3 out of 5

Alan Moore has described Lost Girls as pornography, chortling (in good nature) at those who might classify it with a more, er, favorable term.  Pornography, to me, denotes something without merit or intent beyond titillation, and Alan’s paraphrased quote suggests a similar, general, definition.  Regarding Lost Girls: I wouldn’t disagree.  Yes, there’s an awful lot of flowery language and some things going on besides porn, but there’s also an overwhelming lot of ‘spending’ and rutting and buggering between chaps and gals and other configurations, and graphic depictions of the same: if it’s said aloud – which it is in pretty much every single panel, Oohing and Aahing and Stick-it-in-there-ing – then it is also depicted.  With two hundred plus pages of that, yes, I’m willing to classify the book as pornography.

And to that extent, it gets kinda exhausting.  Yes, some porns have plots, but two hours of that, in our VHS days, often amounted to fast-forwarding, and once you’re out of the mindset of wanting to be titillated, all that flesh just becomes sort of blase.  Since I can’t say I read Lost Girls exactly wanting it to function in that fashion – though I can appreciate how it could be – I had to take it a few chapters at a time; all that sex is rather boring at length.  (Apply that to my personal life however it pleases ya’.)

But then we have that other term: erotica.  Used on the back of this hardcover, expanded edition of Lost Girls, as well as in many-a favorable review of the collection (or its previous printing), erotica tends to suggests a higher echelon of titillation, once which can be said to have some type of ‘value’ beyond arousal.  Expanding our understandings of genre, or some such, or perhaps exploring the emotions it may otherwise exploit.  And that’s here, to a degree.  Not a great degree, I’d say; I’d still default to Alan’s definition for the book.  But it pops up here and there, especially as things heat up into surreal perversions and lace-veiled, vile truths in the second and third sections: thoughts on the lines between fantasy and reality; the abstraction simply of telling a story versus experiencing it firsthand.  Doing something versus the thought of it.  More enlightened reviewers might glean more from this, but I found these concepts to exist somewhat as idle thoughts: Alan and artist Melinda Gebbie allowing themselves full immersion in their fiction, and openly questioning what that may or may not mean.  I don’t read it as something to alter the entire narrative, although Moore’s usual intersection of visuals and theme are sprinkled along the way, mixing sex and violence and death via full-page imaginations and the final few pages that drift the two latter sections to a close; still, there’s an awful lot of penetration and bodily fluids going on to try to equate every moment here to that.

Which, as mentioned, can be tiresome; same with the way that our three leads – the titular ‘Lost Girls,’ Wendy, Alice, and Dorothy, grown up from the stories of Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and Wizard of Oz, respectively – constantly interrupt their tellings of their past lives to one another with requests to jam a dildo somewhere or lick something – but the book manages to be rather readable overall.  Partially because it’s all rather bizarre and dreamlike: the three ladies happen to meet up in a hotel, and as they recite their, to us, “well known” pasts and recast them as tawdry affairs, the absurdity of what they’re recounting has one puzzling out what the point is.  (Later, these tales do become almost horrific – rape and incest are common – though still told in flowing language and laughed off by the trio; yes, fine, there might be more ‘Moore’ in this than I’ve suggested.)  Partially because Alan smartly keeps things tightly structured: 8 page chapters, switching narrators each chapter, ten chapters a ‘book,’ three books.  This makes it easy to divvy up the reading into bite-sized increments.  And then, perhaps the major contribution: Melinda Gebbie’s fantastically varied style.  I’m frankly not a fan of Gebbie’s flat, zine-y style, but it’s hard to imagine Lost Girls being told with any other visuals than hers.  She and Moore tend to feed into each other’s stylistic indulgences, but affected in any other fashion and this book becomes less of a book and more just naked pictures with dirty language.  Apparently allowing Gebbie to lead the march and then matching his words to suit it, the duo (who would be married during the long process of conceiving the finalized project) sift through all manner of classical erotic influence, as well as including visual notes or themes that suggest the personalities of each narrator, elevating that dreamlike sensibility and allowing the reader to float from page to page.

As part of this ‘extended’ edition, there are extra pages with commentary from Gebbie, speaking further to how integral she was to maintaining the tone and consistent pace of the book.

I don’t know if I’m likely to reread this, or even recommend it, but it is a worthwhile experience.  It was, I’d think, an experiment for its creators, and it’s something of an experiment for the reader as well: how do you feel after sifting through its pages?  And for that reason, it stays on my shelf, on the off chance that someone will pick it up off the Moore name, unaware of its content, and I get to watch the reaction; on the equally off chance that someone will have read it and want to discuss it; that someone will show interest in reading it and I’ll be able to offer the opportunity…

Final notes: Top Shelf’s / Knockabout’s binding on this is top notch.  It’s an over-sized hardcover, with thick, sturdy pages, but it’s surprisingly lightweight with pages that lay flat.