Rotten to the corps
Auberon Waugh
Onward Virgin Soldiers Leslie Thomas (Michael Joseph £2) What, I wonder, are the ethics of writing a violently unpleasant review at considerable length about a novel which one has only half read? I was brought up to believe that if one has been unable to read a book, one Should give it a favourable notice, pointing out whatever one has been able to discover to its advantage in the course of a quick perusal. The photograph of Mr Thomas, for instance, which takes up the entire back cover, has a winsome sentimental kitten-like quality which a few People may find appealing. Moreover, he tells us that he was orphaned at an early age and spent most of his childhood in an orphanage. That, too, is rather a beautiful thought. The other thing which I found Slightly endearing about the book was its dedication, to Carl Foreman, film genius.
But I couldn't get through the pages. I, Who have followed Doris Lessing's nervous breakdowns word for word, line by line, struggled through nearly all of Nicholas Mosley, was beaten by an orphan's twopenny shocker. Its purpose is plainly to inspire sexual fantasies in people travelling by train but when I took it on a train I fell asleep immediately and absent-mindedly left it there. The publisher was kind enough to send me another copy (although I had to pay a taxi driver to bring it, and feel no obligation to reciprocate the Publisher's kindness) and on this occasion I managed about fifty pages before realising that I had scarcely taken in a word.
A really conscientious reviewer would Probably enquire whether the fault was in him or in the book, but I feel that I have tried the patience of Spectator readers enough. The book is simply awful.
The most important thing about Onward Virgin Soldiers is that both the author and his publishers plainly think it will be a best-seller, like its predecessor The Virgin Soldiers: "Sex, laughter and bitter tragedy--, the ingredients of the original best-seller are here again in Thomas's Writing . . . Ruby and Pearl, Chinese twin Prostitutes [are] worthy successors to the famous juicy Lucy of the first novel."
Thus the blurb. If only the reviewer had been able to finish the book, it might have provided useful material for a treatise on the depravity of popular taste, on the vulgarity and illiteracy of the times, on the obvious errors of the educational system With even a few pungent comments on the Shortcomings of that greater part of the human race which has newly emerged from decent obscurity to influence, of all things, the English novel. But even if one can get away with condemning an Obviously second-rate novel on the strength of having read half of it, I very rntich doubt whether one can get away with condemning a large part of the human race, the British educational system or modern industrial society on the strength of this. What we are left with, then, is the humbler task of pointing out why the novel fails, with a few suggestions on the still neglected subject of the pornographer's art.
On page 11, our hero wakes up with a Chinese prostitute on either side, having been too drunk the night before to avail himself of their services: "Brigg rolled his eyes towards her. Her back was towards him, white and small as a child's. He reached out and with smiling luxury ran his index finger down the soft crack of her backside."
Pearl (for it is she) discourages these attentions, so Brigg turns to Ruby on his other side . . .
"The small eggs of her breasts lay in the hairy nest of his chest. 'Can't this morning, love,' he whispered. 'No time.'"
Quite poetic that, of course, all about breasts, nests and chests. You begin to understand why Mr Thomas's photograph looks so much like a cat about to be sick. Obviously the fellow is one of those suppressed poets. But he fails to awaken the slightest sexual interest in his reader for a number of reasons: in the first place, there is no sexual tension in a situation where a man is plonked down between two prostitutes. The essence of successful pornography (by which I mean writing which arouses a sexual appetite) is tension. Bold descriptions of sexual intercourse without any pursuit, conquest, discovery, expectancy, uncertainty or emotional involvement will always fail to awaken the smallest interest, and bold descriptions which end with the man saying he has no time to get on with it are even worse. While the lone masturbatory function may seem to find its heterosexual equivalent in the unthinking, undiscriminating inertia of a prostitute it is a fact of which would-be pornographers should be aware that erotic fantasy requires something livelier.
So then we come to a long passage where two soldier chums enjoy themselves with the twins on either side of a screen (which falls down at the climax) encouraging each other with shouts of rivalry etc. "His voice howled delightedly across the Chinese Room: Race you Briggsy! Race youl' " I don't know. Perhaps I'm getting old, but this doesn't really excite me at all. It is like the dirty jokes we used to tell each other when I worked on the Daily Telegraph. Time was no doubt when one just had to write a few rude words on a bit of paper to have everyone glassy-eyed and panting, but pornographers have to work harder than that nowadays. And so it goes on: "She was soft and ready. He lowered himself to her and they coupled."
Just like trains. It is a commonplace fact among unsuccessful writers to suggest that if they chose to demean themselves and write filth they could sell as many copies as Norman Mailer. My answer to that is that it takes enormous patience, application and skill to write successful pornography. If rubbish like Onward Virgin Soldiers can still sell in large quantities, it means that the permissive age has not yet taken root and we are all a lot less sophisticated than we think we are.
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