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Turner, Michael
The Pornographer's Poem
The Pornographer's Poem
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In this stunningly original novel, Michael Turner, the author of the punk rock collage Hard Core Logo, and the hilariously sobering American Whiskey Bar, proves himself to be one of Canada's most dazzling and innovative contemporary writers.
The Pornographer's Poem is a first-hand account of the life of an unnamed pornographic filmmaker. At the age of sixteen, the narrator gets his first taste of adult cinema. Shortly before that, he shoots his first adult film, surreptitiously capturing his neighbours having sex on their back porch. From these linked experiences, he realizes that through representations of sexual activity he can comment on that which he finds both painful and confusing. In the films that follow, the narrator imagines in positions of dominance those who are disadvantaged in their everyday lives, now sexually belittling those who have once held them down. Nettie, an idealistic poet and the one person with whom the narrator genuinely connects, sees in pornography the opportunity to do something artistic, liberating, and socially relevant. She pushes the narrator to make films that subvert the way the world is constructed. Ultimately, despite his radical intentions, the narrator falls into a world of greed, delusion, and hypocrisy, the same world he once rebelled against.
Investigating the ways in which lives are remembered and reconstructed, Michael Turner works backwards and forwards in time with unerring attention to subtle shifts in voice and experience. But this is not a wistful recounting, for the retelling of the protagonist's story is affected by the interrogations of an authoritative, unforgiving tribunal.
As he tests the lines between pornography and art, between exploitation and exploration, Michael Turner continues to push the boundaries of the literary form. The Pornographer's Poem is an intelligent, funny, impeccably crafted work that challenges not only the way a novel should be written but, most importantly, the way it should be read.
The Pornographer's Poem is a first-hand account of the life of an unnamed pornographic filmmaker. At the age of sixteen, the narrator gets his first taste of adult cinema. Shortly before that, he shoots his first adult film, surreptitiously capturing his neighbours having sex on their back porch. From these linked experiences, he realizes that through representations of sexual activity he can comment on that which he finds both painful and confusing. In the films that follow, the narrator imagines in positions of dominance those who are disadvantaged in their everyday lives, now sexually belittling those who have once held them down. Nettie, an idealistic poet and the one person with whom the narrator genuinely connects, sees in pornography the opportunity to do something artistic, liberating, and socially relevant. She pushes the narrator to make films that subvert the way the world is constructed. Ultimately, despite his radical intentions, the narrator falls into a world of greed, delusion, and hypocrisy, the same world he once rebelled against.
Investigating the ways in which lives are remembered and reconstructed, Michael Turner works backwards and forwards in time with unerring attention to subtle shifts in voice and experience. But this is not a wistful recounting, for the retelling of the protagonist's story is affected by the interrogations of an authoritative, unforgiving tribunal.
As he tests the lines between pornography and art, between exploitation and exploration, Michael Turner continues to push the boundaries of the literary form. The Pornographer's Poem is an intelligent, funny, impeccably crafted work that challenges not only the way a novel should be written but, most importantly, the way it should be read.
