Vox

If you've read the Starr Report, the voluminous document which recounts, along with his other alleged misdeeds, President Bill Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, then you probably have heard of "Vox." Mr. Starr summarily refers to it as "a novel about phone sex by Nicholson Baker that, according to Ms. Lewinsky, she gave the President in March 1997." (Clinton, treating Lewinsky as he would a visiting head of state, gave her a special edition of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." In a thank you note to "Mr. P.," Lewinsky writes, "Whitman is so rich that one must read him like one tastes a fine wine or good cigar - take it in, roll it in your mouth, and savor it!") Flouting the subpoenas of two grand juries, Clinton failed to produce his copy of "Vox," although the Report cites it in a list of books in his private study. Could it be that the book was just so dear to him that he couldn't bear to part with it? Clinton was a Rhode's scholar, after all, and "Vox" is something of a classic (although, as a classic of the erotica subgenre, it has enticements and charms other than its literary merit). As for Ms. Lewinsky, she proves as lubricious yet literate in her choice of presents as she does in her assessment of Whitman. "Lubricious yet literate" might aptly apply to "Vox," as well, but before conflating the giver and gift, read this novel, savor it, and enjoy its sex, guilt-free. When a writer, particularly a male one, writes about sex, he runs at least two risks: 1) Should he write the scene ham-handedly he may remind his reader of a little boy grinding together the erogenous zones of his sister's Barbie dolls, or 2) should he write the scene perhaps too vividly he may turn the reader off with an impression of shady, prurient voyeurism. Mr. Baker adroitly avoids both pitfalls by strictly limiting the narrator's intrusion to the reportage of dialogue between two paying customers on a phone-sex hotline. ("`What are you wearing?' he asked. She said, `I'm wearing a white shirt with little stars, green and black stars, on it, and pants, and socks the color of the green stars, and a pair of black sneakers I got for nine dollars.'") Since we are prying with our ears and not our eyes, we learn no more about them (and what they are doing) than they consent to share with each other. That is not to say that they don't share quite a bit. They do, everything from their pet names for the opposite sex's anatomy (Jim calls breasts "frans.") and the random mental images that crop up when they come (such as, in Abby's case, the great seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) to their most vivid fantasies and experiences. While even a modern erotica urtext like Pauline Réage's "The Story of O" can be boring, "Vox" never is, probably because its protagonists are subtly yet strongly drawn, and the stories that they tell are quirkily playful, dramatically taut and deliciously sexy. Above all else, Jim and Abby are so inherently likable that I exalted in their good fortune and practically rooted them on towards orgasm: "This is a miracle," he said. "It's just a telephone conversation." "It's a telephone conversation I want to have. I love the telephone." If I were a love-doctor, I would recommend that you take a cue from Bill and Monica, read "Vox," and learn to love the telephone, too. [...]

Interesting. Both as a story and with a “background “.

I think it's a comment on Vox, and not on me, that I read this a year ago and barely (no pun intended) remember anything about it. Some novels I can remember very vividly ten or twenty years later. Others are gone in a year. Or less. In this novel, there is nothing but talk . . . talk . . . talk ad infinitum. It doesn't matter that the talk is about sex fantasies: this turns out to be unsexy. And unmemorable. I give this three stars rather than two because I feel the author is a good writer and did his best to make this book come alive . . . but a book about talking is, I think, doomed from the start.

Well, this was the second or third time I have bought this book. I like it quite a bit and keep managing to lend it to people who don't return it! As one reviewer explained, the "porn" is soft - but the porn isn't what's kept me coming back. The dialogue itself is wonderful. Yes, the character's personalities are a little bland, but I think that's what makes it *good*. If the characters were outlandish and bizarre, their conversation wouldn't be nearly as much fun - these are two utterly ordinary people - having a conversation about things that most people have thought and have perhaps never mentioned out loud. I for one don't even *read* "erotic novels" - I always wind up laughing too hard to ever get past the first page or two. Vox is surely worth the money, and is thoroughly entertaining. It won't leave you "panting for more", but I at least felt my time and money was well spent (every time I've bought/read it!)

With so much good literature out there, it was not worth the time it took to read this book. Rambling, boring....

This is a great let down compared to House of Holes which was brilliantly funny. Vox is a drawn out telephone conversation which does not sustain interest.

An old favorite. Some say it has aged, and I suppose it has, but it true to its time and that was some fine time. Back then, a man I loved telephoned and, without advance warning, read the the man's conversation from VOX. I quickly grabbed my copy of VOX and voiced the female's responses. And we were off. The most exciting moments of my life occurred when this man and I were in the same room. But at a distance, on separate phones, the two of us reading VOX together, as if the conversation in the book were ours? That was close. Ah the 1970s. Something like VOX can sweep me back there in an instant and remind me once again, "It just doesn't get any better than this." Amen.

very well written.

A strange book that gets more absorbing as you read it. Tons of fun.

Book was in good condition and received earlier than expected. 5* for seller. Story is written as a conversation as a virtual blind date - written as if they were socially distancing.

No problems.

Nicholson Baker is a writer in detail - and having read Room Temperature and The Mezzanine I was looking forward to Vox. The title doesn't warn you, but this is all about phone sex. It's quite short, only 169pp, and not offensive in any way. In fact it's quite funny - and unfortunately totally unbelievable. Jim is fixated on female masturbation, Abby, among other fetishes, gets off on significant monuments related to U.S. history. It just wouldn't happen that two people so finely attuned would find themselves on the other end of the phone with their ideal phone-sex partner. I did get a little bored around halfway through when they were talking around the sexual act and telling each other stories, but one has to admire the stamina and, I suppose, outlay in effort and the dollars supposedly expended. I admired it chiefly for Abby's remark in the closing pages, "That was - that was - man," she said, "I saw the great seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts when I came."

Was really had read not a great book at all