Michael Bloch
Seeing Politics as a Sexual Exercise
Fellatio, Masochism, Politics and Love
By Leo Abse
Robson Books 220pp £16.95
Leo Abse has done it again. At eighty-three, the Freudian ex-MP to whom we owe the reform of the laws relating to divorce, homosexuality, suicide and children's rights has produced a book that is brilliant, disturbing and entertaining, at times bewildering, but always stimulating. His opening is characteristically provocative, informing us in detail of how, 'as a callow provincial youth of seventeen', he was 'for the first time proffered a blow job'. But the purpose of the book - a volume of essays on a common theme - is perfectly serious.
Abse's basic thesis is that we live in an age of shallow and soulless materialism, one in which work has become dehumanised and women are too busy to breast-feed their children properly. As a result, ours is increasingly a world of disturbed individuals, incapable of forming intimate personal relationships and
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
‘In matters of the heart, cats are at the heart of the matter.’
So says @OSoden on the explosion of cat mania in the early twentieth century.
Oliver Soden - Pussies Galore
Oliver Soden: Pussies Galore - Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World by Kathryn Hughes
literaryreview.co.uk
A recent inquiry found that British security services had effectively licensed the IRA assassin known as Stakeknife to commit multiple murders.
@malodoherty picks apart the murky world of spying and counterespionage in Northern Ireland.
Malachi O’Doherty - Belfast Confidential
Malachi O’Doherty: Belfast Confidential - Four Shots in the Night: A True Story of Espionage, Murder and Justice ...
literaryreview.co.uk
‘Creative non-fiction, I am so sick of this bullshit’, says Michael Anderson, an editor of the New York Times Book Review.
@rosalyster returns to its genesis.
Rosa Lyster - Two Sides to the Story
Rosa Lyster: Two Sides to the Story - The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting: How a Bunch of Rabble Rousers, O...
literaryreview.co.uk