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ALSO IN SALON:
The enduring power of America's favorite icon
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______e a t me
BY LINDA JAIVIN
BY COURTNEY WEAVER
"I've never quite understood the difference between erotica and pornography, have you?" muses Helen, one of the four female protagonists in Linda Jaivin's first novel, "Eat Me." "I mean, is erotica merely porn with literary pretensions? Or is something pornography if written by a man but erotica if penned by a woman?" This begs a similar question: When does a novel in which sex is the main component cease to be read for "pure" pleasure and begin to exist for its voyeuristic and masturbatory potential? You can't take any of these questions too seriously with "Eat Me," which despite all its literary pretensions and self-referential semiotic theory issues is best read as a racy and entertaining romp. Like the casual sexual encounters that all four of the women describe to every last detail, it tastes great, is less filling and is ultimately meaningless. A bestseller in Australia, this book is a smart and funny exploration of the sexual lives of four 30-ish women living in Australia. All single, all sexually voracious, they spend much of their time regaling each other with sexual conquests, real and imagined, as they move through the trendy cafe and party world of Sydney. Food plays a secondary role in the novel, and is described in just as luscious detail. Helen, a feminist theory professor, is described as "a whole grain loaf of a woman ... seeded with freckles." Clothes are removed in the mating dance "as if they were the leaves of a steamed artichoke." Figs, strawberries and grapes are fondled, then inserted in nether regions, "sticky seed spill[ing] out, adhering to the lips of her cunt and the secret places on the inside of her thighs." All of which makes for great erotic reading, and much shifting of thighs. But "Eat Me's" main weakness is that it can't decide what it wants to be, and the reader may feel cheated on both fronts. While one doesn't read porn for its Aristotelian structure or complex characterizations, one does expect something of that in a novel. And while some of the pornographic descriptions in "Eat Me" are told in wet, hot detail, others of them remain, as one character puts it, "very vanilla."
What is refreshing about the novel is its candid approach. No, most women don't talk to each other the way that Chantal, Julia, Phillipa and Helen do, with their descriptions of getting taken from behind by truckers on deserted roads or raping Rambo-types on the beach or cavorting with cunnilingus-craving security guards. But what if they did? It's an interesting question, and don't think Jaivin doesn't know it. With all the postmodern references to everything from Gothic poets to valorization, from Naomi Wolf to Luscious Jackson, she knows exactly the type of audience who's buying into "Eat Me." Ignore all the postmodern, post-feminist, post-fill-in-the-blank and enjoy the snappy repartee and witty cultural references. Then settle in for some well-written erotica. You may even pick up some tips.
Courtney Weaver writes Salon's Unzipped column. |
