Monday, February 06, 2012

Ten of the best erotic dreams in literature

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best erotic dreams in literature.

One novel on the list:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Anna, married to Karenin, has fallen for Vronsky and begins to be visited nightly by the same weird and sexy dream. "She dreamt that both at once were her husbands, and lavished their caresses on her." In the dream it seems like a lovely solution: both men kiss and stroke her and are "contented and happy". But when she wakes the dream weighs on her like a nightmare.
Read about another novel on the list.

Anna Karenina also appears on Howard Jacobson's list of his five favorite literary heroines, Eleanor Birne's top ten list of books on motherhood, Esther Freud's top ten list of love stories, Chika Unigwe's six favorite books list, Elizabeth Kostova's list of favorite books, James Gray's list of best books, Marie Arana's list of the best books about love, Ha Jin's most important books list, Tom Perrotta's ten favorite books list, Claire Messud's list of her five most important books, Alexander McCall Smith's list of his five most important books, Mohsin Hamid's list of his ten favorite books, Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers, and among the top ten works of literature according to Peter Carey and Norman Mailer. John Mullan put it on his lists of ten of the best coups de foudre in literature, ten of the best births in literature, ten of the best ice-skating episodes in literature, and ten of the best balls in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue