Many have heard of the yearly Bad Sex in Fiction Award, which has been going since 1993 — the purpose to ‘honour’ an author for producing an ‘outstandingly’ bad sexual scene in what might otherwise be an excellent novel. The prize doesn’t include erotic fiction and mainly exists to throw light on often unnecessary sections of sex given a superficial treatment.
This is part of an old post where I drew attention to the 17th Annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award that went to author Jonathan Littell for some hilarious passages in his novel The Kindly Ones. However, some sentences aren’t as good/bad as they’ve been in some years and this is a translation from the French, which can affect some meanings. It’s also difficult judging for oneself when reading these lines out of context. Read more on the book and the award at BBC News.
Cringeworthy? Spiteful? Personally, I think it would be a fun award to win and, as they say, any publicity is good, although I’m not sure that’s always entirely true.
However, this I wish to put forward my contender/winner even though it’s for a book published some years ago:
“She kept a secret spring surrounded by sweet moss, and there he was refreshed.”
And the winner is…
Stephen King for this line in his 5th Dark Tower novel ‘Wolves of the Calla’. It read slightly better in context but made me roar with laughter, so unless that was his intention (and even if it was) this has got to be a dodgy euphemism if ever I heard one. Otherwise, I love the Dark Tower series and finally got to read the entire series in one sitting. I love the character of Roland, but my hero is Eddie.
I’m going to keep the award in mind when constructing such sentences.
