Thursday, November 30, 2006

More Bad Sex

As you know, I get a bit jaded with all the literary word longlists, shortlists, winners. But wicked reader that I am, there is one award I never get tired of blogging about.

Yes, it's that time of year again and the Guardian headline yesterday said it all:
Stiff competition on Bad Sex shortlist
The Literary Review's annual prize was awarded last night for the most:
... unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant sex scene in an otherwise sound literary novel ...
and had a distinguished list of contenders this year including David Mitchell, Thomas Pyncheon, and Irvine Walsh. Enjoy Michelle Pauli's guide to the finalists.

I must say I was rooting for Pyncheon who was in the running with an entry from his new novel Against the Day, about which Pauli says:
Suffice to say it involves a spaniel called Mouffette, a curious man called Reef and the final line, "Reader, she bit him".
The winner, announced a few hours ago, was Iain Hollingshead, at 26 the youngest ever recipient of the prize. His extract from Twentysomething was judged to be hilarious:
"And then I'm inside her, and everything is pure white as we're lost in a commotion of grunts and squeaks, flashing unconnected images and explosions of a million little particles ..."
Hollingshead was reported to be delighted with the award and said he hopes to win it every year.

The more established nominees on the list were judged by the panel to be:
...beyond help at this point.
Update

Tom Fleming gives his take on the prize and winners in the Guardian blog. All the extracts are listed here.

Ohh ... and you must read Iain Hollingshead's account of the award ceremony in the Telegraph:
I blush to read my offending prose now ...
he says. As well he might.

Related Posts:


Bad Sex, Good Sex (14/11/05)
Hurray for Bad Sex (28/11/05)
And the Bad Sex Award Goes to ... (3/12/05)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good lord, Hollingshead's so graphic. Brian Lumley pales in comparison. Ha 8-)

Anonymous said...

Hi Sharon,

Not really related to your posting but thought it might be of interest to provide a link to a short story competition sponsored by Virgin Trains (found this in The Guardian) :

http://books.guardian.co.uk/virginshortstories/competition/0,,-1003,00.html

500 words on the theme of 'time' before 12.1.2007. It doesn't seem to restrict non-UK residents from entering unless I missed something?

bibliobibuli said...

giant sotong - you should try reading nirpal singh daliwahls "tourism"! very naughty (under age persons cover your ears!)

janet - thanks so much. i missed this and it's good to know about the different competitions.

bibliobibuli said...

janet - i think you'd have to be in the uk to enter this one because of the connection with virgin trains ...

Anonymous said...

Hi Sharon, I thought so too but didn't see any references in the rules that excluded non-UK residents as is usually the case! Well I suppose if anyone's interested, they can always enquire about the rules! :)

Anonymous said...

another reason why lowbrow bookworms like me shun the highbrow lit like those. (excuse only, actually don't get the plot is what makes me shun them.)

if there's a bad sex award, what about good sex? i want to know where i can read some good sex, err, sexy stories... ;P

i could try the kink lit genre, but who wants to bet we have any in malaysia?

bibliobibuli said...

janet - there's nothing in the rules as far as i can see ... but surely the idea behind a sponsored competition like this is to promote the train service. this will be hard to bring off for writers who have never made a journey on a virgin blue train, perhaps?

sulz - i wrote a whole article on this topic for chrome but it's too long to post! the sexiest read (bordering on porn in parts) for a while was "tourism" by nirpal singh dahliwal

Anonymous said...

i've read the link... ooo, naughty cover! i'm definitely on the lookout :P :P