Sadly, Porn is a book I really enjoyed when I read it for the first time a couple of years ago. But when I came back to it a couple of weeks ago I found I didn't like it nearly as much. Something changed, I guess.
So while this is technically a review of Sadly, Porn, it's really just me doing my best to figure out why it appealed to me then and why it doesn't now. You can, of course, come along for the ride if such is your inclination.
A little preface before I get into the meat and potatoes: apparently the guy who wrote this book used to run a blog called The Last Psychiatrist. Apparently he has a pretty loyal following, which is one reason why it sold well enough to even show up on my map. Weird self-published books written under pseudonyms don't usually move gazillions of copies. (The man calls himself Edward Teach, for goodness's sake.) Anyway, before I get into things I just want to clarify that I am not, nor have I ever been, a reader of The Last Psychiatrist.
The Good
Sadly, Porn is at least a fun read, I have to give it that much. It's a little like reading one of Slavoj Zizek’s books–where he's bouncing around from topic to topic so quickly and apparently arbitrarily that there's no following the argument without doing a really granular analysis.
Like Zizek, this guy likes to analyze pieces of media in an idiosyncratic way, rather than come out and say what the point he's trying to make actually is. Unlike Zizek, this guy mostly likes analyzing literature. Within the first few hundred pages we get analyses of Oedipus Rex, Rebecca, The Bostonians, and A Christmas Carol. Later on we get into Thucydides, The Scarlet Letter, etc.
The book is supposed to be about porn, and it is, sort of. It begins with a weird pornographic story written from the woman's point of view. But most of the book actually consists of these anecdotes from history and analyses of fiction. The overall point vaguely seems to be something about people not being able to act on their own and looking for something to compel them to act. But then again there's so much in the book that it's hard to parse what, exactly, the whole thing is all about.
But on a sentence by sentence basis, Sadly, Porn is a highly enjoyable read. The Last Psychiatrist has an engaging style, he's often witty, and will now and then offer an insight or piece of introspection that's deeply striking. (The fact that he doesn't think much of introspection and usually presents his insights as personal insults to the reader is another of his idiosyncrasies.) Even if the book doesn't give up its secrets easily, there's food for thought here and you won't get bored reading it.
The Bad
Now, what is it about the book that I didn't like the second time around? For one thing: the footnotes.
Probably a good three-quarters of the book is footnotes. It feels like the guy is trying to write Infinite Jest, there's so many footnotes. And plenty of the footnotes are as long as chapters, and by the time you get to the end of the footnote you've completely lost the thread of what the chapter was talking about. Not to mention that it's not always clear why any given footnote is relevant to whatever is being talked about in the main text. I mean, at least in Infinite Jest the footnotes were usually relevant, interesting, and not too long. Sure, there were a few times you'd turn to the back of the book and find a little piece of pedantic clarification, but then you could just roll your eyes and get on with the story. With Sadly, Porn, on the other hand, the footnotes are the book.
It's a book that seems hostile to the reader and hostile to the idea of communicating anything clearly, is what I'm saying here. Which does relate to some of the book’s themes (more on that later), but doesn't exactly make it an inviting read.
Which might have something to do with why I liked it so much the first time I read it. The unvarnished contempt for the reader, the feeling that there was an enigma here that I might be able to puzzle out–I ate it up, really. I guess you could say I've started to prefer writers who have a more friendly attitude toward their readers.
What's the Point?
So, to wrap up the review, let's hit on a couple of the ideas that really stand out in the book.
One thing that pops up a lot is this idea that knowledge is a way of compensating for the inability to act. This guy's always writing about how you can be either omnipotent or omniscient, but not both. Which, hell, maybe that's true, I guess?
There's also a lot of stuff about people without power doing all they can to deprive others of either power or enjoyment. Even if they lose in the process, it's worth it in order to be able to deprive the other. And granted, we all know people like that, and in a certain cockeyed way I can see how it relates to porn, but good gravy the book is a thousand pages long and there comes a time where you wish the guy would just spit it out for once.
(Which is why I said the book’s hostility to communication relates to its themes. Oooh, the book about people depriving the other of enjoyment won't come out and tell you what it's about. Of course if you pointed that out to the writer he'd probably just insult you.)
Anyway, if you want to read a book that's purportedly about something that it really isn't actually about, you could do worse than Sadly, Porn. Or if you just like reading books that insult you, I mean you're welcome to get off on that if you want.
Comments