A woman’s beauty lies, not in any exaggeration of the specialized zones, nor in any general harmony that could be worked out by means of the sectio aurea or a similar aesthetic superstition; but in the arabesque of the spine. The curve by which the back modulates into the buttocks. It is here that grace sits and rides a woman’s body.
― John Updike, Pigeon Feathers: And Other Stories
What was he smoking when he wrote that?
ReplyDeleteI don't know, but I want some...
ReplyDeleteI just love this! There is a man who knows the woman's body.
ReplyDeleteI love the word arabesque, so seldom used now but grounded in the soil of Byzantium and written and danced into modernity. An appropriate term for an unchanging element of beauty.
ReplyDeleteDCW, arabesque is, indeed, such a lovely word...I've jotted it in my notebook...
ReplyDeleteSpoken with eyes wide open!
ReplyDeleteAh, John Updike, he truly loved woman and knew how to write about them!
ReplyDeleteMellow cello.
ReplyDeleteLove the shoes!
ReplyDeleteI'd say Updike has got it about right.
ReplyDeleteYep.
ReplyDelete