Angelica's Grotto - Softcover

Russell Hoban

3.4

160 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747546118 ISBN 13: 9780747546115

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1999

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Altogether original, at once searing and amusing, this darkly comic novel confronts Harold Klein, now in his infirm seventies, with a strange malady -- the loss of his "inner voice" -- and introduces him to the steamy world of Internet sex. Inexplicably bereft of the mental faculty that would under normal circumstances keep him from blurting out, uncensored, the first thought that pops into his head, art connoisseur Klein wanders one evening into a pornographic Web site, Angelica's Grotto. An ongoing on-line dialogue, totally without verbal inhibition on Klein's part, eventually brings him face-to-face with the brains behind the grotto, an academic sex researcher named Melissa Bottomley. Harold Klein's erotic odyssey takes him not only through unimagined erogenous zones but also into arcane corners of the art world, as he seeks to meet Melissa's need for funding and she his for sexual gratification. As Klein strives to reconcile new desires with old habits, author Russell Hoban compellingly explores the dark relations between art and pornography, acts virtual and real, culture and politics, revelation and privacy.

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About the Author:

Russell Hoban is the author of many extraordinary novels including THE LION OF BOAZ-JACHIN AND JACHIN-BOAZ, TURTLE DIARY, RIDDLEY WALKER, MR RINYO-CLACTON'S OFFER. He has also written some classic books for children including THE MOUSE AND HIS CHILD and THE FRANCES books. He lives in London.

From Publishers Weekly:

Harold Klein, the 72-year-old art historian protagonist of this quirkily charming book, reflects at one point that "pornography has always been part of the visual arts." To a man whose major work is on the French symbolist painter Odilon Redon, and whose current project is a book on Klimt's nudes, sexuality is an unavoidable element of art. But from these rarified artistic heights, Klein descends to a more prurient level when he clicks onto a Net sex site called Angelica's Grotto. Klein is already going through a crisis, having suffered a puzzling psychological breakdown similar to Tourette's syndrome: his inner voice, the one that provides a running commentary on the world, is no longer inner. He learns to solve the problems this creates by whispering into his hand. His psychiatrist, Dr. DeVere, thinks that Klein's strange affliction signals some disconnection between his life and his feelings especially the guilt and anger he feels over the suicide of his second wife, Hannelore. In her cyber-grotto, Angelica (real name, Melissa) is eliciting responses from male viewers for a thesis on sexuality she is writing, and chooses Klein as a chat partner. Eventually, they meet in person (after the near-rape of Klein by one of Melissa's associates) and act out their fantasies in a sadomasochistic, May/December affair. Hoban (Riddley Walker) has fashioned an intensely conceived coda to the verities of desire and fulfillment not to mention trust, honesty and pornography and Klein is a sharp, funny and intelligent protagonist whom readers will find it hard not to like. (June 9)Forecast: Though a far cry from Hoban's beloved children's books (Bread and Jam for Frances, etc.), and less of a cult novel than Riddley Walker, this one will strike a chord with aging pre-boomers, cybersex fans and Anglophiles.

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