Eroticon

Author: Yoryis Yatromanolakis

Translator: David Connolly   Cover illustration: Clovis Trouille  

A very amusing (and imperturbably retrograde) imitation of the classical oriental love manual from a celebrated contemporary Greek novelist whose casual sexism is obviously calculated to elicit strong reaction. Its straightforward categorization of the 'five types of women' available for seduction will surely offend: then again, where else are you likely to learn how 'the spotted eels of the South Seas' laboriously copulate? Advice on sexual strategies and positions is helpfully interspersed throughout by an ingenious narrator whose grave and reverend, and studiously cumcumlocutious, lewdness nostalgically evokes the worlds, and words, of Rabelais and Boccaccio. Urbane, provocative and highly (as well as lowly) entertaining.

Kirkus Reviews

Eroticon is a masterpiece in the erotic tradition.

Kevin McGrath in The Harvard Review

Yatromanolakis is one of Greece's most distinguished living novelists, and his work eschew plot in favour of a meditative, cyclical style that's often rather sombre.This book, warmer in tone, is in many ways his most accessible. Essentially a pick'n'mix manual of erotic tips, it's written in rich, archaic language, elegantly translated by David Connolly, and has passages of wit and real beauty.

Scotland on Sunday