House of Holes

"House of Holes" doesn't come close to being a must-read, but it is fun, occasionally inventive smut with a literary slant. It's been said that pornography is nothing but a fantasy of universal consent, and Nicholson leans into the fantasy aspect here, describing a world of semi-enchanted bodily fluids, fantastical sexual technologies, and consequence-free intercourse that doesn't have a lot to do with the world that we actually bump and grind in. Some of these stories -- such as the one that describes how a woman who's tired of being judged for her appearance finds satisfaction with a man whose head has been temporarily removed -- are both pleasingly ingenious and seem to be getting a larger truth about how real people relate to each show more other. Baker's also smart enough to realize that while most of us, sensibly enough, get off on release, some of us are turned on by restraint: this particular sexual paradise features a subgroup of men who make it a point not to gratify themselves. But those are the better stories in this collection. Some of the others are just, well, porn that's been effectively workshopped.

I'm a dude myself, but I thought that the author wrote sex from the female perspective tolerably well, although "House of Holes" is, in the final analysis, straighter and more forthrightly cis that it necessarily needs to be. Genitals -- both male and female -- sometimes appear in less-than-expected places, but the essential duality of man and women doesn't come in for much questioning. This isn't a book for people who get off on ambiguity, or, for that matter, subtlety. The sort of ridiculous sex talk that's indelibly associated with letters to Penthouse is all over this collection, and it's good fun to see it in a relatively literary environment. There are so many ridiculous, gross, and just plain strange terms for genitalia here that I would lay money on the fact that the author had been saving them up in some notebook or other for years. In true pornographic form, he shows no embarrassment at all about deploying them here. Everything about "House of Holes", in fact, suggests an author on a lark. I, like just about everyone in "House of Holes," am more than willing to indulge him, even if he gets a bit cheesy on occasion. Authors will have thier fun. show less

I'm happy to be in a place where I see this book as an appreciable fun piece of fantasy that makes a light (and somehow purely wholesome) cartoon of sex, gender, and the things that turn people on whether they want them to or not. Others may argue the point - but I feel exceptionally mature and grounded in that appreciation, recognizing that play is life - and sex is a game imposed by nature.
The best comparison I can think of is Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. I'm pretty sure Roald Dahl would have gotten a kick out of it. The characters are caring, considerate, tender, friendly, and well-mannered - they are a reversal of the seedy abuse of power that features in a lot of sexual fantasy. But don't let that description fool you into show more thinking it isn't outrageous and over-the-top. I find it to be an uplifting (heh) healthy psychedelic journey. A massively sexual episode of The Love Boat. The character arcs aren't deep, but they are endearing and revelatory. They make valuable caricature of (purely, for better or worse) heteronormative ideals. A much appreciated experiment. show less

The accurately subtitled "a book of raunch," House of Holes seems to be Nicholson Baker's perverse take on what Donald Barthelme would have done if he was taken to directing Japanese porn on an unlimited budget. I've always enjoyed Nicholson Baker, from his meditations on library science, to his hyper-detailed post-modernism (The Mezzanine), to his other naughty bedside books (Vox, The Fermata), but House of Holes, as funny and creative as it can be, is bit of a slog to get through and can feel like a joke that goes on a little too long*. It ranges from the cute (“The Story of Prince Bohuslav’s Beard”) to the bizarrely perverse (pretty much everything else) and, more often than not, each separate chapter is punctuated by a show more whimsically understated ending (e.g: “and she felt a flowering of deep warmth inside her, and the sense of hot sperm that surrounded the prow of his still thrusting peckerdickcock. 'Thank you for the lovely concert of Russian piano music,' Luna said.”). If I have any further criticism it's that, for all it's perversions, it's still a fairly straight-world take on sexuality with only a tiny tip-of-the-hat to queer-friendliness. Then again, it's Nicholson Baker's id we are being welcomed into and I suppose it just is what it is.

Also, to save you hassle of looking it up when you encounter it: "perineum" does not, disappointingly enough, come for the greek words for "pine barrens" — it comes from "to empty out." Sad.

Finally, I'll just leave you with a few of my favourite passages:

“She pulled off her sweater. Underneath was a huge pink-and-white bra. She reached into one of the bra cups and pulled out something shaped a little like a baby seal. Wade had never seen anything so big and so beautiful in his life.”

