The Sexual Life of Catherine M.

The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (La Vie Sexuelle de Catherine M.) by Catherine Millet. Grove Press.

JB tells me that the word for a pretentious person is “prick”. If the author is a she, “twat”.

Isn’t that appropriate?

The Sexual Life of Catherine M. is two hundred pages of lousy output by a twat. A twat with a very active twat, as it turns out.

That someone can manage to write ten score pages all about sex and nothing else without being interesting or titillating is nothing short of amazing. In a bad way. I was dying for the book to finish. It was a quick read, but not quick enough.

But the book isn’t merely boring. There’s also the fact that Millet is basically not credible, and not just because her day job is art criticism. A shy person with all sorts of diverse friendships? Right. Once she tried her hand at prostitution when she needed the money, but that didn’t work out. Nobody ever paid her for sex. And she really didn’t receive many gifts from her paramours — it only took a mere two thirds of a page to list them all. And so on. But then, critics are the lowest of the low (hello, world!), and I think she basically knows it, and thus wants to pass off as an artist. So why not stretch the truth a whole lot and claim to be a prurient James Joyce?

To put it succinctly, Millet is full of both shit and dick, and has a written a book with less literary merit or interest as a story than that sad work of internet fan fiction where, when Harry Potter and Hermione Granger unexpectedly meet Xena, crazy hijinks ensue.

(Note: I have not read said fan fiction. It might not even exist.)

Avoid.