Improvement

I'll never write a book so fine or so fascinating as Making sex, but I can and will improve on it. Here is the first sentence:

An interpretive chasm separates two interpretations, fifty years apart, of the same story of death and desire told by an eighteenth-century physician obsessed with the problem of distinguishing real from apparent death.

I shall improve it stylistically and substantively. First, I delete the egregiously superfluous "interpretive." Already it's better. Next a flurry of other changes. So I have

A chasm separates two interpretations, fifty years apart, of a story concerning death and desire told by an eighteenth-century physician obsessed with distinguishing death from its living double.

Now I home in on a substantive problem: Laqueur never explains the fifty year gap mentioned in his opening. He cites three interpretations of Jacques-Jean Bruhier's story: Bruhier's own (an edition dated 1749 is cited; the first ed. appeared in 1742), Antoine Louis's (1752), and Michael Ryan's (the 1836 edition provides the date Laqueur cites). What happened, Thomas?

Context suggests that Laqueur located the chasm between Louis and Ryan.

A chasm separates two interpretations, eighty-four years apart, of a story concerning death and desire told by an eighteenth-century physician obsessed with distinguishing death from its living double.

for Lizzie

We went east. We drove up into the mountains. Snow was on the trees, on the ground, on the rivers. We went into the woods with skis. Snow was in our faces, on our clothing, on our skis. We inhaled snow. Wind blew snow. We drove to the cabin and the food we had was lentil stew and apples. More snow. The sound of the snow under our boots was crisp never sorry.

The trees bore snow on their outstretched bowed limbs. The birds were nutcrackers. I scared somnolent fishes.

A quartet of hot springs collected in a pool, warming our feet our thighs our tummies our hands and arms.

We woke up at night when snowflakes infiltrated our cabin and we talked about our dreams. You were with us, nodding, smiling.

Dictionary

allegations.—always troubling.

antidepressants.—cause suicide.

Bible.—source of all truth or of all evil.

bottled water.—nothing is more wasteful.

caffeinated.—refers to people, not beverages.

cancer.—death by is always preceded by a long battle with.

comic books.—a form of literature.

decline.—always precipitous.

die.—used of plants and animals; never suitable for individual humans.

drop.—always precipitous.

ensconced.—always happily.

Flaubert.—le mot juste.

Freud.—based all his theories on his own neuroses; a dinosaur.

generalize.—do not.

grill.—always being fired up.

Harvard.—a school in Boston.

Hemingway.—always wrote short, spare sentences.

homosexuality.—a genetic condition.

increase.—always dramatic.

Jung.—we are all Jungians now.

lawyers.—make all important decisions for big corporations.

literally.—metaphorically.

Middle East.—it's all about the oil.

monolithic explanations.—reductionist and doomed.

oak.—source of all problems with wine.

pass.—die (of human beings).

periods.—use liberally.

poets.—no longer know anything about meter, rhyme, or trees.

Pollock.—mention only in the context of bowel movements and vomit.

potassium.—bananas have lots.

race.—does not exist.

reference.—a verb, meaning to mention.

revenge.—best served cold.

soy.—most poisonous substance known (see also wheat).

truth.—always set in quotation marks.

wheat.—most poisonous substance known (see also soy).

writing.—loneliest of professions.

yeah, no.—yeah.