The Terrors of Tarragina (addendum)

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

A copy of The Terrors of Tarragina was duly procured (from Vind — I refuse to allow more teasing of Alzagonde until she does something else horrible). The crudely-imagined and crudely-drawn cover shows a nearly-naked, voluptuous, and quite aroused Herethroy woman, holding a crowbar in a midhand, staring at it as if it were a serpent about to bite her. Beside her are four very full washbasins, one overflowing, and a Cani man with a hammer in one hand and a tremendous erection visible under his skirt.

I, sacrifically, read the cursed thing, since I have plenty of time on my paws when I want it.

Tarragina is the sixth daughter of a countess of Barency. She has a single passion in life: “rejoicining in elegant circumstances”. Through a sequence of misfortunes too implausible to mention, her family loses fortune and title in chapter two. (OK, I’ll mention the guntry race. They’ve got a prize running-guntry that always wins every race. They bet their last village on the guntry in a race against a stranger — who turns out to be a wizard, whose guntry is a transformed air elemental, and wins in a whoosh. Somehow they neglect to mention that this may be considered cheating.)

Anyhow, by chapter 3, Tarragina is condemned to wander the city and country in a life of toil, a thing which she finds utterly abhorrent. She picks up odd jobs here and there — helping a Cani family demolishing a shed in chapter five (hence the crowbar), and washing clothes for some Herethroy farmers in chapter eight (hence the basins). In each case, she attempts the job briefly throws up her hands and hand-feet at how horrid and vulgar it is, and, um, renegotiates the arrangement to be one in which she performs bodily pleasures upon her employers rather than having to do the work. Then, for reasons unspecified, she is off at a different employer the next chapter, evidently the next day.

For a bit of socioprosody of my own: the description of the chapter’s circumstances take 1-3 paragraphs. The attempts at performing the job, and Tarragina’s abhorrence thereof, take another 3-5. The seduction of the employer takes a single paragraph more. The rest of each chapter — five to fifteen pages — is a description of the encounter.

For what it’s worth: About half the time she’s involved with Herethroy, and half with other species. Nobody seems to find this the least bit noteworthy — not that there is much actual conversation involved.

Also, a half-page of action from chapter 5 appears again, word for word, in chapter 21. Perhaps the author did not think anyone would read that far. In any case, it was dull the first time, and extra-dull the second.

I cannot recommend the book, either as literature, pornography, or a source of threats.

Comments

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

So one of Alzagonde's research sources as an example of the evils of transaffection is... a trashy porno? One that doesn't even manage to be good as porn?

Research materials. Riiiiiiight. Pull the other one, crazy Rassy, it's got bells on.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, it's one of Mump's sources for transaffection in Barency. His students mostly haven't read it.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to whether Grinwipey would need to have done in order to come up with what he did, or if one glance at the cover would have told him everything his threats touched on that actually came from the book. In the latter case, his point that if he was a steward, he'd have chanced to see it, certainly holds.

Not really that important, though. (And I'm not trying to suggest that Grinwipey would go out of his way to read traff porn in any case, his opinion on such matters being abundantly - and unusually - clear.)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Grinwipey did not read the book; he looked at the cover, and, according to him, opened up to the middle and read page one-hundred-and-fifty-fuck.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

It sounds more Libertine then Transaffectionate, though...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, that distinction is a somewhat artificial -- and somewhat incorrect -- creation of, well, my own theoretical school.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Oh, and most of the fiction in Barency that involves transaffection is pornography, from what I hear. That goes for most cities. A couple of my clients have written love stories that stop somewhat short of pornography, but that's Vheshrame.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

The problem with using it as a resource of any kind is that it is, in fact, fiction.

Also, it wouldn't entirely surprise me if the lack of non-explicit traff-positive work elsewhere is in part a vicious circle. Mainstream publishers won't touch it, so the only way traff anything gets published is in those circles that are less picky, so people get the impression that all traff-folk are degenerate and immoral, and around the circle goes.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Mump claims to have scientific ways to extract sociological truth out of a corpus of primary texts: fiction or even poetry. Such sources convey the spirit of a people, he says, thinly disguised under a veneer of fiction.

You're right about the vicious circle.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

What books DO you recommend as pronography?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

It rather depends on the tastes of the reader. Umbers, for example, gobbles down stories that I find too embarrassing to contemplate. Still, if you happen to visit, we can discuss the matter in comfort and convenience in my library.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

Was that a pass? ;>

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Good gods! It was an offer to examine my collection!

[psaakyrn.livejournal.com]

Maybe something from the eighteen-volume collected works of He Who Has Excavated And Flown?

[archadia.livejournal.com]

I somehow knew you would say that...

[rowyn]

That's not nearly as disturbing as the torture porn Grinwipey was implying it was. Then again, Grinwipey.

Which is not to say that it's not bad trashy porn, but it sounds more standard fare instead of horrific. >:)

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Ah -- I thought it was some sort of kinky serial-killer story involving the use of crowbars and basins. Not quite that bad then.

*gets Sythyry the "Chick Tract" about "Dark Dungeons", the evil conspiracy of roleplaying games*

[rowyn]

Yeah, I was thinking something on those lines, too, involving torture and rape.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Grinwipey evidently thought it was that too, or close enough.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

The common response of such Moral and Upstanding people is that being subjected to anything outside their accepted norms is torture, though, so perhaps it might as well have been?

[rowyn]

I suspect even Alzagonde would find traff torture porn more disturbing than traff prostitution. >:)

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt it, but she'd probably find it less objectionable to be lightly flogged than to have her hide flayed and salted, too.

...that said, if she actually stopped moralizing and actually was forced to pay attention to the material in question, she might at least find out that it is not, in fact, physically painful. Unless the writing was really bad!

[relee.livejournal.com]

That just makes Grinwipey even MORE terrifying! I figured... well you don't need to know what I figured!

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

BTW, I still think Alzagonde is a closet traff and her research is really seeking a way to "cure" her own transfection.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

That is certainly consistent with everything I know about her.