Customer Reviews

The Limits of Pleasure

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Jaffe's novel is a courageous example of how fiction can challenge our ideas and emotions- creating new spaces where we have never been before. By exploring the intersections where ethnicity and sexual desire meet,by provoking us to reconsider the meaning of identity,Jaffe expands our horizons in dramatic ways. After reading this novel I realized "pleasure" is the final frontier of freedom: how much pleasure is our body allowed to seek, to feel, to enjoy? For centuries we have been living within the ethics of pain: suffering is validation. But Jaffe's book seems to suggest another standard: pleasure is redemption too;sex has a moral value within this novel. It reminded me of Nietzche's opinion: "pain wants to end, but pleasure wants repetition and eternity". And you want to read this book as soon as you can- if you dare!

The Limits of Pleasure explores a vast reservoir of possibilities that exists between the constrictions of psychic and emotional pain and the expansiveness of physical sensation and desire. With great wit, insight, and imagination, Mr. Jaffe reveals in his characters a stunning inner landscape that pits smoldering, down-the-throat sensuality against heartfelt nostalgia for cultural awareness and familial belonging. Keep this book by the nightstand for erotic and psychical stimulation when the other side of the bed is absent a warm body to do the needful otherwise.

Ron Suresha, editor, Bearotica; and author, Bears on Bears

Rare to find a novel that conveys deep meaning through humor. The Limits of Pleasure does that. It made me smile and think at the same time. And it was often arousing too, not such a bad thing, as this novel tries to point out. Feels very true to life. Deals with the sort of issues we wish were not there. Not always PC, but we aren't always politically correct in our heads and hearts and lower, are we?