Eroticon by Yoryis Yatromanolakis Translated by David Connolly - Paperback

Yorgi Yatromanolakis is a professor of ancient Greek, and is regarded as one of Greece''s most important 20th century novelists. His third novel, The History of a Vendetta, was awarded the First Greek National Prize for Literature '

Eroticon ($13.99 paperback original; Jun. 24; 190 pp.; 1-873982-88-7): A very amusing (and imperturbably retrograde) imitation of the classical oriental love manual, from a celebrated contemporary Greek novelist (A Report of a Murder, 1995, not reviewed) whose casual sexism is obviously calculated to elicit strong reaction. Its straightforward categorization of the ``five types of women'' available for seduction will surely offend; then again, where else are you likely to learn how ``the spotted eels of the South Seas laboriously copulate? Advice on sexual strategies and positions is helpfully interspersed throughout by an ingenuous narrator whose grave and reverend, and studiously circumlocutious, lewdness nostalgically evokes the worlds, and words, of Rabelais and Boccaccio. Urbane, provocative, and highly (as well as lowly) entertaining. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.