Reviewing Barbara Ehrenreich's book Living With A Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search For The Truth About Everything, Times book critic Dwight Garner writes:
Kingsley Amis once said that religion and masturbation were alike in one regard. Feel free to practice them, that is, but no one really wants to hear you go on about it.
I don't necessarily feel that way about mystical experiences of the sort Ms. Ehrenreich describes. Like her, I am a nonbeliever, and like her, I do not doubt there are many things we don't understand about our universe. But right here and right now, I wish I could say "Living With a Wild God" didn't feel like such a meandering trip.
Mr. Garner manages to slip a masturbation reference into the Times about once a year. In November of 2013 he reported that the artist Lucian Freud "could imitate a whale masturbating." In 2011 he reported what he described as "the startling information that Marvin Gaye 'masturbated at length' before performing the vocal takes on his 'What's Going On' album."
Perhaps Mr. Garner himself is the one who should take Kingsley Amis's admonition to heart.