but then a mere wink in my direction would work on me

How effective is the use of literature to seduce a man?

Are you kidding? It's never failed, baby!

"So maybe it wasn’t fair to invite him to the lecture I was giving on The Great Gatsby and then use it as a chance to get back at him. After all, I’m a writing teacher and a student of literature—soon to be a professor of literature—and I should have respect for Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, even if it flopped when it came out. Was I really going to use it to show him—in the most petty and humiliating way—how hurt and pissed off I was that he had told me he just wanted to be friends? Yes, I was."