Monsieur by Emma Becker
| Monsieur by Emma Becker | |
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| Category: Literary Fiction | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: At last lovers in erotic fiction get together on Facebook, but the real world of computer sex and literate porn seems to have too little bearing on the contents. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 372 | Date: October 2012 |
| Publisher: Constable | |
| ISBN: 9781780334769 | |
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She is a twenty-year old student, with an average cleavage and a big bum. He is 45, a married cosmetic surgeon, and a friend of the family, having worked with her uncle for years. They might be an unlikely couple – at least outside the realms of erotic fiction they are – but as she puts it, she wants him to show me what a man was like, a real man, a man who could fill my body and my mind. The consequences are in this novel.
In the ever-diminishing search for something different in this genre, which I turn to about once a year, it is nice to report that this is the first to reach my hands that is definitely within the Facebook, youporn era. The problem with that is that it makes Ellie even more of a naif than she should be. She professes surprise that this is of interest, disgust that that appeals to a man, yet wants the titular Monsieur because, as she has it, he knows all the perversions. She certainly didn't use her internet browser to find out about any of them beforehand. Luckily, we get her first person narrative, which offers a quicker read than the page-count suggests, and an intimate depth of detail and emotion, to forget just how ignorant this character is.
Which is odd, as they also share an interest in erotic fiction, with this book bandying about the names of several classic authors of the genre. This might lend a pretentious edge, and that is only followed by the realisation that the female is going to write a novel about the male. Whether this is the book its own lead character ends up writing or not is not immediately apparent (although it is Emma Becker writing about Ellie Becker – make of that what you will), we get a peculiar narrative. It seems at first just badly edited – a book is enjoyed before it is bought, a handful of extra lovers for Ellie turns up out of the blue – but it also seems scattershot. We get elements of the end of their relationship too early, and things seem given us randomly, creating a distancing effect if anything, as the blow-by-blow (suck-by-suck) account does not go as far as emotionally conveying the lapses in the affair with the expected chronology.
There is an adage I vaguely remember about the difference between pornographic and erotic – something about you can tell them apart when one has what the other thinks is inessential. This has Ellie take a lengthy pot-fuelled sojourn on holiday, which might be the inessential, or on the other hand an interesting, fresher look at bisexuality (hers, of course – it could never be his in these books). But this does definitely feature much the pornographer would deem unnecessary, and it definitely aspires to being more literary, more cerebral, than many of its ilk. That leaves it with the ultimate damnation in some eyes, then, of it, er, not being stirring enough. At least it's not one of those black-robed 50 Grades of Shay rip-offs flooding the supermarket shelves at the moment, being an erotic volume for both genders, but being a flawed one – the characters are too much like their stereotypes to embody the cyberporn world they touch upon, and in the end the growth of her self-assurance (or otherwise) through such underwhelming things as anal sex, self-touching in front of others and so on, is not distanced enough from what is now, unfortunately, old hat. To repeat, however, I did get engaged more than I thought in the peculiarly-told telling of what was in hindsight an overly-naïve young woman's sexual journey.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
Fifty Shades Of Grey by EL James should need no introduction.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Monsieur by Emma Becker at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Monsieur by Emma Becker at Amazon.com.
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