Russell Williams

A debate between people who go out of their way to assure us that none of them have ever experienced the slightest hint of non-monogamy themselves. The argument was so dry and disconnected from any real feeling I sometimes doubted they had ever had sex, though they had obviously read many philosophy books. I am particularly mystified by Susie Bright's recommendation, as it is about as far from her engaging style as I can I can imagine. This elucidated nothing for me; it was an attempt to be witty that fell very flat. Lots of hot air about what the spiritual meaning of love and sex should ideally be according to each debater's abstract arguments based on their abstract axioms, nothing about what the actual effects of non-monogamy are on people's lives.

Some of the bits are pretty funny, but I could never hope to have as high an opinion of him as he has of himself. And "observational humor" needs more than mundane observations plus a snarky delivery to constitute humor. The bit about the nature of God was creative. The extended bit about what to do about the sock you don't know whether you dropped on the way to or from the washing machine, not so much. The former contained thoughts I hadn't already thought. The latter -- and many other bits -- didn't. They weren't hilarious when I thought them, and they didn't get funny just because Scott Adams thought them too.

The ratio of descriptive detail to plot and character development is far too high for my taste. Too much about how the tea, the mutton, the toast, has gotten cold. Too many internal re-thinkings of the advantages of anthropometry over fingerprinting. Not enough plot. Not enough change in the characters. Page-turning as in "get *on* with it" rather than "what's going to happen next?". I loved Sarah Waters' "Tipping the Velvet", "Affinity", and "Fingersmith". This was excruciatingly slow and static by comparison.