The Pornographer's Poem: Amazon.co.uk: Michael Turner: Books

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Product Description

At 16 years old, the narrator of this novel catches sight of his neighbours having sex on their back porch. When the family dog gets involved, the boy "accidentally" films it and ends up with the most outrageous pornographic film ever seen in Vancouver.

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
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Average Customer Review

4.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Poem than Porn, 24 Jan 2001

By A Customer

The title of this truly fantastic book is misleading. Sure, there's plenty of sexual congress(canine or otherwise) but this novel is as much about emotional awakenings and life discovery as anything else. The narrator is unamed throughout the novel and I guess it could be semi-autobiographical yet Michael Turner speaks for all of us and not just himself. His lyrical and flowing prose is mixed with dream sequences scripted like a home movie and the plot is really secondary to the deep themes of self-discovery and the rites of teenage passage. I constantly marvelled at how honest his writing is and how well he describes those emotions that we all felt in teenage confusion and self-discovery. The denoument is extraordinarily moving and stayed with me long before I put the book down. But who are the inquisitors? One theory is posted in another review. I wonder what other readers think?

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How odd, 27 Aug 2007

By	SJSmith (UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I found this an odd, yet disturbing read. I had in the back of my mind Room 101 from 'Nineteen Eighty Four' whilst reading this as it is unclear who those doing the interrogating are.

A weird world unfolds, completely surreal but easy to fall into. A bizarrley enjoyable read where we are made to feel (and be?) accountable for EVERYTHING we have done in life. Could this be a metaphor for our first encounter with God?

Not every going to be the best book I've read but worthwhile. If you are reading the book based on the blurb - 16 year old recording his neighbours - then you will be disappointed as this is a media crux I beleive to get you read it in the first place. If like me the title caught your eye you won't be disaappointed.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Be drawn in by the title; be amazed by the book, 31 Oct 2000

By A Customer

When looking back on our individual pasts we all have a tendency - and a very human tendency at that - to edit out that which we do not wish to remember; we withdraw the bad things we have done and elevate the good in their place. In short, we shape our memories of the past so that they `fit` with the type of person we wish to be, the type of personality we wish to project.

Imagine what it would be like if you couldn't do that; imagine that you have to be accountable - in the present - for every shady little thing you did in the past; that's EVERY shady little thing...

This may just be one of the central concerns of Michael Turner's spellbindingly inventive novel. Then again, it may not be. I can't be sure you see because memory can play funny tricks: it can make you think you're telling the truth when, in fact, you're spinning a web of lies.

It is set up as an interrogation between the narrator and two nameless figures from some nameless authority. Unsurprisingly these two nameless figures know everything there is to know about the narrator but, get this, they want him to tell all, to confess to everything he has done...and so his story begins to emerge: from the twinges of his sexual awakening to the moment he `makes` the Family Dog.

This new book has it all: adolescent longing, regret, sex (in bucket loads,) mistakes, wrong turnings, pornography, love, death. In short, it has the whole pretty [ugly] picture of life between its pages and, what's more, the writing does not miss a beat at any point.

If you need lyrical it has lyrical; if you need sensitive it has sensitive; if you need a screenplay it has a screenplay; if you need hardcore it has hardcore; if you need a snuff movie it has a snuff movie. Hell, just go out and buy this wonderful novel and tell me what you think happens at the end because I've got a million-and-one ideas and none of them, I suspect, is even close to the mark.