Lucretia Stewart

Considering some of the fine literary crafts-people in this anthology the overall effect is somewhat mediocre. With such authors as Miller, Hemingway, Mansfield, Boswell, Byron, Gide, Theroux, Brooke, Flaubert just to name but a few, I was expecting to dip into something enlightening and elicit - however I found most of the selected edits to be a bit on the ordinary side of par standard. I know that many of these authors, the ones I am familiar with, have tastier ribald stories that could be shared, but don't let this turn you off from delving into this anthology, you may just discover some fresh talent you weren't aware of and embark on whole new journeys with writers whom have tickled your fancy.

Many of the stories reveal sides to writers not commonly communicated by their followers and certainly not oft quoted as part of their oeuvre, so some interesting scenarios and infatuations prop up through-out the anthology. Erogenous Zones is extremely well written because it's contributors know their penmanship so you won't be let down by the writing itself. Some of the stories leave memorable traces in the mind like Aime Crocker's 'And I'd Do It Again', Paul Theroux's 'My Other Life', Geoff Dyer's 'Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H.Lawrence, Hugo Williams 'No Particular Place to Go', and so on. These are excerpts from novels so it is also reasonable to keep in mind that they are isolated and some may lose effect as stand alone pieces. Sometimes a single sentence in a book arouses the imagination over entire chapters, so I am forgiving of the disparate nature of them.

Erogenous Zones is a good edition to anyone's shelf of pleasure books, so not to be dismissed entirely.… (mehr)