The Fermata (Audible Audio Edition) Nicholson Baker Peter Ganim Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : The Fermata (Audible Audio Edition) Nicholson Baker Peter Ganim Audible Studios Books
The Fermata is the most risky of Nicholson Baker's emotional histories. His narrator, Arno Strine, is a 35-year-old office temp who is writing his autobiography. "It's harder than I thought!" he admits. His "Fold-powers" are easier; he can stop the world and use it as his own pleasure ground. Arno uses this gift not for evil or material gain (he would feel guilty about stealing), though he does undress a good number of women and momentarily place them in compromising positions - always, in his view, with respect and love. Anyone who can stop time and refer in self-delight to his "chronanisms" can't be all bad!
Like Baker's other books, The Fermata gains little from synopsis. The pleasure is literally in the text. What's memorable is less the sex and the sex toys (including the "Monasticon," in the shape of a monk holding a vibrating manuscript) than Arno's wistful recollections of intimacy the noise, for instance, of his ex-girlfriend's nail clipper, "which I listened to in bed as some listen to real birdsong."
The Fermata (Audible Audio Edition) Nicholson Baker Peter Ganim Audible Studios Books
Baker's protagonist, Arno Strine, calls the pornographic stories he writes "rot", short for "erotica" but also suggesting a British term for "nonsense" or "baloney". This is clearly a description of the book itself -- not to be taken seriously, but enjoyable nonetheless. Most of the book is a series of unrelated fantasies. Every hetero male will recognize their essence -- man sees pretty woman at the office; man sees pretty woman sunbathing at the beach; man sees pretty woman driving on the highway; man is examined by pretty female doctor -- but Baker develops them in original and witty ways.The novelty is that Arno is magically endowed with the intermittent power to stop time for everyone except himself. This being a sex fantasy, Arno does not use his power to rob banks, perform instantaneous surgery, embarrass corrupt officials, rescue people from burning buildings, etc. -- all he does is take off women's clothes and write about it. There isn't any plot to speak of, and not much character development. Arno himself is quite believable, but the women he strips, as is traditional for erotic literature, are just scenery. If this bothers you, then look elsewhere; but if you take it for what it is, you will likely be both titillated and entertained.
Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: The Fermata (Audible Audio Edition): Nicholson Baker, Peter Ganim, Audible Studios: Books, ,Nicholson Baker, Peter Ganim, Audible Studios,The Fermata,Audible Studios,B006FS25TU
People also read other books :
- Birthdays with My Stepbrother A Stepbrother Romance Taboo First Times Book 1 edition by Gillian Cherry Literature Fiction eBooks
- Manhattan Affair Jack Sussek 9780615580074 Books
- Far From Home Book One eBook Tony Healey
- Navy SEAL Team Secrets A War Story of Redemption Resilience and Survival eBook Stephen Robinson
- Unhappily Married Find the Courage to Break Free and No Longer Be Powerless eBook Dr Meredith Becker
The Fermata (Audible Audio Edition) Nicholson Baker Peter Ganim Audible Studios Books Reviews
This is a book you will read more than once. Over the years, I have. Make sure when you lend it to your friends, you get it back! I recently ordered a new copy because mine has disappeared again, among my women friends who poo-poo the subject but are nontheless fascinated by the read.
How does a man who stops time use his great gift? In pursuit of his own personal happiness which is directly tied to his physical appreciation of women. In The Fermata, the protagonist, Arno, absolutely loves women -- it comes across in every lust-imbued word -- women of all body types, skin textures and ages. He falls in love regularly, as he keenly observes them and attempts to touch them in more than a physical way; he attempts to imprint their psyches anonymously with his admiration for them. The good reader will remove herself from judgment of Arno's decision-action tandem, suspend questions of self-determination by all the women from which Arno removes those questions, and enjoy immersing her own imagination in the thoughts of this considerate, intellectual man whose sexual appetites are permitted free reign (within his own strict morality of sorts) to manifest themselves. So many moments in the book are equally profoundly philosophical and hilariously profane, like when he tests out a small sex toy on himself to see how it would feel on a woman so that the result is just right. Arno wants this stranger to have a hidden and secret pleasure and goes to great ends to see it occur, while at the same time showing great concern for her comfort through his anonymity.
