Three Kinds Asking Book

During the events of the novel Lila, the author Robert Pirsig (of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance fame) describes himself walking through an Indian reservation with the tribe's chief, a professor of anthropology, and a woman from the Association of American Indians. Pirsig spoke of how a dog had been following the group and the woman had asked, "What kind of dog is that?" and the tribe's chief had replied, "That's a good dog". Pirsig continues:

"Laverne had been asking the question within an Aristotelian framework. She wanted to know what genetic, substantive pigeonhole of canine classification this object walking before them could be placed in. But John Wooden Leg never understood the question. That's what made it so funny. He wasn't joking when he said, "That's a good dog". … The whole idea of a dog as a member of a hierarchical structure of intellectual categories knows generically as "objects" was outside his traditional culture viewpoint. What was significant, Phaedrus realized, was that John had distinguished the dog according to its Quality, rather than according to its substance." (Pirsig)

So what's that got to do with this book of erotica? Well, I came across this while reading this article on the difference between porn and erotica. The blogger, Greta Christina (one of the three novella authors of this book) comes to the same conclusion Pirsig does: The distinction between erotica and porn is an artificial one. Even if you decide that porn is mainly trying to get people off, and erotica is mainly trying to do something else… that's not a clear distinction. It's blurry at best, artificial at worst. The difference between "Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" and "Butt Balling Honeys #9″ isn't whether it's porn or erotica. The difference is whether it's good.

So was this good? Well... I guess it just wasn't my cup of tea. The first novella has the basic plot of Bedazzled, Christina's novella was a way too S&M for me, and the last novella, though engagingly written, seemed fairly similar to Mena Suvari's seduction of Kevin Spacey's character in American Beauty.