Nicholson Baker's foray into highly eccentric quasi-pornography is a science fiction-like fantasy in which the narrator, a 35-year-old office temp named Arno Strine, has the amazing ability to stop the onward rush of time. This gives him the opportunity to gratify his imagination in erotic and hilarious ways, by undressing women not to have sex with them but merely to gratify himself and to appreciate them in their unclothed state. Strine, who learned to create the fermata (which in music means the holding of a note longer than is indicated by the composer) in fourth grade (when he undressed his teacher, the lovely Miss Dobzhansky) is kind-hearted and respectful, and the story of his erotic adventures is a typically witty, inventive, and hilarious Baker creation.
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