September 3, 2020
In the 1990s I read The Mezzanine and thought it was brilliant, followed by U and I which was also great. The third Nicholson Baker book I read was this one, and I thought it was outrageous brilliant sexual comedy - he has these great Jamesian-strength-sentence maximum-vocabulary gifts and he squanders them on a heaping tittering morass of schoolboy prurience. That was funny. As you know his hero finds he has the ability to stop time and uses it not to make the world a better place but to undress women and perform various sex acts. The fact that this involves no consent whatsoever is brushed aside - the victims never know what's happened to them because when he re-starts time he's re-dressed the woman and cleaned everything up. What you don't know can't hurt you, right? All this undressing and fondling and so forth is presented to us as victimless. Nothing to worry about.
I thought this was "outrageous" and "pushing the boundaries" when I read it 20 plus years ago. Actually it was a piece of rape culture right there in my hand, and I liked it.
Later when I joined GR I reviewed it from memory. Later still I was still recommending this book as great modern comedy. Finally the penny dropped or should I say it was forcefully pointed out to me. I have been a loud hater of American Psycho for many years but The Fermata didn't seem obviously misogynistic to me. But it was, blatantly so. Well, we live and we learn, sometimes way too slowly.
I thought this was "outrageous" and "pushing the boundaries" when I read it 20 plus years ago. Actually it was a piece of rape culture right there in my hand, and I liked it.
Later when I joined GR I reviewed it from memory. Later still I was still recommending this book as great modern comedy. Finally the penny dropped or should I say it was forcefully pointed out to me. I have been a loud hater of American Psycho for many years but The Fermata didn't seem obviously misogynistic to me. But it was, blatantly so. Well, we live and we learn, sometimes way too slowly.
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
January 26, 2020What would you do if you could pause time on a whim, freezing everyone and everything, while you wander around, without anyone seeing or hearing anything? What a fab premise for a story.
Image: Frozen time (Source.)
Cher famously sang that If I Could Turn Back Time, she’d strive to change and so win back her lover.
In Groundhog Day, another rewinding scenario, weatherman Phil (who wakes to Cher (and Sonny) singing “I Got You Babe” each morning), tries various silly, selfish, funny, and dangerous things, before turning to good deeds and new skills (play the piano, speak Italian, sculpt ice) to earn the affections of Rita.
I asked a group of friends the opening question about pausing time. Their answers included:
• Crime-fighting superhero;
• Rob banks;
• (A third person said the first two options are not mutually exclusive)
• Switch people's hats;
• Get more work done;
• Stealer of unsecured trifles;
• Stare at people's faces longer than is socially acceptable;
• Get perfect composition, light, and focus for photography (which is itself a way of freezing time);
• Go to Africa and steal all the poachers’ ammunition;
• Work through a political hit list;
• Think of a great comeback or make minor adjustments, for good or evil;
• Get Trump’s tax returns to NYT and WashPo;
• Take selfies with celebs;
• Jump queues;
• Swap neighbours' mail so they have to meet/talk to each other;
• Try on clothes without needing the dressing room;
• Put the roulette ball on their number;
• Tie people's shoelaces together - but not prevent unrelated accidents, as “that would be playing God” (huh?).
None of my friends suggested checking up on a partner, prying into personal stuff of family, friends, enemies, colleagues, or celebrities, nor cheating in quizzes or tests. Nothing sexual, either, though I expect some thought of it, and then thought better of it. One did suggest debagging (pulling down the trousers) of an obnoxious colleague, but that was for revenge, rather than titillation.
My favourite was: “Squish everyone’s faces into smiles, on the underground / subway. When time re-started they’d all be smiling at each other.”
If only this book had a dash of such creativity, humour, and compassion. Even the political hit list is arguably better than what unfolds.
Why DNF? (= Did Not Finish)
This is supposedly comical literary erotica. It also has Baker’s trademark, almost pathological, attention to tiny details of movement, touch, and texture. (See my review of The Mezzanine, HERE.)
Arno Strine doesn’t want to use his power for riches, revenge, love, nor even sex, and has no aspirations to do good. He flicks into what he calls the Fermata or Fold to undress women with more than his eyes, and touch them intimately. Yes, you read that right - or maybe I should say wrong. Very wrong. He figures that as they don’t know, there’s no harm in it.
I kept going for a third of it (95 pages - hence no rating), in the hope of finding the promised humour or eroticism, or just to see Arno develop as a character. Also, I had been told there was a twist, and I’ve enjoyed other books by Baker, including the very sexual Vox (see my review HERE). I’m not a prude. I understand the temptation to use such an ability for smutty ends, but to do it so invasively, for more than twenty years, without any real reflection, let alone remorse… Nope.
I hope karma eventually whacks Arno like a ten ton truck, but I don’t want to continue reading. Yes, it was published a generation ago, before #MeToo, and yes, Arno occasionally has a few thoughts about boundaries, but it’s just too horrid and repetitive. Even when he puts sex toys in unexpected places it’s more creepy than funny.
Consent
Consent should be freely given, unambiguous, keen, and continuous.
Maybe Arno eventually learns that, but in case he doesn’t, may I offer you a cup of tea?
My effort and expectations, the quality of my tea and crockery, and your past enjoyment of tea are no guarantee you want a cup with me right now - even if you warmly accepted my invitation. If I want tea and you don’t, I can always have some by myself later - as could you if I withdraw my invitation.
Image: “But you wanted tea last night” (Source, Buzzfeed article.)
Animation of the cup of tea analogy, 2.5 minutes, HERE.
It’s a bit simplistic: in particular, it ignores cultural expectations and other unequal power dynamics that might make someone say they consent, when they don’t really. Nevertheless, it’s a useful starting point to explore the subject.
Film adaptation?!
I was amazed to see that imdb lists a 2015 film, with a cast of four and running time of 66 minutes. However, there are no release details, nor a single rating. Maybe it never happened. A film in the 1990s (the book was published in 1994), perhaps, but in the twenty-teens? Surely not. I hope not.
What would I do?
If I could pause time, I’d regain what I wasted on this and use it to read something better. Then I’d squish some faces, switch some hats, and restart time. (I’m not going to admit to anything else here!)
Image: Frozen time (Source.)
Cher famously sang that If I Could Turn Back Time, she’d strive to change and so win back her lover.
In Groundhog Day, another rewinding scenario, weatherman Phil (who wakes to Cher (and Sonny) singing “I Got You Babe” each morning), tries various silly, selfish, funny, and dangerous things, before turning to good deeds and new skills (play the piano, speak Italian, sculpt ice) to earn the affections of Rita.
I asked a group of friends the opening question about pausing time. Their answers included:
• Crime-fighting superhero;
• Rob banks;
• (A third person said the first two options are not mutually exclusive)
• Switch people's hats;
• Get more work done;
• Stealer of unsecured trifles;
• Stare at people's faces longer than is socially acceptable;
• Get perfect composition, light, and focus for photography (which is itself a way of freezing time);
• Go to Africa and steal all the poachers’ ammunition;
• Work through a political hit list;
• Think of a great comeback or make minor adjustments, for good or evil;
• Get Trump’s tax returns to NYT and WashPo;
• Take selfies with celebs;
• Jump queues;
• Swap neighbours' mail so they have to meet/talk to each other;
• Try on clothes without needing the dressing room;
• Put the roulette ball on their number;
• Tie people's shoelaces together - but not prevent unrelated accidents, as “that would be playing God” (huh?).
None of my friends suggested checking up on a partner, prying into personal stuff of family, friends, enemies, colleagues, or celebrities, nor cheating in quizzes or tests. Nothing sexual, either, though I expect some thought of it, and then thought better of it. One did suggest debagging (pulling down the trousers) of an obnoxious colleague, but that was for revenge, rather than titillation.
My favourite was: “Squish everyone’s faces into smiles, on the underground / subway. When time re-started they’d all be smiling at each other.”
If only this book had a dash of such creativity, humour, and compassion. Even the political hit list is arguably better than what unfolds.
Why DNF? (= Did Not Finish)
This is supposedly comical literary erotica. It also has Baker’s trademark, almost pathological, attention to tiny details of movement, touch, and texture. (See my review of The Mezzanine, HERE.)
Arno Strine doesn’t want to use his power for riches, revenge, love, nor even sex, and has no aspirations to do good. He flicks into what he calls the Fermata or Fold to undress women with more than his eyes, and touch them intimately. Yes, you read that right - or maybe I should say wrong. Very wrong. He figures that as they don’t know, there’s no harm in it.
I kept going for a third of it (95 pages - hence no rating), in the hope of finding the promised humour or eroticism, or just to see Arno develop as a character. Also, I had been told there was a twist, and I’ve enjoyed other books by Baker, including the very sexual Vox (see my review HERE). I’m not a prude. I understand the temptation to use such an ability for smutty ends, but to do it so invasively, for more than twenty years, without any real reflection, let alone remorse… Nope.
I hope karma eventually whacks Arno like a ten ton truck, but I don’t want to continue reading. Yes, it was published a generation ago, before #MeToo, and yes, Arno occasionally has a few thoughts about boundaries, but it’s just too horrid and repetitive. Even when he puts sex toys in unexpected places it’s more creepy than funny.
Consent
Consent should be freely given, unambiguous, keen, and continuous.
Maybe Arno eventually learns that, but in case he doesn’t, may I offer you a cup of tea?
My effort and expectations, the quality of my tea and crockery, and your past enjoyment of tea are no guarantee you want a cup with me right now - even if you warmly accepted my invitation. If I want tea and you don’t, I can always have some by myself later - as could you if I withdraw my invitation.
Image: “But you wanted tea last night” (Source, Buzzfeed article.)
Animation of the cup of tea analogy, 2.5 minutes, HERE.
It’s a bit simplistic: in particular, it ignores cultural expectations and other unequal power dynamics that might make someone say they consent, when they don’t really. Nevertheless, it’s a useful starting point to explore the subject.
Film adaptation?!
I was amazed to see that imdb lists a 2015 film, with a cast of four and running time of 66 minutes. However, there are no release details, nor a single rating. Maybe it never happened. A film in the 1990s (the book was published in 1994), perhaps, but in the twenty-teens? Surely not. I hope not.
What would I do?
If I could pause time, I’d regain what I wasted on this and use it to read something better. Then I’d squish some faces, switch some hats, and restart time. (I’m not going to admit to anything else here!)
October 17, 2020
The Fermata doesn’t simply posit the question what would you do if you could stop time? It assumes, quite rightly, that everyone would undress and violate their fellow citizens within about four seconds, so asks instead how would you use this erotic licence to engineer love in the moving world?
Such is the problem of our hapless obsessive narrator who, like the hero in The Mezzanine, observes a pathological attention-to-detail to the minutiae of his warped inventions. Since constructing his time-stopping device through a series of implausible homemade contraptions, he has practiced a strict moral code: no stealing and no sexual deviation observable to his victims in the moving world. A laudable practice that he doesn’t always observe, especially with those he has reciprocal sex with.
Sadly, I came to identify with the narrator at points—not in his planting-porno-on-the-beach or his whipping-himself-into masturbatory-frenzies side—but in his attempts to manipulate fate while remaining invisible to the victims of his infatuation.
In my case, I became infatuated with a woman in a blue-button hat who caught the 8am train into Edinburgh. After some harmless staring I detected her reading Treasure Island and tried dropping feeble hints that I too was reader, and that although we only shared a train trip and interest in books, we one day might unite in supernovas of love and set the universe on fire. Or, failing that, do it quick and nasty in the driver’s cabin. My technique was to carry a book underarm at all times, as though the book might magnetise her toward me. Feeble.
This novel is awesome. Exemplary verbal gymnastics, hilarious neologisms (or neolojisms) and crazy Flann O’Brien-style humour. And lashes of gratuitous pornographic content. Perfect.
EDIT 17/10/2020: There is an interesting discussion as to why men (like me) praise this novel and overlook the problematic rapey aspect as mere tittering whimsy, and that argument is most likely rooted in male privilege and entitlement issues, even misogyny. The MJ of 2011 was far less sensitive to these issues to the 2020 MJ.
Such is the problem of our hapless obsessive narrator who, like the hero in The Mezzanine, observes a pathological attention-to-detail to the minutiae of his warped inventions. Since constructing his time-stopping device through a series of implausible homemade contraptions, he has practiced a strict moral code: no stealing and no sexual deviation observable to his victims in the moving world. A laudable practice that he doesn’t always observe, especially with those he has reciprocal sex with.
Sadly, I came to identify with the narrator at points—not in his planting-porno-on-the-beach or his whipping-himself-into masturbatory-frenzies side—but in his attempts to manipulate fate while remaining invisible to the victims of his infatuation.
In my case, I became infatuated with a woman in a blue-button hat who caught the 8am train into Edinburgh. After some harmless staring I detected her reading Treasure Island and tried dropping feeble hints that I too was reader, and that although we only shared a train trip and interest in books, we one day might unite in supernovas of love and set the universe on fire. Or, failing that, do it quick and nasty in the driver’s cabin. My technique was to carry a book underarm at all times, as though the book might magnetise her toward me. Feeble.
This novel is awesome. Exemplary verbal gymnastics, hilarious neologisms (or neolojisms) and crazy Flann O’Brien-style humour. And lashes of gratuitous pornographic content. Perfect.
EDIT 17/10/2020: There is an interesting discussion as to why men (like me) praise this novel and overlook the problematic rapey aspect as mere tittering whimsy, and that argument is most likely rooted in male privilege and entitlement issues, even misogyny. The MJ of 2011 was far less sensitive to these issues to the 2020 MJ.
Shelved as 'to-not-read-ever'
December 11, 2010The Douchiest Conversation I Have Ever Overheard, Or: An Over-Intellectual Hipster Talks About Sex in Such a Pretentious Way that You Suspect He Perhaps Does Not Have It All That Often - A Play in One Act
SETTING: STAIRS leading down to SUBWAY PLATFORM on Jackson Street, Chicago, Ill. It is WINTER, and everyone is dressed in HEAVY COATS and SCARVES.
THE PLAYERS: DOUCHEY HIPSTER and SILENT COMPANION
~
[We encounter DH and SC walking near the Jackson Street Blue Line subway stop. Their conversation is muffled. As they approach, we are gradually able to hear what they are saying.]
DH: I was thinking of your comment, about that girl who had a really mild bush?
[Note: DH should be talking INCREDIBLY, INAPPROPRIATELY LOUDLY, seemingly unaware that there are other people, perhaps, walking behind the pair]
SC: ...
DH: And it reminded me of this book by Nicholson Baker. Are you familiar with his work? He wrote this novel called The Fermata?
SC: ...
DH: It's about this guy who has the power to stop time, and he uses it to go up to woman and, like, he doesn't rape them? But he'll fondle them, or take off their clothes, or, like, jerk off on their faces. And there's this one girl, he pulls down her underwear and he describes her just massive bush, and he just goes on for pages describing it.
[SUDDENLY we notice BYSTANDER, who appears in a SPOTLIGHT. He has been following DH and SC as they walked through the subway station. As DH continues speaking, he rapidly becomes indistinct as B continues to walk past.]
B: What a douche.
[SCENE]
SETTING: STAIRS leading down to SUBWAY PLATFORM on Jackson Street, Chicago, Ill. It is WINTER, and everyone is dressed in HEAVY COATS and SCARVES.
THE PLAYERS: DOUCHEY HIPSTER and SILENT COMPANION
~
[We encounter DH and SC walking near the Jackson Street Blue Line subway stop. Their conversation is muffled. As they approach, we are gradually able to hear what they are saying.]
DH: I was thinking of your comment, about that girl who had a really mild bush?
[Note: DH should be talking INCREDIBLY, INAPPROPRIATELY LOUDLY, seemingly unaware that there are other people, perhaps, walking behind the pair]
SC: ...
DH: And it reminded me of this book by Nicholson Baker. Are you familiar with his work? He wrote this novel called The Fermata?
SC: ...
DH: It's about this guy who has the power to stop time, and he uses it to go up to woman and, like, he doesn't rape them? But he'll fondle them, or take off their clothes, or, like, jerk off on their faces. And there's this one girl, he pulls down her underwear and he describes her just massive bush, and he just goes on for pages describing it.
[SUDDENLY we notice BYSTANDER, who appears in a SPOTLIGHT. He has been following DH and SC as they walked through the subway station. As DH continues speaking, he rapidly becomes indistinct as B continues to walk past.]
B: What a douche.
[SCENE]
August 16, 2018
Pretty good first attempt at writing from 14 year old Nicholson Baker. Once he grows up a bit, gets a lot more mature, and learns more about story structure and plot, he might actually be a pretty decent writer.
Wait, this was written by a grown ass man? Oh god....
Ok, lets dig into this mess shall we?
First of all, there is no real plot in here. As long as you understand the main concept (a guy has the ability to stop time and he uses it exclusively to rape women), you can turn to any page in the book, start reading, and not be lost as to what is going on. There is so little plot here that the main character starts writing pornography and simply inserts entire stories right in the middle of his narrative. It's like inception, only terrible.
Next, lets talk about our main character. He spends the entire book doing one of two things: raping people and explaining in detail how he is not really a rapist. At one point, he asks someone what they would do if they could freeze time, and they explain that they would rape someone (he conducts a few of these interviews, and the people always say they would turn into rapists. Let's not plan a vacation to his city any time soon...). He claims that he is better than the person he is interviewing because he doesn't penetrate people, he just strips them, fondles them, and ejaculates on them. BUT WAIT! Just a few scenes before this he does indeed penetrate someone. Did the author just forget this?
This isn't the only time that the text contradicts itself, either. Early on we are told that he doesn't want to investigate how his power works because he might lose it (aka: the lazy writer's way of side-stepping any explanations for his universe). And yet, later we are told . WTF Baker?
You could argue that we are just dealing with a case of an author (badly) employing an unreliable narrator, but this book just screams "I AM THE AUTHOR'S PERSONAL RAPE FANTASY" so loudly that I just don't buy that.
And, having the knowledge that this is the author's personal fantasy, there are a few other troubling things in here (like when he tries to tear off some black kid's balls).
I can forgive a lot of things in fiction. I can forgive some extreme opinions and actions that I don't agree with. I can even forgive the fact that the idea behind this story is so juvenile it's laughable. It's only a story, after all. What I can't forgive, however, is something that is so badly written and pointless.
Wait, this was written by a grown ass man? Oh god....
Ok, lets dig into this mess shall we?
First of all, there is no real plot in here. As long as you understand the main concept (a guy has the ability to stop time and he uses it exclusively to rape women), you can turn to any page in the book, start reading, and not be lost as to what is going on. There is so little plot here that the main character starts writing pornography and simply inserts entire stories right in the middle of his narrative. It's like inception, only terrible.
Next, lets talk about our main character. He spends the entire book doing one of two things: raping people and explaining in detail how he is not really a rapist. At one point, he asks someone what they would do if they could freeze time, and they explain that they would rape someone (he conducts a few of these interviews, and the people always say they would turn into rapists. Let's not plan a vacation to his city any time soon...). He claims that he is better than the person he is interviewing because he doesn't penetrate people, he just strips them, fondles them, and ejaculates on them. BUT WAIT! Just a few scenes before this he does indeed penetrate someone. Did the author just forget this?
This isn't the only time that the text contradicts itself, either. Early on we are told that he doesn't want to investigate how his power works because he might lose it (aka: the lazy writer's way of side-stepping any explanations for his universe). And yet, later we are told . WTF Baker?
You could argue that we are just dealing with a case of an author (badly) employing an unreliable narrator, but this book just screams "I AM THE AUTHOR'S PERSONAL RAPE FANTASY" so loudly that I just don't buy that.
And, having the knowledge that this is the author's personal fantasy, there are a few other troubling things in here (like when he tries to tear off some black kid's balls).
I can forgive a lot of things in fiction. I can forgive some extreme opinions and actions that I don't agree with. I can even forgive the fact that the idea behind this story is so juvenile it's laughable. It's only a story, after all. What I can't forgive, however, is something that is so badly written and pointless.
November 1, 2019
This is some top-shelf literary erotica. This is some five-star filth. The Fermata treads a line between ironic, self-aware social commentary and out-and-out smut. Baker's use of language is simply stellar: he constantly invents wonderful phrases and neologisms that are as absurd as they are brilliant. The novel is shamelessly lewd, and sex-obsessed. But it is also honest, intelligent and sensitive, not to mention hilarious - I laughed out loud on several occasions. I'm almost ashamed to publicly acknowledge how much I enjoyed this novel. It may be the most fun I've had all year.
March 13, 2021
What would you do if you had the power to pause time?
I have mixed feelings regarding this novel. My favorite thing was all the observant details, something I have come to expect from Nicholson Baker. My favorite of his is The Mezzanine, which takes place during the protagonist's lunch, the quintessential book about "nothing" ( by this I mean a book that seems to have no straightforward plot, yet manages to discuss and philosophizes on very relevant things). For example, Baker writes beautifully regarding his preference for glasses over contacts. It is these parts of the text; Baker's ability to create beauty from the banal and ordinary, that enamors me of his writing, despite other things I may not like about it.
"The Fermata", of course, does have a more substantial plot than "The Mezzanine". Quite an interesting one. Now, what is a Fermata? It is a music symbol, a notation indicating that the note should be prolonged beyond its normal duration. How does that relate to our story? (The full explanation with a l back story involving ex-girlfriend Rhody's infatuation with her music teacher begins on page 160)
The narrator of our story, Arnold, for whatever reason, has been gifted the power to "pause" time. Think Adam Sandler in "Click". During this time, he can float and meander around the world however he pleases. He describes the rest of the world as being in gel-like suspension.
"The Fermata" is the name our protagonist has given this memoir we are reading, which he has been writing during "paused time". For the past year, he has been spending one day on real time to every 24 hours where the rest of the world is paused and he can do whatever wants. During this time away from time, he ages twice as fast, of course, but the draw of The Fermata (also known as The Fold, among a number of other words he has created, the lingo of his time pausing) outweighs any side effects of his time manipulation. In all, he has spent an estimated two years in The Fermata, making him 37 years old, though on paper he is only 35.
Now, what would you do if you had these powers? Murders, robberies, vigilante fun, good Samaritan deeds, revenge? All these would come to mind immediately. I found some of the ideas suggested by other characters quite creative. (Hypothetically, of course, for Strine does not actually tell but one person what he in his free time.) Rhody, his ex girlfriend, has this idea to pause time and stick a post-it note inconspicuously on her bosses' back everyone he says one of his annoying catchphrases. In this way, she would feel better about her day, but he might not even notice. Genius.
Our protagonist wants none of this. He wants, instead, to fulfill his sexual fantasies. But in a very specific way. He is a voyuer of the highest class. His most favorite entertainment The Fermata is to undress women. Carefully, though. He has morals, you see. He would never fluster anyone, would not want anyone to be confused once he restarted time. He tells us that fear is his least favorite emotion; he wants to be responsible for creating as little of it as possible. He documents exactly how they are before he paused time so that he can put things back exactly the way they were. When he needs anything, he leaves cash and a note (As if this will not serve to scare anyone; it is interesting how his "morals" apply specifically to women and his sexual exploits.)
"I am less suave with a woman when I have not had a preview of her breasts", he tells readers. This is all we need to know to understand how enabled Strine has become, how much of a slave he is to the abilities he has to violate the privacy of women everywhere. The mention of the hypothetical situation of The Fermata and what he would do with those powers to his ex girlfriend Rhody is what ended their relationship. Then again, he probably never would have been with her in the first place were it not for his powers. He first "seduced" her during septate Thai dinners, by pausing time, finding out what she was reading, seeing her handwritten note that she thought guys removing their watches was erotic, and acting accordingly. Yes, of course he used his powers to run into her at the right bookstore section, and very slowly would remove his watch, teasingly. Likewise, his next significant relationship, with Joyce, began only because he found confidence by undressing her first. How sad to know your significant relationships, even the most significant ones, began under this guise.
To further entertain himself, he mixes it up. Sometimes he merely removes the bra and plays with it, other times he undress then completely. His endeavors become more and more elaborate, maybe ingenious; although impressive, one wishes he would use this intelligence and originality for more positive and utilitarian exploits. Some of my favorite shenanigans:
1. "Moving Psi Squares"; with time paused, he arranges tiny one-inch squares cut from: 1. Pink and black construction paper, 2. Noteworthy faces from fashion magazines, & 3. A flyer from a distributor of porn films, in front of a woman in the Boston Library. He turns time "on" for a fraction of a second, randomizes the squares again. Repeat several times. Very tedious, yes, but I find the psychology here fascinating, for of course it subtly arouses her, but the fractions of time are so minute that she has no idea why.
2. He writes a couple erotica novellas/stories that he plants near a woman in order to watch her reaction as she reads erotic fiction that he wrote. Of course, when he sees her becoming aroused, he follows her home to watch her masturbate. As a side note, this was the part of the book where it becomes straight pornography, these books within the book. The erotic fiction Strine wrote centered around Marian, a divorced middle aged woman whom resorts to ordering a panoply of dildos. She uses these first alone; then with the UPS Delivery Man in his truck, having him navigate the roads purposefully roughly to accentuate her masturbation; then with the teenage boy she hired to help with her gardening and his outspoken girlfriend. In this latter situation, she is out in her yard, a huge dildo inserted- not in her vagina but the reverse- when they come to visit. She is highly aroused by telling them all about it, and they end up having an intense threesome.
3. Strine says he rarely watches others having sex, but admits to doing so when Rhody leaves him for another man. He goes so far as to violate his personal code by pausing time, inserting his penis into Rhody where the other man's previously was. When he puts things back and restarts time, the man is of course flaccid, and very confused, not to mention offending Rhody.
4. The only time he does pure bad: After he is mugged, he ties several guys' penises together and onto a pole. One second there are getting away with his wallet, the next they find themselves publicly exposed and in pain.
During "regular time", Strine is a temporary employee at a Boston Bank. He works as a rather mundane typist. He admits to us that he is working below his qualifications, but with his inability to stay away from The Fermata, his time a energies so focused on his next sexual adventure, he could not care less what he does in real time. Like all addictions, his life would become suddenly empty without it. He sees this whenever his powers temporarily disappear. Throughout the years, he has had to find different ways to "engage" The Fermata, including a transformer (the original method used, in the fourth grade, used to undress his fourth grade teacher and to draw on her with blue chalk), a pen, lifting his glasses, a playing of piano keys.
Joyce, a co-worker of his is the first person Strine confides in, and although at first understandably upset when she finds out he had already undressed her and investigated her apartment without her knowledge, she not only accepts but fully embraces his powers. Strine comes up with the idea to "trick" The Fermata by engaging his switch (his glasses at this point in time) while they are having sex, his penis deep inside of her, convincing the powers that be that they are the same person. It works.
Then, he inadvertently transfers all his fermational powers to her. Apparently, it was transferred through the use of his Penis Vaccuum & Goddess Athena vibrator. He feels assured that his powers will eventually return to him, but it is a nice ending in that we see he is functioning alright with real life love versus the guise of what he had been doing for years in The Fermata. She, of course, is having her share of the fun and novelty of it.
I could do without some of the overtly sexual things (I am personally not an erotica reader), but loved the idea of the novel, Baker's ability to create beauty from the ordinary, and the originality of his concepts, abstract yet always making readers think, long after the last page is turned.
I have mixed feelings regarding this novel. My favorite thing was all the observant details, something I have come to expect from Nicholson Baker. My favorite of his is The Mezzanine, which takes place during the protagonist's lunch, the quintessential book about "nothing" ( by this I mean a book that seems to have no straightforward plot, yet manages to discuss and philosophizes on very relevant things). For example, Baker writes beautifully regarding his preference for glasses over contacts. It is these parts of the text; Baker's ability to create beauty from the banal and ordinary, that enamors me of his writing, despite other things I may not like about it.
