Title: The Disappearance
Author: Philip Wylie
Cover artist: Tom Dunn
Yours for: $10
Best things about this cover:
- Quiz: Our hero is
b. ordering five beers from the hologram waitress
c. saying "Up top! Don't leave me hanging, Betty!"
- "Suddenly for men there were no women"—that may explain why he's not interested in the advances of this particular "woman": "Stop right there. Pete, I know that's you."
Best things about this back cover:
- There's lots of interesting stuff here, but it all pales and fades before the claim that Philip Wylie is "famed as the exposer of Moms." How do you get *that* job? (outside of the niche porn industry, that is)
Page 123~
In due course a thunderous water wall had poured back upon the gleaming "dent" where Chicago and its environs had been.
This was during the period when Wylie was experimenting with sexual imagery. His wife would later suggest that perhaps "dent" was not as evocative of female genitalia as he thought it was.
~RP
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7 comments:
OK, I have to know how that story works. Everyone becomes invisible to the opposite sex? Don't they bang (ha) into each other a lot?
Page 123: 'In due course a thunderous water wall had poured back upon the gleaming "dent" where Chicago and its environs had been.'
Rex: 'This was during the period when Wylie was experimenting with sexual imagery. His wife would later suggest that perhaps "dent" was not as evocative of female genitalia as he thought it was.'
"I agree, honey, " said Wylie, "But then I guess you've never had the pleasure of seeing your brother Phil after he's had his mangina waxed..."
"My bro-...? His man-...-gina? ...you...? ...pleasure...? Wait a minute - my brother's name's Pete, not Phil!"
"Honey, I guess you're better hearin' it first from me, but in certain mangina loving parts of town, Pete's known as 'Fill'...and that gleaming 'dent' of his's had more than its fair share of thunderous 'water' walls pouring back down upon it."
Cover:
"Wait a minute - are we playing conceptual table tennis or conceptual basketball?"
Don't know if Mr. Wylie really wants "famed" and "sex ignorance" in the same sentence--although given the "dent" remark, it might explain a lot...
I remember reading this book as a kid and thought it was very good. It may not do as well the second time around. Still, for its time, it was a great read.
My word verification for this comment is "wonakin." You know -- Anakin's half-wookie brother that nobody talks about.
Wylie's book, GENERATION OF VIPERS, was a cause celebre in the 1940s, blaming many of the failures of American society which Wylie perceived on men being crippled by "Momism": the feminization of men and society by women in general, and mothers specifically.
It's pretty much b.s.--or least blown waaaay out of proportion--but it made Wylie famous and THE Momism maven.
I love the random "atom bomb" in there. For someone who´s only read that back cover, it doesn´t really make sense what the atom bomb has to do with the plot...or maybe it´s just me...xD
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