Shell Shock : I’m Dismayed That I May Have Derailed a Study of ‘Sex and the Single Snail’

WHEN YOU WRITE for the public, it is almost impossible to write anything that does not offend someone. Every word you drop falls on someone’s foot. I am constantly amazed at the ferocious reactions to some of my gentlest and most innocent reflections.

I do not blame the offended readers. In some way that I could not foresee, they have been hurt, disappointed, humiliated or frustrated by my words.

Even when I say something I think might annoy some particular person or group, I am usually surprised to find that the anger is aroused in quite some other quarter altogether.

Recently I complained about people calling to sell me something. I said: “Often I get calls from a publisher in Washington asking if I want to subscribe to a new series of beautifully illustrated books on the sex life of the snail, or whatever.”

Granted, that might be expected to ruffle the feathers of that particular publishing house or some other publishing house that uses telephone sales; also, it might wound persons who make their living that way.

I respect everyone who is out there trying to make an honest living, and I try not to be rude to telephone salespersons, even though they do usually call at prime time, when I’m busy watching television.

But, my lament implied, it seems to me that I often do business with such people, which is why I have beautifully illustrated books on everything but the sex life of the snail.

As usual, the complaint did not come from the obvious persons. It came from Selma Raskin, a writer. “With that line,” she said, “you struck not a sympathetic chord, but a warning gong!”

Ms. Raskin explained that she is co-author with Jean M. Cate of “an esoteric volume” called “It’s Easy to Say Crepidula: A Phonetic Guide to Pronunciation of the Scientific Names of Seashells and a Glossary of Terms Frequently Used in Malacology.”

“Admittedly,” she conceded, “this book has a limited (but appreciative) audience.”

She and her friend enjoyed working together and talked about what they could write next that might reach a wider audience. “The only books that make best-seller lists these days have something to do with sex. So we have been considering doing a book on the sex life of mollusks. Your line about such a book has saved us hours of time, work and a considerable amount of money. We want to thank you for that.

“But I must add that I feel a little sad about giving up the idea. We had such a good title for it. We planned to call it, ‘Sex and the Single Snail.’ ”

I am dismayed to think that I may have derailed such a promising project by suggesting that I wouldn’t want to buy a copy. It occurs to me that nothing of this nature has been achieved in American literature since Robert Benchley’s artful and scholarly “The Social Life of the Newt.”

Though Benchley did not use the word sex in his title, he quickly got around to it: “In studying the more intimate phases of newt life, one is chiefly impressed with the methods by means of which the males force their attentions upon the females, with matrimony as an object . . . .”

While the authority of Benchley’s scholarship saved his work from the censorship of the day, his essay nonetheless soon became much sought after for its piquant exploration of sex. In fact, it may be this century’s most famous essay on the subject.

There need be no reason that “Sex and the Single Snail” might not take its place on my shelf alongside “The Social Life of the Newt,” “Men Who Hate Women & the Women Who Love Them,” “Successful Women, Angry Men,” and so on.

The exciting thing about Ms. Raskin’s book is that there is no end to the sequels that it can inspire: “Snails Who Love Too Much,” “Snails Who Can’t Love,” “How to Love a Difficult Snail,” “The Peter Pan Syndrome: Snails Who Have Never Grown Up,” and so on.

So if my earlier curmudgeonry discouraged Raskin and her colleague from embarking on this enterprise, I hope these words will spur them on.

I can hardly wait for that call from Washington.