I liked holding one of them in an aqueous bread on the tip of my finger and admiring it's Saarinenesque upcurve, and when I fold it in half and rub its surface against itself to break up the protein deposits, I often remembered the satisfaction of making almost a Teflon fry pans. But though as a hobby they were rewarding, though I was as excited in opening the centrifugal spin cleaning machine I ordered for them as I would have been if I had bought an automatic bread Baker or a new kind of sexual utensil, they interfered with my appreciation of the world. I could see things to them, but I was not pleased to look at things. The bandwidth of my optical processors was being flooded with "there is an intruder on your eyeball" messages, so that a lot was simply not able to get through... At first, I thought it was worth losing the beauty of the world in order to look better to the world. I really was more handsome without glasses... The deciding moment really came when I spent the night with a woman who I think had sex with me sooner than she wanted to simply to distract me from noticing the fact that her contacts were bothering her. She hurried to the sex because the extreme intimacy, to her way of thinking, of appearing before me in her glasses was only possible after the last extreme intimacy of fucking me... I recognized The crucial importance of hinges to my pleasure in life. When I open my glasses in the morning before taking a shower and going to work, I am like an excited tourist who has risen from a hotel bed on the first day of a vacation: I have blown open a set of double French doors leading out onto a sunlit balcony with a view of the entire whatever- shipping corridor, bay, valley, parking lot. (How can people not like views over motel parking lots in the early morning? The new subtler car colors, the blue greens and warmer greys, and the sense that all those individuals are leveled in the democracy of sleep... make for one of the more inspiring visions that life can offer before nine o'clock.)
"The Fermata", of course, does have a more substantial plot than "The Mezzanine". Quite an interesting one. Now, what is a Fermata? It is a music symbol, a notation indicating that the note should be prolonged beyond its normal duration. How does that relate to our story? (The full explanation with a l back story involving ex-girlfriend Rhody's infatuation with her music teacher begins on page 160)
The narrator of our story, Arnold, for whatever reason, has been gifted the power to "pause" time. Think Adam Sandler in "Click". During this time, he can float and meander around the world however he pleases. He describes the rest of the world as being in gel-like suspension.
"The Fermata" is the name our protagonist has given this memoir we are reading, which he has been writing during "paused time". For the past year, he has been spending one day on real time to every 24 hours where the rest of the world is paused and he can do whatever wants. During this time away from time, he ages twice as fast, of course, but the draw of The Fermata (also known as The Fold, among a number of other words he has created, the lingo of his time pausing) outweighs any side effects of his time manipulation. In all, he has spent an estimated two years in The Fermata, making him 37 years old, though on paper he is only 35.
Now, what would you do if you had these powers? Murders, robberies, vigilante fun, good Samaritan deeds, revenge? All these would come to mind immediately. I found some of the ideas suggested by other characters quite creative. (Hypothetically, of course, for Strine does not actually tell but one person what he in his free time.) Rhody, his ex girlfriend, has this idea to pause time and stick a post-it note inconspicuously on her bosses' back everyone he says one of his annoying catchphrases. In this way, she would feel better about her day, but he might not even notice. Genius.
Our protagonist wants none of this. He wants, instead, to fulfill his sexual fantasies. But in a very specific way. He is a voyuer of the highest class. His most favorite entertainment The Fermata is to undress women. Carefully, though. He has morals, you see. He would never fluster anyone, would not want anyone to be confused once he restarted time. He tells us that fear is his least favorite emotion; he wants to be responsible for creating as little of it as possible. He documents exactly how they are before he paused time so that he can put things back exactly the way they were. When he needs anything, he leaves cash and a note (As if this will not serve to scare anyone; it is interesting how his "morals" apply specifically to women and his sexual exploits.)
"I am less suave with a woman when I have not had a preview of her breasts", he tells readers. This is all we need to know to understand how enabled Strine has become, how much of a slave he is to the abilities he has to violate the privacy of women everywhere. The mention of the hypothetical situation of The Fermata and what he would do with those powers to his ex girlfriend Rhody is what ended their relationship. Then again, he probably never would have been with her in the first place were it not for his powers. He first "seduced" her during septate Thai dinners, by pausing time, finding out what she was reading, seeing her handwritten note that she thought guys removing their watches was erotic, and acting accordingly. Yes, of course he used his powers to run into her at the right bookstore section, and very slowly would remove his watch, teasingly. Likewise, his next significant relationship, with Joyce, began only because he found confidence by undressing her first. How sad to know your significant relationships, even the most significant ones, began under this guise.
To further entertain himself, he mixes it up. Sometimes he merely removes the bra and plays with it, other times he undress then completely. His endeavors become more and more elaborate, maybe ingenious; although impressive, one wishes he would use this intelligence and originality for more positive and utilitarian exploits. Some of my favorite shenanigans:
1. "Moving Psi Squares"; with time paused, he arranges tiny one-inch squares cut from: 1. Pink and black construction paper, 2. Noteworthy faces from fashion magazines, & 3. A flyer from a distributor of porn films, in front of a woman in the Boston Library. He turns time "on" for a fraction of a second, randomizes the squares again. Repeat several times. Very tedious, yes, but I find the psychology here fascinating, for of course it subtly arouses her, but the fractions of time are so minute that she has no idea why.
2. He writes a couple erotica novellas/stories that he plants near a woman in order to watch her reaction as she reads erotic fiction that he wrote. Of course, when he sees her becoming aroused, he follows her home to watch her masturbate. As a side note, this was the part of the book where it becomes straight pornography, these books within the book. The erotic fiction Strine wrote centered around Marian, a divorced middle aged woman whom resorts to ordering a panoply of dildos. She uses these first alone; then with the UPS Delivery Man in his truck, having him navigate the roads purposefully roughly to accentuate her masturbation; then with the teenage boy she hired to help with her gardening and his outspoken girlfriend. In this latter situation, she is out in her yard, a huge dildo inserted- not in her vagina but the reverse- when they come to visit. She is highly aroused by telling them all about it, and they end up having an intense threesome.
3. Strine says he rarely watches others having sex, but admits to doing so when Rhody leaves him for another man. He goes so far as to violate his personal code by pausing time, inserting his penis into Rhody where the other man's previously was. When he puts things back and restarts time, the man is of course flaccid, and very confused, not to mention offending Rhody.
4. The only time he does pure bad: After he is mugged, he ties several guys' penises together and onto a pole. One second there are getting away with his wallet, the next they find themselves publicly exposed and in pain.
During "regular time", Strine is a temporary employee at a Boston Bank. He works as a rather mundane typist. He admits to us that he is working below his qualifications, but with his inability to stay away from The Fermata, his time a energies so focused on his next sexual adventure, he could not care less what he does in real time. Like all addictions, his life would become suddenly empty without it. He sees this whenever his powers temporarily disappear. Throughout the years, he has had to find different ways to "engage" The Fermata, including a transformer (the original method used, in the fourth grade, used to undress his fourth grade teacher and to draw on her with blue chalk), a pen, lifting his glasses, a playing of piano keys.
Joyce, a co-worker of his is the first person Strine confides in, and although at first understandably upset when she finds out he had already undressed her and investigated her apartment without her knowledge, she not only accepts but fully embraces his powers. Strine comes up with the idea to "trick" The Fermata by engaging his switch (his glasses at this point in time) while they are having sex, his penis deep inside of her, convincing the powers that be that they are the same person. It works.
Then, he inadvertently transfers all his fermational powers to her. Apparently, it was transferred through the use of his Penis Vaccuum & Goddess Athena vibrator. He feels assured that his powers will eventually return to him, but it is a nice ending in that we see he is functioning alright with real life love versus the guise of what he had been doing for years in The Fermata. She, of course, is having her share of the fun and novelty of it.
I could do without some of the overtly sexual things (I am personally not an erotica reader), but loved the idea of the novel, Baker's ability to create beauty from the ordinary, and the originality of his concepts, abstract yet always making readers think, long after the last page is turned.
I do not think that loneliness is necessarily a bad condition. I like the heroes or heroines of books I read to be living alone, and feeling lonely, because reading is itself a state of artificially enhanced loneliness. Loneliness makes you consider other people's lives, makes you more polite to those you deal with a passing, dampens irony and cynicism.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2023
Bull's-Eye: 15-17 yr old heterosexual male readers
If you're intrigued by the unfiltered, uncensored thoughts of a 16-year-old boy in novel form, you should check this out!
Seems this novel cobbled together rejects from the Penthouse Forum magazine, an offshoot of Penthouse. Each contained dozens of "letters" (written anonymously by "real people" about risky and risque' sexual encounters ). The "letters" rejected by PForum were those that detailed "escapades" too boring, overly absurd or simply nauseating for the general public.
This novel has the low-brow vibe of epistles from PForum reject piles.
If you're intrigued by the unfiltered, uncensored thoughts of a 16-year-old boy in novel form, you should check this out!
Seems this novel cobbled together rejects from the Penthouse Forum magazine, an offshoot of Penthouse. Each contained dozens of "letters" (written anonymously by "real people" about risky and risque' sexual encounters ). The "letters" rejected by PForum were those that detailed "escapades" too boring, overly absurd or simply nauseating for the general public.
This novel has the low-brow vibe of epistles from PForum reject piles.
Shelved as 'aborted-efforts'
May 9, 2014So this book is a highly disturbing, rapey version of the much-beloved eighties kids' sitcom Out of This World. Its premise is that instead of half-alien, hand-chair-owning teenage girl Evie, an adult man working as a Boston temp has the power to stop time at will and keep moving and doing whatever he wants while everyone else stands frozen in place. Perhaps not surprisingly, but problematically for this reader, our narrator uses this power to sexually assault scores of women without them ever being any the wiser.
