“Like Henry James on Viagra.” After reading that blurb on the back of the book jacket on History of a Pleasure Seeker I fell for the cunning marketing. It’s 1907 and Piet Barol, a talented but poor young man, is hired to be the tutor to a disturbed young son of a wealthy hotel tycoon in Amsterdam. The tycoon’s beautiful but neglected wife begins an affair with Piet. That, you would think, would be enough for the reader to concentrate on. But the author throws in the tycoon’s two flirtatious daughters, the mysterious mental problems of the son, the banking crisis that required J. P. Morgan to intervene, and flashbacks to Piet’s past. Piet isn’t so much a pleasure seeker as an ambitious young man on the make. History of a Pleasure Seeker is basically a Horatio Alger story with some sex thrown in. If you’re looking for pleasure, you’ll have to seek it elsewhere. GRADE: C
On the other hand, the line “Like Henry James on Viagra” (the mind shies away from THAT image) opens up a whole new world of blurbing: Like Jane Austen on crack! Like Anthony Trollope on meth! Like Samuel Taylor Coleridge on opium–oh, wait….
Brilliant, Deb! “Like Dickens on Ecstasy” has a certain ring to it. Or “Like Edith Wharton on heroin.” A blurbist could work their way through the whole catalog of drugs!
Like William S. Burroughs on morphine! With a gun!
Oh, never mind.
By George, I think you’ve got it, Jeff!
I would have gone for it too.
No character in HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER needs Viagra, Patti. They’re all a pretty randy bunch.
Like George on pizza!
This one doesn’t sound particularly interesting to me, I’m not that interested in these types of plots.
You might have to amend that to “George on pizza and chicken wings,” Rick. HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER is basically a “novel of manners” with some sex thrown in.