Fiona Pitt-Kethley's favourite novel is a 16th-century Chinese work called Chin P'ing Mei. This book, she believes, was written as an act of vengeance. The author imbued each of the 1600 pages of his manuscript with poison, and presented it to a politician against whom he had a grudge. He knew that the minister, who had a huge appetite for pornography, would lick and turn each page, and so do himself to death. The 415 pages of this anthology won't kill you - nor will you go blind - but you may from time to time feel queasy. An anthology of sex is something of a bathhouse, back-alley enterprise. Here are passages without antecedent or consequence, brief, sometimes anonymous; sometimes gratifying enough, in a casual sort of way.

LRB 27 February 1992 | PDF Download