I just finished DARKER THAN AMBER (1966), the seventh in the
Travis McGee series. It's not as good as most of the earlier
ones: the McGee ponderings are heavy, his investigative work
and infiltration seem unlikely, and a lot of the people
involved are very unlikeable. It's a bit unpleasant all
around, even given that it's centred on a "cheap, sloppy,
greedy, slut."
Check out this bit, from when McGee turns down an offer from
the cheap, sloppy woman:
| I *was* a prude, in my own fashion. I had been
emotionally
| involved a few times with women with enough of a record
of
| promiscuity to make me vaguely uneasy. It is difficult to
put
| much value on something the lady has distributed all
too
| generously. I have the feeling that there is some
mysterious quota,
| which varies with each woman. And whether she gives herself
or
| sells herself, once she reaches her own number, once X
pairs
| of hungry hands have been clamped tightly upon her
rounded
| undersides, she suffers a sea change wherein her juices
alter
| from honey to acid, her eyes change to glass, her heart
becomes
| a stone, and her mouth a windy cave from whence, with
each
| monstrous gasping, comes a tiny stink of death.
Imagine that at the top of the personals column in the paper,
or recited before a TV blind date show.
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
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