I'm having a very hard time accepting the premise of this book. While I don't need a nice narrator and normally remain open-minded and non-judgmental in my approach to fiction, I feel like for this book to work I'm supposed to be experiencing both an empathy and amusement that I obviously cannot and do not want to feel. Baker's a fun writer, but I'm super grossed out and repelled by this book so far -- not just by the premise, but by the author's apparent assumption that magic-enabled sexual assault is an amusingly naughty caper and an impulse the reader should be able to relate to and enjoy.
I dunno. I hate to let my shrill, humorless feminism get in the way of a good read, but I'm not at all convinced that this read is good enough to be worth my feelings of disgust. I guess I'll stick with it a bit longer and see if he's actually doing something interesting and worthwhile, but right now I set my odds of finishing as pretty slim.
I'm having a very hard time accepting the premise of this book. While I don't need a nice narrator and normally remain open-minded and non-judgmental in my approach to fiction, I feel like for this book to work I'm supposed to be experiencing both an empathy and amusement that I obviously cannot and do not want to feel. Baker's a fun writer, but I'm super grossed out and repelled by this book so far -- not just by the premise, but by the author's apparent assumption that magic-enabled sexual assault is an amusingly naughty caper and an impulse the reader should be able to relate to and enjoy.
I dunno. I hate to let my shrill, humorless feminism get in the way of a good read, but I'm not at all convinced that this read is good enough to be worth my feelings of disgust. I guess I'll stick with it a bit longer and see if he's actually doing something interesting and worthwhile, but right now I set my odds of finishing as pretty slim.
August 18, 2007
This is the super juiciest book I've ever read. It's still dripping down my leg. A total page turner, but you totally have to put all feminism aside. Perhaps I shouldn't have admitted this was possible for me. Anyway- the storyline centers around a man who can do the 2nd most awesome thing in the entire galaxy--2nd only to obtaining and using a tub of vanishing cream. He can make time stop at his will. It's like if Evie from Out of this World was a total perv.
July 30, 2007
This book is so sexy. My copy is well-thumbed, though currently on loan. Freezing time has never been so pervy or creative. Q: Is it a book about female sexuality or male sexuality? Or is it a book about male sexuality by way of female sexuality? The key is in the ending.
August 28, 2011
Nicholson Baker has gotten a lot of attention with his latest book "House of Holes," with a host of highfalutin sources extolling its both its literary merit and its over-the-top eroticism. The New York Times, for example, calls it a “glorious filthfest,” and "as funny as it is filthy."
As someone with an interest both in erotica/pornography (I write the stuff) and works of high literary aspiration (um, I read the stuff), I naturally felt I had to check this dude out.
I tried the Kindle sample-snippet of "House of Holes" first, but it didn't really grab me. It felt too easy, too facile and light-weight. As I read, a voice in the back of my head was muttering "yeah, yeah, some whacky surrealism, some explicit sex, more whacky surrealism, rinse and repeat. Ho-hum." Like the philistine looking at a Jackson Pollock, I kept thinking, "Whatsa big deal? *I* could do this."
Whether or not that leapt-to assessment of "House of Holes" was fair, I decided to try out "The Fermata," an earlier book of Baker's. The major draw of this novel for me was the delightfully sexy premise: A man has the ability to stop time, and uses his power to undress and ogle women. Yes, it's an old idea, but I thought it was potentially a terrific jumping-off point.
I was not disappointed. The main charm of the book is in the character of the protagonist. He's an immensely gentle, thoughtful man who takes great pains to avoid doing any harm or causing any distress with his magical power. The women he undresses, he meticulously re-dresses before restarting time, careful to leave behind no trace of his trespasses on their bodies. Furthermore, he's no mere seeker after nubile perfection. Instead he takes a boundless delight in the variations of women's bodies; "the average woman, the unexceptionable woman, the interestingly ugly woman…" In his delight, he waxes poetic for pages at a time over one woman's pubic hair ("to think I could have died and not seen this…"), the breasts of a host of others ("perfect in their indispensable imperfection"), and even such minutia as "the beautifully defined H shapes" at the backs of another woman's knees. He is intoxicated, transported and inspired by the physical beauty he unveils, by the secrets that women's uncovered bodies whisper to him.
Baker has said that he's a great admirer of John Updike, and it shows. The narrative is often intermixed with Updike-like musings on such peripheral topics as contact lenses versus eyeglasses or the experience of transcribing dictaphone tapes. But always (even more so than in Updike), these meditations are inspired and filtered through the protagonist's all-pervasive sexuality.
Speaking of sex… Yes, there's rather a lot of it. But since this is "literary pornography" (a term that in combination with Nicholson Baker's name returns 206 hits on Google), it's not the wall-to-wall sex you'll find in straightforward porn [cough[like mine]cough]. But the hot parts are definitely hot, and cover a generous range of kinks and variations.
Something of a standard line of description in reviews of erotica is "but there's a good story too." I'm spared from having to parrot that apologetic-sounding phrase here, because really there is no "story" to "The Fermata." There's no plot arc or character arc to speak of. Rather, it's more of a portrait -- a deftly and artistically rendered portrait of a delightful character and his magical gift.
As someone with an interest both in erotica/pornography (I write the stuff) and works of high literary aspiration (um, I read the stuff), I naturally felt I had to check this dude out.
I tried the Kindle sample-snippet of "House of Holes" first, but it didn't really grab me. It felt too easy, too facile and light-weight. As I read, a voice in the back of my head was muttering "yeah, yeah, some whacky surrealism, some explicit sex, more whacky surrealism, rinse and repeat. Ho-hum." Like the philistine looking at a Jackson Pollock, I kept thinking, "Whatsa big deal? *I* could do this."
Whether or not that leapt-to assessment of "House of Holes" was fair, I decided to try out "The Fermata," an earlier book of Baker's. The major draw of this novel for me was the delightfully sexy premise: A man has the ability to stop time, and uses his power to undress and ogle women. Yes, it's an old idea, but I thought it was potentially a terrific jumping-off point.
I was not disappointed. The main charm of the book is in the character of the protagonist. He's an immensely gentle, thoughtful man who takes great pains to avoid doing any harm or causing any distress with his magical power. The women he undresses, he meticulously re-dresses before restarting time, careful to leave behind no trace of his trespasses on their bodies. Furthermore, he's no mere seeker after nubile perfection. Instead he takes a boundless delight in the variations of women's bodies; "the average woman, the unexceptionable woman, the interestingly ugly woman…" In his delight, he waxes poetic for pages at a time over one woman's pubic hair ("to think I could have died and not seen this…"), the breasts of a host of others ("perfect in their indispensable imperfection"), and even such minutia as "the beautifully defined H shapes" at the backs of another woman's knees. He is intoxicated, transported and inspired by the physical beauty he unveils, by the secrets that women's uncovered bodies whisper to him.
Baker has said that he's a great admirer of John Updike, and it shows. The narrative is often intermixed with Updike-like musings on such peripheral topics as contact lenses versus eyeglasses or the experience of transcribing dictaphone tapes. But always (even more so than in Updike), these meditations are inspired and filtered through the protagonist's all-pervasive sexuality.
Speaking of sex… Yes, there's rather a lot of it. But since this is "literary pornography" (a term that in combination with Nicholson Baker's name returns 206 hits on Google), it's not the wall-to-wall sex you'll find in straightforward porn [cough[like mine]cough]. But the hot parts are definitely hot, and cover a generous range of kinks and variations.
Something of a standard line of description in reviews of erotica is "but there's a good story too." I'm spared from having to parrot that apologetic-sounding phrase here, because really there is no "story" to "The Fermata." There's no plot arc or character arc to speak of. Rather, it's more of a portrait -- a deftly and artistically rendered portrait of a delightful character and his magical gift.
August 23, 2011
This book is so smutty that I should have thought better of reading it at work on a slow day. Some passages – especially those in which Arno, the protagonist, freezes time so he can write a dirty story tailored to one momentary subject of his infatuation or another and hide it within reach so that she will find it when he unfreezes time – test the limits of what one could consider public reading material. The rest of the book considers Arno's unusual abilities from a charmed philosophical distance, but there's no doubt that when this book gets dirty it gets real durty.
Like many of Baker's other novels, "The Fermata" makes use of an unconventional narrative pace, but what could read as foppish or annoyingly smarmy is instead character-driven, and better yet, driven by a very intelligent, observant character. I guess that's the source of the charm, which is why I consider the outré turns "smutty" rather than "filthy" – because really, smut is a non-threatening grade of human vagary motivated by humility rather than gonzo boners (or at least it seems so to me).
I know others have voiced concerns about the book's lackadaisical morals regarding undressing and examining women who are frozen in time, and if my grad school punch-card hasn't already been revoked, saying that I find those moral quandaries to be ultimately less than crucial here would certainly do the trick. Still, I think the problem most germane to this kind of story isn't what a man does with the power to stop time but how he rationalizes its presence in his life. Arno is a terminal temp, living comfortably but without the garnishes we usually expect to accompany a nearly middle-aged life, but more crucially, he is alienated by the skill he can't share and the attitudes it grants him. Though these particular details are fantastical, in practice they really aren't so different from how so many of us (or myself, anyway) approach adulthood.
