Monger Literature

Jul 25, 2006, 5:53 PM

I write it like I mean it, but mostly they just want my money.

Recommendations for books (fiction, non-fiction, some mish-mash in between) about The Hobby. Strip clubs, prostitution, men who like girls and spend time having affairs outside of the usual romantic marriage-directed courtship a la Jane Austen. I invite your contributions to the list! My knowledge is limited to "classics," but I'd welcome more recent works, especially fiction that might somehow get at our actual experiences and help us understand them.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita. Mostly a send-up of a pathetic ageing academic, but not without its horny charms. Has to be first on any Hobby Lit syllabus!

Carl Hiaasen, Striptease. Not too different from the movie. I think Hiaasen just channels Burt Reynolds every time he writes about an ol' cracker pol'. I thought it was too crazy in the wrap-up, too determined to be off-kilter.

Stephen Vizinczey, In Praise of Older Women. An awesome read, and very different from the softcore-porn movie made out of it. Much more a classic Bildungsroman than a story of sexual escapades, the books provides a social critique of various "sexual climates" across the West, from former Iron Curtain East Europe to Canada.

Milan Kundera, Laughable Loves. Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The first is a wonderful set of interconnected short stories and plotless musings about young adults (or old adults who are young at heart) "hooking up" in a variety of ways, from sweet romance to total kink. The latter (not very much like the movie, but Juliette Binoche is always worth looking at!) tells of ... well ... what the title says, and more.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Memories of My Melancholy Whores (Spanish title, Memoria de Mis Putas Tristes, is probably more accurately rendered as, In Memory of My Sad Fucks). A magical-realist fantasy about an old man and a young (too young!) prostitute. He only ever meets her when she's exhausted from her sweat-shop duties and napping, but he fears to wake her so he extends his regular weekly meetings, furnishes her flat and has imaginary interactions with her, all of which have strange magical bearing on his real life.

Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders. The fortunes and misfortunes of a decidedly liberated Enlightenment-era whore, and how she made, lost, regained, lost again, made again her fortune, and eventually ended up in America (where she belongs!).

Your thoughts?

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Book Guy19 years ago

To me, what was missing from the movie "Striptease" was more, the smarmy slutty skanky REALness of a strip club. Demi and her "stunt tits" (LOL) put on stunt performances. She had a "stage show" worthy of a feature dancer -- something that always bores and annoys me -- with choreographed flashy broadway-style movements. That much made it clear, this was a Hollywood movie, not a strip club. The lap dance in "Showgirls" is just as pointless.

chandler19 years ago

I avoided the film of 'Strip Tease' after seeing the trailer with that ridiculous stage entrance by Demi Moore striding out of the smoke with her stunt tits. It looked like they were detemined to remove any humanity from the story and make every detail Hollywood-awesome. I later saw a bit of it on TV, but couldn't stay interested. As I recall, the character of Erin was pretty PC in the book, too good to be true in every way.

chandler19 years ago

Along with 'Lolita', I think you'd have to give a place to Henry Miller's 'Tropic of Cancer' as some kind of godfather of modern mongering. Going back further, the autobiographies of Casanova and Benvenuto Cellini and '120 Days of Sodom' and 'Justine' by de Sade had a few things to offer.

Okay, recent books about stripper stuff we would recognize? There's 'Stripper Lessons' by John O'Brien, who also wrote 'Leaving Las Vegas'. It's about an RIL who fixates on going OTC with his ATF. Not a very lively tale. I suppose it had some metaphorical message about knowing God or something, but I wasn't intrigued enough to care. Oh, and he committed suicide after writing it.

What there seems to be a lot more of is "stripper confessions". Just type "stripper" into an Amazon book search and see them all. About 10 years ago, I read 'Ivy League Stripper' which was a total snooze by a girl who worked her way through college (of course) and never touched a customer or did anything bad. Has anybody read any good "stripper lit"?

Book Guy19 years ago

I agree with your assessement of the difference bewtween the movie and book versions of "Striptease" in the way you put it. I had just meant, the wacky zany and slightly unbelievable antics of Hiaasen characters (as in most of his books) lent a similar atmosphere to both book and movie. The whole "I cn feel it squishin between my toes" episode ... Basically, books like that are "made for" the movies, easily modified (as you''ve suggested) to include the political message du jour.

minnow19 years ago

BG: Sounds like you're looking for something to read on a long redeye flight to Frisco, or a bus ride to Memphis that stops at every other gas station. My most recent read was Aug2006 Penthouse mag, had article "More Bang For Your Bucks", whereby escorts, doms, and strippers were interviewed about their likes & dislikes in customers. The pictures weren't too bad, either.

FONDL19 years ago

BG, I don't know that I've ever read a good description of strippers and strip joints in a work of fiction. They're almost always depicted as a bunch of whores and seedy whore houses. Or a stripper is glamorized as a girl with a heart of gold. I'm sure both those extremes exist but most strippers and strip clubs that I've known are far removed from those extremes.

I seem to recall one novel about 10 or so years ago which took place partly in a strip club that felt real, but I'm not sure who the author was, maybe David Walker or David Housewright? Anyway it was nominated as best first mystery of the year but didn't win.

I don't agree with your comment that the movie of "Strip Tease" was much like the book, I found it to be very different. The book was pure comedy, an entertaining tale with no attempt at redeeming social value or social message. The movie injected a large dose of PC, depicting the stripper in a very different and unrealistic way in a clumsy attempt to make a social statement, which totally ruined it. I thought the book was great; I thought the movie was terrible. But I had read the book long before it became a movie, which makes a big difference. I rarely see a movie of a book I've enjoyed, they're almost always disappointing.