![]() ![]() "Baker has written a book that describes precisely the sexual and moral landscape of an adolescent male," crabbed Lynn Darling in Esquire. Unless you suffered brain-pan meltdown from the Tonya-rama of recent weeks, you know that "The Fermata" has been called infantile and misogynistic, that it has evoked critical opinion ranging from derisive outrage to rhapsodic praise. And Arno's frequent response when his obsession is fulfilled, as it often is in "The Fermata," is masturbation. In Arno's case, this means motionless, undressed women, particularly their breasts and genitals. Voyeurs, it seems, know what they like and doggedly stick to it. For one whose life, both social and sexual, is animated principally by voyeurism, Arno's outlook is amazingly narrow. Not many, unfortunately, intrude upon the small patch of life he stakes out in Nicholson Baker's curious new novel, "The Fermata" (Random House, $21). "What else was there in the world," muses Arno Strine, "but masturbation? Nothing." ![]()
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