Customer Reviews

Love and the Incredibly Old Man: A Novel

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I was interested in "Love and the Incredibly Old Man," because I knew Lee Siegel to be skilled with words, and because the novel has a clever historical-fantasy premise -- that the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon actually was successful in his quest for the Fountain of Youth. Surely, given that combination, it would at least be better than anything by Isabel Allende, and it should be apparent that a Fountain-of-Youth novel must involve similar plot devices as in a time-travel novel, so perhaps it would resemble the science fiction of Connie Willis. And like Connie Willis, Mr. Siegel has done his research, because many of the obscure references contained in the novel turn out to be true.

How then could such a clever premise and fine writing go horribly wrong? Primarily, there's Lee Siegel's agenda. He makes Ponce de Leon a Jew, and his purpose in doing so is twofold. First, he is eager to create the situation of the young Jew, as an actor dressed as Jesus of Nazareth, copulating in various positions (which I'll leave to your imagination) with Queen Isabella --"la Católica"-- of Spain (who is also lactating).

Now, depending on your disposition, such a depiction may be either (a.) the height of sophisticated humor, (b.) great payback for the Inquisition, or (c.) merely someone trying to be as lewd and as offensive as possible. It is also important for Ponce de Leon to be one of The Chosen, because the book takes the view that the Goyim are, without exception, greedy, cruel, evil hypocrites, and that The Chosen (as well as the Indians) always behave in an honorable, generous, kindly, loving and humane manner -- all of which caused me to slap my forehead in dismay. Oh, no! Not more of this deconstructionist [ordure]!

But . . . [sigh] . . . one must keep an open mind, and there is some truth in it all. Besides, it makes it easy to follow -- Jew=good, Indian=good, Goyim=bad. Very well, so what adventures does Mr. Siegel put his Semitic hero through in the 500 years he has lived since discovering the fountain of youth? That's a long time, and it leaves adequate of room for as many interesting situations as a gifted storyteller can devise.

Unfortunately, this is where the book falls on its ischial tuberosities, because Lee Siegel is utterly bereft of narrative imagination or any gift for storytelling. Perhaps because he's trying to imitate (or even out do) Philip Roth, the only thing Siegel can depict his hero as doing is engaging in sex -- so much so that he even invents several synonyms for venery.

I hope you'll believe me when I state that there is no greater foe of puritanism than I, and that I'm not offended at reading about sex acts. It's just that it takes an exceptionally talented writer to devise something that is genuinely erotic. Or, in his masterpiece (NPI), Blue Movie, the great Terry Southern managed to make sex funny. Alas, most of the time, depictions of sex acts don't quite come off as either, and if ever a book needed to be brought to the attention of Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award, "Love and the Incredibly Old Man" is that book.

Lee Siegel seems to be titillated by the erotic aspect of tobacco use. Not, however, Cyd Charisse blowing smoke out her nostrils or Sharon Stone french inhaling; no, it's a painted Indian woman inhaling the smoke of a crude cigar, then putting her mouth to the hero, and he inhales her smoke. Since tobacco is sacred to the Indians of Florida, she then collects the cigar ashes and rubs them over her body. (If you find that description arousing, please don't try to contact me or join my Friends list, o.k.?)

To be fair, there are a few funny lines in the book, but there is no story to speak of, and all the descriptions of a lady's parts become tedious -- like being confined for hours to listen to adolescent humor in a locker room. (Adolescents also think that they're especially hip and sophisticated.)

And to think that in one generation, publishers have gone from the marvelous historical adventures by Mary Renault (Fire from Heaven) to [ordure] like this.