Sex in novels is frequently terrible and occasionally so excruciating as to verge on the actionable; indeed, a legal precedent that would penalise writers for scorching their readers’ retinas with the sheer heat of embarrassment might function as a useful deterrent. Literature needs all the fans it can get; protect us from the throbbing gristle and heaving mammaries of a thousand overheated imaginations. Institute a particular ban on the word moist, and freedom of speech be damned. Alas, it would be too late to curb the creative enthusiasms of Bruno Le Maire, the French economy minister whose most recent novel, Fugue Américaine, has erm, risen to prominence courtesy of a dilated anus. Protect your eyes and do not enquire further.
Naturally, much of the truly gripping stuff is going on beyond the page. Le Maire stands accused of fiddling while Paris burns, amusing himself on his typewriter as France’s citizens stand on the barricades protecting their pension rights and railing against the callousness of the Macron administration. This feels harsh: everyone has a right to a life outside work and writing about an anus seems small beer compared with eating one on national television in a celebrity game show, or hosting frothing rightwing debates, were one, say, to be a sitting member of parliament.