“When he was gone, she gestured the other men back. “More come, more come!” she said. “Jerk it out! Ice my cake, dickboys! I want to feel like a breakfast pastry!”

“Dave angled out his Malcolm Gladwell.”

“A woman appeared from behind a bush. She was wearing a very pretty long skirt—an I-want-to-go-out-on-a-wildflower-walk-with-you-and-fuck-you-later skirt—that was in kind of a forties style, with blue polka dots.”

A solid 3 of 5.

*Um: The Aristocrats comes to mind for some reason show less

The accurately subtitled "a book of raunch," House of Holes seems to be Nicholson Baker's perverse take on what Donald Barthelme would have done if he was taken to directing Japanese porn on an unlimited budget. I've always enjoyed Nicholson Baker, from his meditations on library science, to his hyper-detailed post-modernism (The Mezzanine), to his other naughty bedside books (Vox, The Fermata), but House of Holes, as funny and creative as it can be, is bit of a slog to get through and can feel like a joke that goes on a little too long*. It ranges from the cute (“The Story of Prince Bohuslav’s Beard”) to the bizarrely perverse (pretty much everything else) and, more often than not, each separate chapter is punctuated by a show more whimsically understated ending (e.g: “and she felt a flowering of deep warmth inside her, and the sense of hot sperm that surrounded the prow of his still thrusting peckerdickcock. 'Thank you for the lovely concert of Russian piano music,' Luna said.”). If I have any further criticism it's that, for all it's perversions, it's still a fairly straight-world take on sexuality with only a tiny tip-of-the-hat to queer-friendliness. Then again, it's Nicholson Baker's id we are being welcomed into and I suppose it just is what it is.

Also, to save you hassle of looking it up when you encounter it: "perineum" does not, disappointingly enough, come for the greek words for "pine barrens" — it comes from "to empty out." Sad.

Finally, I'll just leave you with a few of my favourite passages:

“She pulled off her sweater. Underneath was a huge pink-and-white bra. She reached into one of the bra cups and pulled out something shaped a little like a baby seal. Wade had never seen anything so big and so beautiful in his life.”

“When he was gone, she gestured the other men back. “More come, more come!” she said. “Jerk it out! Ice my cake, dickboys! I want to feel like a breakfast pastry!”

“Dave angled out his Malcolm Gladwell.”

“A woman appeared from behind a bush. She was wearing a very pretty long skirt—an I-want-to-go-out-on-a-wildflower-walk-with-you-and-fuck-you-later skirt—that was in kind of a forties style, with blue polka dots.”

A solid 3 of 5.

*Um: The Aristocrats comes to mind for some reason show less

The premise is that random unrelated people, by choice or circumstance are transported to The House of Holes, where their wildest kinks can be realized. The result is a loosely connected series of bizarre and fantastical erotic vignettes, often involving the (non-permanent) loss of various parts of the anatomy. I appreciated the author's willingness to allow his imagination to roam wild, however, some semblance of a narrative arc would have made it more compelling to read. For me, the stories were more amusing than erotic.

Happy, hilariously horny romp. Kind of an awkward choice for subway commute reading, but I managed it without getting arrested. Read this right after Arcadia--the House of Holes is the more appealing utopia.

A book of raunch, indeed. This one is definitely over the top. I think Baker invented a new genre here, combining farce with sex fantasy with science fiction. Playful. Comic. Erotic. Sometimes just stupid. I should have counted the number of unique descriptions he comes up with for the male and female genitalia as well as the act itself. Obviously not one for mom and pop, and better if read in small doses at a time.

Just this quote which is completely unrepresentative, uh, I will avoid excerpting the parts I liked the most. Hey, just admitting I purchased and read this book is enough!

On old age:
“Because she knew that his kind of easy glancing manner was not all that common. Men turned thirty-eight, thirty-nine, and it was like someone show more dimmed the lights. When they’re young, they’re hilarious and bubbly and boyish. And bad. So bad. When they’re old, they’re flat and stupid and dull. She watched them in airports with their wives: brain-dead, mostly. And yet this man, Chuck, was probably forty-five at least. He still had some humor left in him.” show less