Customer Reviews

Stripping in Time: A History of Erotic Dancing

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Reading this book was like watching a camera zoom away from a close-up of an individual to a larger, more comprehensive shot. This is because Ms. Jarett begins her description of erotic dance in the mid 1800's, and ends it in the 1990's, since erotic dancing is something that must be seen to be fully experienced. The chapters based in our modern times are therefore a better read, since Lucinda Jarrett has a talent for describing the details of a scene so well that you feel the places and people instead of reading about them. This doesn't mean that her first chapters are dull, or hard to read. They're interesting and clearly written, but I could imagine her frustration at trying to transform a spotty paper trail of documents into a living, breathing portrait of a period. She concentrates on a single performer per chapter for all but the last two chapters. The chapter first sets the general legal and social atmosphere that the performers played in, then moves into a brief biography of the performer. From this point springs a sometimes lengthy "monologue" written in the performer's character. This is sometimes followed by more social/ historical description. Although I enjoyed some of the monologues immensely, I wish that Ms. Jarrett had annotated them, because they're not exactly history as much as they are the author's attempt to intuitively grasp the psychology and voice of performers long since deceased. They're well done, but I have no way of thinking critically about her characterizations unless I know where she got her background from - and I imagine that some of her background information is hard to chase down. Overall, I was impressed by the amount of research and effort that she put into this book, and by the way she boiled all her research down to make a fascinating book about a fascinating subject. Not "academic", not "dry": she treats the performers and industry players as people who lived, breathed, won, and lost, dancing in the moral grey zone beneath the colored lights.

so, the previous review is mistaken. I would suggest that the author put on their reading glasses next time. Otherwise, I agree with evreything she said.