ANGELICA’S GROTTO

An elderly art historian’s improbable sexual adventures elucidate the perils and pleasures of “madness,” in a brilliantly funny novel from the fantasist (and author of children’s books) who has produced such memorable fictions as Riddley Walker (1980) and Turtle Diary (1975).

The wonderfully imagined protagonist is widower Harold Klein, whose overload of physical infirmities becomes exacerbated by the inexplicable disappearance of his “inner voice” (i.e., the faculty that “censors” the inappropriate thoughts people normally refrain from speaking aloud). Getting no help from doctors or psychiatrists, Harold consoles himself by studying the nudes of Escher and Klimt, then, while surfing the Internet, discovers a pornographic Website invitingly entitled “Angelica’s Grotto” (an allusion, he correctly surmises, to Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando Furioso). Harold soon indulges in “chats” with the pseudonymous Angelica (a.k.a. Melissa Bottomley)—a sex researcher as well as a provider—and eventually forms an unlikely alliance with the “goddess” who gratifies, taunts, and punishes him—an alliance that also involves her absurdly overendowed male “associate,” and leads inevitably to the unsettling, bitterly comic conclusion. Hoban makes Harold a thoroughly engaging character: an intellectual with a versatile mind and charmingly self-deprecating sense of humor (“There’s a young man in me but he can’t get out”). And Harold’s vagrant emotional state is heightened by such agreeable hallucinations as the imagined “voice” of Babylonian (half-fish, half-human) god of wisdom Oannes, which provides amusing intermittent commentary on Harold’s compulsive strolls on the wild side. The story is furthermore studded (as it were) with wry observations that season the erotic detail with rich insight (e.g., Harold’s explanation to his current shrink that “Oannes has the same relation to me that your opponent does if you play chess against yourself”).

Superb fiction, and a powerful argument for making the complete oeuvre of this remarkable expatriate available in this country.