And yet, and yet. Such an elegant metaphor could turn nihilistic. The story takes a fairly conventional romantic narrative arc in its last act, one that's reaffirming but not wholly convincing. I found it a little rushed and dissatisfying, but I was still glad Baker didn't turn this effervescent novel into a time-altering update of "The Trial."
Like many of Baker's other novels, "The Fermata" makes use of an unconventional narrative pace, but what could read as foppish or annoyingly smarmy is instead character-driven, and better yet, driven by a very intelligent, observant character. I guess that's the source of the charm, which is why I consider the outré turns "smutty" rather than "filthy" – because really, smut is a non-threatening grade of human vagary motivated by humility rather than gonzo boners (or at least it seems so to me).
I know others have voiced concerns about the book's lackadaisical morals regarding undressing and examining women who are frozen in time, and if my grad school punch-card hasn't already been revoked, saying that I find those moral quandaries to be ultimately less than crucial here would certainly do the trick. Still, I think the problem most germane to this kind of story isn't what a man does with the power to stop time but how he rationalizes its presence in his life. Arno is a terminal temp, living comfortably but without the garnishes we usually expect to accompany a nearly middle-aged life, but more crucially, he is alienated by the skill he can't share and the attitudes it grants him. Though these particular details are fantastical, in practice they really aren't so different from how so many of us (or myself, anyway) approach adulthood.
And yet, and yet. Such an elegant metaphor could turn nihilistic. The story takes a fairly conventional romantic narrative arc in its last act, one that's reaffirming but not wholly convincing. I found it a little rushed and dissatisfying, but I was still glad Baker didn't turn this effervescent novel into a time-altering update of "The Trial."
June 18, 2014
The Fermata is, simply put, a puerile fantasy disguised as a memoir, written by a man who uses his ability to stop time to become the most prolific rapist in the history of the universe.
Spoiler alert, he does eventually get his comeuppance when he finally falls in love with a woman and loses the time-stopping power to her. She punishes him by using it to sexually satisfy him in all new and unexpected ways.
Hey, wait a minute, that's not a comeuppance, that's the erotic fantasy of a damaged, lonely 15 year old.
This book actually made me a little bit sick to my stomach. Full disclosure, I had time stopping fantasies when I was a teenager, when I didn't understand that women were people and not just walking pornography for me to jerk off to. At some point I grew up. Nicholson Baker obviously did not.
Spoiler alert, he does eventually get his comeuppance when he finally falls in love with a woman and loses the time-stopping power to her. She punishes him by using it to sexually satisfy him in all new and unexpected ways.
Hey, wait a minute, that's not a comeuppance, that's the erotic fantasy of a damaged, lonely 15 year old.
This book actually made me a little bit sick to my stomach. Full disclosure, I had time stopping fantasies when I was a teenager, when I didn't understand that women were people and not just walking pornography for me to jerk off to. At some point I grew up. Nicholson Baker obviously did not.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 25, 2008
An entertaining, unexpectedly moving read. I recommend this to all women who want to know how the male mind thinks, especially in regard to sex. Really, I can think of no better novel about this subject. The premise, about a guy who can stop time and do whatever he pleases while the world is frozen, may seem tired at this point, but Baker uses it to often surprising ends. The protagonist at first thinks about using his gift for noble deeds, but doesn't really. That's pretty honest.
Read
May 17, 2017Finally someone capable of wielding the English language writes some raunchy, dirty, smart, meta-porn. Well, no, certainly not *that* kind of meta-porn. Simply meta-fiction with some porn written in. It's good.
Shelved as 'physical-copy-tbr'
July 17, 2022i saw this for sale in a cafe but i forgot my wallet so i had to borrow money from my dad who wanted to read the blurb so this book had better be FUCKING worth it
April 9, 2009
I skimmed through the other reviews for this book and was a bit amused at the basic question of "What would feminists think of this?" or to paraphrase another way, "Not sure women would like this book!" As a woman, I had no problem with it.
As a person, I loved this book! Whether I agree or disagree with everything the protagonist(s) does(do) is not an object in whether I like or dislike a book. Did I particularly like how they kill the piggy in Lord of the Flies? No. Did I love the book? Yes.
Baker takes what could be a cliche and moribund topic, and lights it afire with a passion. It's humorous, it's visual, and the "moral moments" are not too didactic.
Porn was not allowed to go through the mail to Iraq, but literature is, so I sent it to my husband when he was deployed. He loved it too.
As a person, I loved this book! Whether I agree or disagree with everything the protagonist(s) does(do) is not an object in whether I like or dislike a book. Did I particularly like how they kill the piggy in Lord of the Flies? No. Did I love the book? Yes.
Baker takes what could be a cliche and moribund topic, and lights it afire with a passion. It's humorous, it's visual, and the "moral moments" are not too didactic.
Porn was not allowed to go through the mail to Iraq, but literature is, so I sent it to my husband when he was deployed. He loved it too.
Read
January 21, 2021I'll probably finish this eventually, since I think I'm about 2/3 of the way into it. It's okay. The premise is intriguing--guy has power to freeze time, uses it to get pervy, a lot, and it pretty much defines what's important in his life. I think it has enough worthwhile material to make a decent short story, or maybe a slimmer novella. Maybe not much more. The humor often didn't work for me, though I liked the initial absurdity of the protagonist's first attempt at writing erotica. The obsessive-compulsiveness of it, and its commitment to following its premise, taking it seriously enough to look at its implications... I thought at first it was going to be the strength of the book, and I reckon it's admirable of the author to pursue a project in this way... and yet it became tiresome for me. But I probably ought to eventually follow it to its conclusion. Maybe not right now, though.
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I went back to finish it, and regrettably, it gets worse. It was, overall, extremely tedious. At times it was repulsive, which... yeah, is likely intentional, but no thanks. The facetious use of ridiculous erotica-style terms for body parts and sex acts, such as fist-hammering one's "gender-pole" was a worn-out schtick very early on, but it just kept going--not to my amusement. If it's not going to make you laugh, it's going to make you groan a lot, like being trapped at a stand-up comedy show that ran off the rails from the first joke but went on for hours anyway. So, it alternates between that kind of unpleasantness and the other unpleasantness of being trapped in another man's bizarre fetish fantasy. (It doesn't matter if it's a semi-parodic fantasy, I was still trapped in it.)
And then, briefly at the end, it got a touch better--not a whole lot, but somewhat--when the tedium broke and the book's dilemma worked out a way to resolve itself--as another kind of fantasy, it is true--but it was a relief for the fantasy to take on another kind character. But what was probably best about the ending was that it finally felt relatively brisk and not too laborious... and the end was finally approaching. I was halfway tempted to forgive and forget what came before, but I couldn't.
I don't know for sure if I've been a little too harsh, or not harsh enough. This certainly left some impressions. But I think the book was ill-conceived, nothing I can think of could quite fix it, and I'd probably have rather read... well, one-thousand-and-one other possible books.
(And, the third way I thought of to end this review is...)
One thing I usually value is when a book is completely different from other books I've read. This is that, but I guess it's the wrong kind of different.
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I went back to finish it, and regrettably, it gets worse. It was, overall, extremely tedious. At times it was repulsive, which... yeah, is likely intentional, but no thanks. The facetious use of ridiculous erotica-style terms for body parts and sex acts, such as fist-hammering one's "gender-pole" was a worn-out schtick very early on, but it just kept going--not to my amusement. If it's not going to make you laugh, it's going to make you groan a lot, like being trapped at a stand-up comedy show that ran off the rails from the first joke but went on for hours anyway. So, it alternates between that kind of unpleasantness and the other unpleasantness of being trapped in another man's bizarre fetish fantasy. (It doesn't matter if it's a semi-parodic fantasy, I was still trapped in it.)
And then, briefly at the end, it got a touch better--not a whole lot, but somewhat--when the tedium broke and the book's dilemma worked out a way to resolve itself--as another kind of fantasy, it is true--but it was a relief for the fantasy to take on another kind character. But what was probably best about the ending was that it finally felt relatively brisk and not too laborious... and the end was finally approaching. I was halfway tempted to forgive and forget what came before, but I couldn't.
I don't know for sure if I've been a little too harsh, or not harsh enough. This certainly left some impressions. But I think the book was ill-conceived, nothing I can think of could quite fix it, and I'd probably have rather read... well, one-thousand-and-one other possible books.
(And, the third way I thought of to end this review is...)
One thing I usually value is when a book is completely different from other books I've read. This is that, but I guess it's the wrong kind of different.
March 3, 2008
Mr. Morrison recommended I check this out after reading that "Killing Time" thing I wrote. And yeah, it's kind of exactly the same idea stretched to the length of a novel. Namely, what would you do if you could actually stop time (answer: take people's clothes off).
Except whereas I thought it would be funnier to just hint at the idea, Baker seemed to think it was funnier to go into pages and pages of graphic detail about the whole process. Maybe that is funnier, I dunno.
So it was interesting for the first two chapters, because we both came to similar conclusions about what being the only thing moving through time would be like, eventually I got sick of it because you can only read so many accounts of a guy masturbating on people and then congratulating himself on his ethical behaviour.
I guess this book kind of called my bluff.
p.s. Also featured in sexual encounters are the most ridiculous nicknames for rude bits. He actually uses the phrase "stain-stick". I guess I laughed a bit at that, but not in the good way.
Maybe I just haven't read enough erotica?
Except whereas I thought it would be funnier to just hint at the idea, Baker seemed to think it was funnier to go into pages and pages of graphic detail about the whole process. Maybe that is funnier, I dunno.
