Find of the Week

Rogue
by Fabio (1994)

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein


Between you and me, I think Heinlein is a bit of a dick, but this quote has its charms. In a similar vein, I believe that one's literary vigour rests in the practice of reading a little bit of everything. Never read a sci-fi book? Try one just for kicks. Never read a novel-length poem? Dante beckons! Still think graphic novels are for chumps? You're the chump! The 19th century Russians scaring you? Good, they're supposed to; stop your whimpering and read some Turgenev. Self-help not your thing? Read some if only to know what you already know that you know. And ultra-cheese romance? Well, why not? I've read one, and one only, and when it comes time to compile my list of 50 Most Important Books of My Life, I suspect that Fabio's Rogue may be among them. It's a classic of the genre: ridiculous, brainless, steamy, over-the-top (perhaps even self-consciously so). It reads like a thesaurus with the bonus addition of "stop/don't stop" quasi-rape scenes:

"In the next instant, Ryder hauled Natalie across the carriage into his lap, and captured her lips in a punishing, possessive kiss. Indignation and traitorous arousal hit her with simultaneous, blinding force. She drew back her hand and slapped him."

And before you come into the store and berate me for my philistinism, I ask you to consider the following: in an interview for Interview magazine, Fabio claimed to have read the entire works of Balzac and Proust, albeit in Italian, and when questioned, made a convincing display of the finer details of their respective oeuvres…