Moaning and groaning

At last, Philip Roth will receive recognition for his epic contribution to modern literature – he is the favourite to win the Bad Sex Awards.

The ‘Forget the Bookers’, as Ian McEwan titles them, were instituted by Auberon Waugh in 1993 “gently to dissuade” authors from including “unnecessary, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature in otherwise sound literary novels”.

Like his deceased compatriot John Updike, Philip Roth has forged a career by describing the in and outs of wham, bam, thank you mam. ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’, ‘The Human Stain’ and ‘American Pastoral’ being the limpest examples among his work that I’ve read. So, why has it taken all this time for Roth to be acknowledged for this particular talent? Updike’s genius for the embarrassing and the gratuitous won him a generous lifetime achievement award. Could it be that the widely panned ‘The Humbling’, Roth’s latest novel, is the first of his books the panel believe to be of sound literary merit?