So it was interesting for the first two chapters, because we both came to similar conclusions about what being the only thing moving through time would be like, eventually I got sick of it because you can only read so many accounts of a guy masturbating on people and then congratulating himself on his ethical behaviour.
I guess this book kind of called my bluff.
p.s. Also featured in sexual encounters are the most ridiculous nicknames for rude bits. He actually uses the phrase "stain-stick". I guess I laughed a bit at that, but not in the good way.
Maybe I just haven't read enough erotica?
January 7, 2014
For lack of a better word, the premise of this book is really... rapey. This book was recommended to me as a sexy literary read and by the time I finished the first 20 pages or so (because that's as far as I got before returning the ebook to my library) I felt very uncomfortable. Even though the main character seemingly enjoys undressing women, his narration feels incredibly awkward and dispassionate. The book isn't bad per se; Baker is clearly talented, but The Fermata is utterly unappealing and unpleasant in every conceivable way.
June 22, 2007
one of two books from the early 1990s to make nicholson baker a household name (the other being the even bigger-selling vox), this novel tells the tale of a dysfunctional intellectual who figures out how to stop time...then uses the ability to keep his life in a perpetual stage of suspended adolescence, as well as commenting a lot about the world at large. like the rest of his work, the fermata is a polarizing piece of fiction, one you're guaranteed to either love or hate.
March 31, 2023
I was going to open this review by saying that its not a book to be read in public when I checked myself. Would I be ok if I was seen reading a Jo Nesbo book, Corman McCarthy or Brett Eastern Ellis? Of course but why? Why should I not feel deviant and ashamed of reading about murder yet harmless sex (and before anyone bleats on about the consent issue in the book it is harmless in the truest sense as no one is harmed). Why should I not want it to be known that I’m reading about a guy exposing a woman’s breast but ok with someone knowing that I’m reading about a guy exposing someone’s intestines with a sharpened credit card?
This dichotomy is not purely theoretical, it’s a legitimate question with real world consequences. I write this review in the week that in the US a school principal has lost her job after pupils in her school were shown an image of MIchelangelo’s David while in another school 3 children and 3 adults lost their lives to a school shooter. Lets all marvel at the American mores that sees penises as more dangerous than pistols.
So I’m admitting to reading a book about a guy who can freeze time and uses it to strip and reclothe women.
Wherever you choose to read the book it would seem that it is not without controversy. Firstly, I’d like to say that I have little time for people who claim they enjoyed it when they first read it and now in the wake of #MeToo they have re-evaluated it. Either the behaviour is wrong or its not, and your opinion should not be based on the current fashionable movement. Secondly – it’s a book, it is fiction. The guy cannot actually stop time, the women do not exist so why its ok to have a fictitious woman murdered but not have her pubes looked at, maybe someone can tell me. There is also the third issue of those newly outraged having overlooked or forgotten the nuances of the book. Arno is acutely aware that what he is doing is wrong, he says it explicitly, he admits his girlfriend left him over him even imagining doing it and he makes up the most ridiculously silly justifications for his deviance – along the lines of the A&E patients who happened to trip and fall in such a way that a random lightbulb that was inexplicably on the floor ended up in their rectum. At one point he even suggests that,
Nobody else should be entitled to take off women’s clothes at will, at the snap of a finger or the flip of a switch, but I think I should be, because, for one thing, my curiosity has more love and tolerance in it than other men’s does.
Outrageous yet when you read it and read what other men he asks say they’d do with the same power its hard to say his opinion is completely delusional.
Mainly it is funny. Arno is funny. His obsession with breasts and nakedness is more gauche than anything, and in many instances you can hear the Sid James laugh as a soundtrack. He is like a teenager with his attempts to shock, his leaving dirty messages in books, his writing of the dirtiest scenarios he can contemplate – which depressingly are really very tame in comparison to even mainstream porn of today. He is a man in arrested development, in his 30s, temping, a half finished masters (or phd can’t remember which), living alone and lacking in self-esteem. In moving life Baker makes him seem quite pathetic, the women have the ascendancy over him. Take this scene which is very funny and shows how the woman humours him and he completely misjudges the encounter,
I fanned the coals so strenuously and rapidly with the Arts section of the Globe that my balls started flapping backward and forward in exactly the same rhythm as my arms. It was a unique experience, to be able to feel those cocktail onions to-ing and fro-ing with such gusto. I stopped to get my breath and as the flames grew looked up at the woman standing near me… and I said to her in an amazed voice, “My balls are actually flapping. It’s a new experience.” She nodded sideways, smiling, and sipped her drink; she didn’t seem to mind my telling her that. I fanned the coals some more and then we talked briefly of barbecue starter-coils. “But you seem to like flapping, “ she said. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that.” God, how I treasure those little flirtatious moments.
Cocktail onions had me laughing out loud.
He is also a pervert who wants to convince us he is not but his attempts just prove the contrary. Take this example where he describes using an impromptu sex aid made from half an avocado (seed still in) and an electric toothbrush and concludes by suggesting this is less outre than his frozen time fondlings,
“I record this here in passing so I won’t seem, with all of my somewhat aberrant sneaking and skulking in the Cleft, totally devoid of more typical sexual instincts.”
And therein lies (sorry going to have to do it) the rub. Most people would rather see someone they found attractive naked than get friendly with a buzzing, bristled avocado which begs the question is he aberrant or just an opportunist?
There was also something refreshing in reading about a man who genuinely loves women. He loves women of all ages of all shapes and in a time when the famously left leaning, pro feminist newspaper the Guardian went all John Ruskin and told a woman that she should wax her pubes off because her younger boyfriend would be disgusted by pubic hair, he is not phased by women au naturel. They are also everyday women in baggy sweaters, in glasses with run-of-the-mill jobs women who have not spent a fortune to look like a Kardashian, and despite the decades of feminism this is a rare case of normal women being seen as sexually alluring. And for all of Arno’s self love, he is a man with love to give and he spends the book searching for it, often the frozen activities are compensation for his fear of rejection by these women. When he achieves love, things change.
This book is a celebration of sex but sex as a fun, slightly silly activity that preoccupies a lot of people a large amount of the time. It is also a literary book. Baker writes long, beautiful sentences, I think one stretched to half a page the entirety of said page being a description of lying on a beach towel. His command of language is masterly and the book is full of plays on words and puns and literary references.
Many years ago I read a book called Once More, With Feeling: How we tried to make the greatest porn film ever where Victoria Coren set out to make a porn film that had a good storyline and held the viewers interest between the sex scenes. I think if she’d had filmed this book she would have succeeded.
This dichotomy is not purely theoretical, it’s a legitimate question with real world consequences. I write this review in the week that in the US a school principal has lost her job after pupils in her school were shown an image of MIchelangelo’s David while in another school 3 children and 3 adults lost their lives to a school shooter. Lets all marvel at the American mores that sees penises as more dangerous than pistols.
So I’m admitting to reading a book about a guy who can freeze time and uses it to strip and reclothe women.
Wherever you choose to read the book it would seem that it is not without controversy. Firstly, I’d like to say that I have little time for people who claim they enjoyed it when they first read it and now in the wake of #MeToo they have re-evaluated it. Either the behaviour is wrong or its not, and your opinion should not be based on the current fashionable movement. Secondly – it’s a book, it is fiction. The guy cannot actually stop time, the women do not exist so why its ok to have a fictitious woman murdered but not have her pubes looked at, maybe someone can tell me. There is also the third issue of those newly outraged having overlooked or forgotten the nuances of the book. Arno is acutely aware that what he is doing is wrong, he says it explicitly, he admits his girlfriend left him over him even imagining doing it and he makes up the most ridiculously silly justifications for his deviance – along the lines of the A&E patients who happened to trip and fall in such a way that a random lightbulb that was inexplicably on the floor ended up in their rectum. At one point he even suggests that,
Nobody else should be entitled to take off women’s clothes at will, at the snap of a finger or the flip of a switch, but I think I should be, because, for one thing, my curiosity has more love and tolerance in it than other men’s does.
Outrageous yet when you read it and read what other men he asks say they’d do with the same power its hard to say his opinion is completely delusional.
Mainly it is funny. Arno is funny. His obsession with breasts and nakedness is more gauche than anything, and in many instances you can hear the Sid James laugh as a soundtrack. He is like a teenager with his attempts to shock, his leaving dirty messages in books, his writing of the dirtiest scenarios he can contemplate – which depressingly are really very tame in comparison to even mainstream porn of today. He is a man in arrested development, in his 30s, temping, a half finished masters (or phd can’t remember which), living alone and lacking in self-esteem. In moving life Baker makes him seem quite pathetic, the women have the ascendancy over him. Take this scene which is very funny and shows how the woman humours him and he completely misjudges the encounter,
I fanned the coals so strenuously and rapidly with the Arts section of the Globe that my balls started flapping backward and forward in exactly the same rhythm as my arms. It was a unique experience, to be able to feel those cocktail onions to-ing and fro-ing with such gusto. I stopped to get my breath and as the flames grew looked up at the woman standing near me… and I said to her in an amazed voice, “My balls are actually flapping. It’s a new experience.” She nodded sideways, smiling, and sipped her drink; she didn’t seem to mind my telling her that. I fanned the coals some more and then we talked briefly of barbecue starter-coils. “But you seem to like flapping, “ she said. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that.” God, how I treasure those little flirtatious moments.
Cocktail onions had me laughing out loud.
