Masturbatory Prose Style Fails To Reach Climax

May 5, 2004 | Issue 40•18

NEW YORK—Writer Terrence Hendrie's debut novel I, Me, Eye, with its lengthy sentences and elaborate footnotes, failed to result in a climax, sources reported Monday. "Hendrie really works himself into a frenzy, massaging his love for obscure vocabulary," bookstore owner Robert Silvers said of the 385-page novel, which opens, "Adam, his serpentine ponytail flapping freely in the wintertide dithers, frostbitten grapewine bouche pursed around a smoldering Camel, hands gripping a Dachshund-eared copy of Hesse's Demian, which he recalled borrowing from his Cambridge roommate Geoffrey—young Geoffrey, how Adam chided him for his nostalgie de la boue." "Then, after 385 pages, the wanking-off ends abruptly, leaving the reader unsatisfied." Silvers added that the book's attempts at humor were too dry.