Love it!
I don't know how I managed to get this far through life without ever having come across Nicholson Baker before. A friend recommended him, saying my work reminded her of his style. I was deeply flattered.
It's supposedly erotic, but this isn't masturbation fodder. It will bring you to orgasmic levels of laughter, however.
If you'd like to build your vocabulary, get the version so you can highlight his many unusual words and get the definitions.
Now I'm in the process of reading everything he has written. I haven't done that since Steinbeck.
Nicholson Baker immediately grabbed me with his "character can stop time" premise. Really immediate. Like Page One immediate. There aren't a lot of authors that can pull that off, so my hopes for "The Fermata" were high. My interest level remained high as he explored the premise in extreme detail. We all know what men would do with such a power, but how would things like light, sound, electricity, and photography be affected? Baker gives us these fun little details, but he quickly settles in to the book's real focus hard core erotica. Because I hadn't read any reviews beforehand, it was not exactly what I was expecting.
The first half of the book is a mix of time-control curiosities and sexual titillation. The second half of the book abandons most of the science fiction element and keeps only the erotica. Main character Arno Strine fancies himself an amateur erotic author. Fine. This aspect of the book fills in character details and provides motivations. My objections come from (I'm not exaggerating here) _entire_chapters_ devoted to Arno's amateur porn. The book's premise becomes completely inverted...it's only purpose is to provide author Nicholson Baker with a respectable literary cloak for publishing porn.
The story line becomes so outlandish towards the end, the character dialogue and interactions so ridiculous, that I thought perhaps it would end by revealing that the narrator was simply delusional. If that's what the reader was meant to infer, Baker certainly made no effort to make it easy for them.
Baker's a good author in terms of style. He creates a very credible voice for his protagonist, but what he does with that voice was just too over the top for me. Given his talent and unique treatment of the whole time travel/control fantasy, this book could have been so much more. That's why it's ultimately so dissatisfying.
I have to admit that this is my favorite Nicholson Baker book by far. It is positively obscene, so if that bugs you then skip this review and forget about reading the book.
To everyone else this is one of the funniest, weirdest and most endearing books I have ever read. It doesn't have a lot in the way of plot, but the theme and Baker's prose more than make up for it. As a previous reviewer mentioned, Baker has more words for the various parts of the female body than Eskimos have for snow. My favorite is "jamaicas", but I'm not telling what it means.
If you like Baker's style (and I would say that this is closer in style to the Mezannine than Vox, minus the footnotes) then there's a lot to like about this book. Highly recommended.
Baker's protagonist, Arno Strine, calls the pornographic stories he writes "rot", short for "erotica" but also suggesting a British term for "nonsense" or "baloney". This is clearly a description of the book itself -- not to be taken seriously, but enjoyable nonetheless. Most of the book is a series of unrelated fantasies. Every hetero male will recognize their essence -- man sees pretty woman at the office; man sees pretty woman sunbathing at the beach; man sees pretty woman driving on the highway; man is examined by pretty female doctor -- but Baker develops them in original and witty ways.
The novelty is that Arno is magically endowed with the intermittent power to stop time for everyone except himself. This being a sex fantasy, Arno does not use his power to rob banks, perform instantaneous surgery, embarrass corrupt officials, rescue people from burning buildings, etc. -- all he does is take off women's clothes and write about it. There isn't any plot to speak of, and not much character development. Arno himself is quite believable, but the women he strips, as is traditional for erotic literature, are just scenery. If this bothers you, then look elsewhere; but if you take it for what it is, you will likely be both titillated and entertained.
0 Response to "[N3S]∎ [PDF] Free The Fermata (Audible Audio Edition) Nicholson Baker Peter Ganim Audible Studios Books"
Post a Comment