He is also a pervert who wants to convince us he is not but his attempts just prove the contrary. Take this example where he describes using an impromptu sex aid made from half an avocado (seed still in) and an electric toothbrush and concludes by suggesting this is less outre than his frozen time fondlings,
“I record this here in passing so I won’t seem, with all of my somewhat aberrant sneaking and skulking in the Cleft, totally devoid of more typical sexual instincts.”
And therein lies (sorry going to have to do it) the rub. Most people would rather see someone they found attractive naked than get friendly with a buzzing, bristled avocado which begs the question is he aberrant or just an opportunist?
There was also something refreshing in reading about a man who genuinely loves women. He loves women of all ages of all shapes and in a time when the famously left leaning, pro feminist newspaper the Guardian went all John Ruskin and told a woman that she should wax her pubes off because her younger boyfriend would be disgusted by pubic hair, he is not phased by women au naturel. They are also everyday women in baggy sweaters, in glasses with run-of-the-mill jobs women who have not spent a fortune to look like a Kardashian, and despite the decades of feminism this is a rare case of normal women being seen as sexually alluring. And for all of Arno’s self love, he is a man with love to give and he spends the book searching for it, often the frozen activities are compensation for his fear of rejection by these women. When he achieves love, things change.
This book is a celebration of sex but sex as a fun, slightly silly activity that preoccupies a lot of people a large amount of the time. It is also a literary book. Baker writes long, beautiful sentences, I think one stretched to half a page the entirety of said page being a description of lying on a beach towel. His command of language is masterly and the book is full of plays on words and puns and literary references.
Many years ago I read a book called Once More, With Feeling: How we tried to make the greatest porn film ever where Victoria Coren set out to make a porn film that had a good storyline and held the viewers interest between the sex scenes. I think if she’d had filmed this book she would have succeeded.
February 26, 2023
What carried me through to the end of this hugely overgrown erotic novella was the outstanding writing. Sure, 'The Fermata' is literally navel-gazing and masturbatory, but the protagonist makes no bones about his 'gift,' he is keenly, hilariously self-aware of how lucky he is and how essentially innocent are his desires. This is reading as pleasure, one of the many minor subtexts of the book. Nicholson Baker never never stops offering the sharpest and most utterly original word-craft even when he's essentially given up on the plot itself. The tiniest tinge of pretention would've sunk this book and so it's a credit to the author that 'The Fermata' stays staunchly afloat. Baker's writing is what makes 'The Fermata' such a good read.
Finally here is one of among several paragraphs and-or sections I found outstanding and which would pretty much define the entirety of 'The Fermata':
"The Fermata allows me ... to take in a paricular lived second of one woman's life, the incremental outcome of so many decisions and misfortunes and delights and griefs, while she is in the very midst of bringing it into being. The ability to investigate all aspects of her careless aliveness, where her clothes stretch, her body's textures, her expression, her smells, the way she happens to be standing or moving ... the daily fluidity of her life whose specific complex of qualities would have otherwise gone unseen by anyone-- unphotographed, uncelebrated, unvalued, unloved. It is their randomness and, often their very lack of overt sexiness that makes these instants so erotically precious."
Finally here is one of among several paragraphs and-or sections I found outstanding and which would pretty much define the entirety of 'The Fermata':
"The Fermata allows me ... to take in a paricular lived second of one woman's life, the incremental outcome of so many decisions and misfortunes and delights and griefs, while she is in the very midst of bringing it into being. The ability to investigate all aspects of her careless aliveness, where her clothes stretch, her body's textures, her expression, her smells, the way she happens to be standing or moving ... the daily fluidity of her life whose specific complex of qualities would have otherwise gone unseen by anyone-- unphotographed, uncelebrated, unvalued, unloved. It is their randomness and, often their very lack of overt sexiness that makes these instants so erotically precious."
September 27, 2013
I got this book because I read Baker's non-fiction book, "Double Fold" in library school, and thought it was very interesting and well-written. 'The Fermata' is quite different! Basically, it's porn. But not porn that I found appealing. It's written in the form of a memoir of a seemingly ordinary man who works as a temp transcriptionist - who has the ability to stop time. Rather than using this power to do any of the obvious possibilities (heists, assassinations, blackmail(?)), he uses his time in 'the fermata' pretty much exclusively to molest women. Morally, he tries to justify himself by saying that he's not hurting anyone - the women are totally unaware about what's been done to their frozen, unresponsive bodies, so what's the problem? The character has an ex-girlfriend, who broke up with him because she was disturbed and repelled by what she believed were his fantasies regarding these actions - and I'm totally with her: the exciting thing about sex is the seduction, the interaction. Molesting mannequin-like, unmoving bodies is thoroughly unexciting. Later in the book, when the narrator decides to try his hand at writing erotica (and placing it for women to read), the stories presented as his writing aren't terribly my cup of tea, either. This is undeniably a well-done book, but it is just meant to appeal to people with different fantasies than mine.
December 6, 2009
I'm beginning to sense that Baker is one of the more obsessive writers around. When he writes a book putting the obsessiveness to use about the destruction of print resources, it is interesting and somewhat tolerable. When it is about poetry, it is charming, and as a reader it pushed me towards a poetry reading binge that has yet to wane. I didn't care for it so much in this book, and I honestly don't want to go into much detail about why. I think in the world of Baker, this is one I would skip (although I haven't had much luck getting into the Mezzanine either).
November 5, 2014
Well, I gave it til page 100, but I just can't take anymore. No more dull, fetishistic erotica and endless boring digressions. My heart sank every time I turned a page and saw another dense block of unparagraphed prose. I usually feel compelled to finish every book I start, but this time it feels good to let go.
May 18, 2019
I'm procrastinating this review for days now, because I don't know what to say.
The number of stars, I was pretty sure about that after only a few pages.
But words... what are the words?
Because, this book had effect on me on wanting to be on the same literal level with it, I guess somewhere inside I want to be author of something this good, creator of... well, creator is kinda heavy word, sounds like creator of creation and you can never be that, but you can help crystalize some aspect of reality for others to see. I guess that's the best any artist or scientist can hope.
So I was here in a bit of fermata myself. Stripping this book to the bone, snap shooting its various esthetic aspects while it's patiently, not knowingly, standing still, for my pleasure and ever rising feeling of inadequacy. Just like a man faced with incomprehensible, stupendously inexhaustible, glory of female body.
So in my complete inability to rise up to the occasion, I'm reverting to elements. Basic words. This is simply one of the smartest, most intelligent, sexiest and truthful books I've ever read.
The truth that is in there, is about men. The book is written in the first person, so the experience for me was almost like listening to myself talking, with the addition of interesting content. Considering I'm typical male, I believe every reasonably introspective man could recognize himself in this book. But be warned: this book is to be ingested in small sips. Unless you're off the scale intelligent, or simply don't have that inner eye capable of appreciating literary beauty. If you do, take it slow, and enjoy.
The number of stars, I was pretty sure about that after only a few pages.
But words... what are the words?
Because, this book had effect on me on wanting to be on the same literal level with it, I guess somewhere inside I want to be author of something this good, creator of... well, creator is kinda heavy word, sounds like creator of creation and you can never be that, but you can help crystalize some aspect of reality for others to see. I guess that's the best any artist or scientist can hope.
So I was here in a bit of fermata myself. Stripping this book to the bone, snap shooting its various esthetic aspects while it's patiently, not knowingly, standing still, for my pleasure and ever rising feeling of inadequacy. Just like a man faced with incomprehensible, stupendously inexhaustible, glory of female body.
So in my complete inability to rise up to the occasion, I'm reverting to elements. Basic words. This is simply one of the smartest, most intelligent, sexiest and truthful books I've ever read.
The truth that is in there, is about men. The book is written in the first person, so the experience for me was almost like listening to myself talking, with the addition of interesting content. Considering I'm typical male, I believe every reasonably introspective man could recognize himself in this book. But be warned: this book is to be ingested in small sips. Unless you're off the scale intelligent, or simply don't have that inner eye capable of appreciating literary beauty. If you do, take it slow, and enjoy.
May 5, 2020
This book just may be a bit risque in the #Metoo -Cosbyesque, perv'em while they're out kinda way but no different than say "Lolita" is though far less literate, still; it's a jaunty yeah lubricious look at stopped time and modus operandi, an ethical misfit at the perv helm doings that disturb if you let them, but otherwise a comical kid in the candy store.
May 1, 2007
This was the last Nicholson Baker book I read. The fact that it is his longest and the pornographic one can't be a coincidence, right? I guess I think of NB as fatherly because he has a beard, so reading this book makes me feel only slightly less grossed out than finding my father's Playboy stash. What I learned from this book is simply a reinforcement of a notion which is pretty common sense, which is that nerds and bookworms are just as capable of being perved out as people who can't hammer and nail sentences together worth a damn.
The only NB books I have left to read are the (boring, right?) book about card catalogs and Checkpoint. Ah, I like the formatting tips on the side of this "review" box, someone's thought this website out! Ok, but anyhow, the last thing I was going to say is that the only thing more uncomfortable than reading an author's thinly veiled autobiographical erotica is reading thinly veiled autobiographical political assassination fantasies. So I probably won't.
The only NB books I have left to read are the (boring, right?) book about card catalogs and Checkpoint. Ah, I like the formatting tips on the side of this "review" box, someone's thought this website out! Ok, but anyhow, the last thing I was going to say is that the only thing more uncomfortable than reading an author's thinly veiled autobiographical erotica is reading thinly veiled autobiographical political assassination fantasies. So I probably won't.
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