Cock & Bull [Paperback]

Will Self (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 29, 1994

Combining a wild imagination, a bizarre sense of humor, and a masterful command of language, Self is the newest young literary star to appear out of England. Cock and Bull tells of a world where sexual characteristics are switched on a nightmare ride where gender isn't so much bent as snapped in two.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Two bitingly erudite and absurdist novellas describe characters who suddenly sprout the genitalia of the opposite sex.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

If David Lodge were to collaborate with Monty Python, the results might resemble this wickedly playful, gender-bending pair of novellas. The first, Cock: A Novelette, concerns Carol, a passive young woman trapped in an unsatisfying marriage, who starts developing a penis. Personality changes soon follow, leading to unpleasant consequences for Dan, her loutish husband. Bull: A Farce , meanwhile, involves a typical Englishman, archetypally named John Bull, who wakes up one day to discover a "wound" on his leg that turns out be a vagina. The doctor who examines him develops a more-than-professional interest in his new genitalia, and the two begin a confused affair. While gender complications play an obvious role in these satiric tales, Self's real target is "the horror that shadows each and every aspect of the ordinary." Recommended for public libraries.
- Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 29, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679750924
• ISBN-13: 978-0679750925
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,029,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Making 'Brilliant' cliche..., April 25, 2000

By 

Justin Herman (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cock & Bull (Paperback)

This happened to be the 3rd book of Will Self's that I read, the first being Great Apes and second being The Sweet Smell of Psychosis. The athletic story line in this collection of two novellas were pleasantly charming. Here I am sitting in a dreadry Romantic American Literature Class but reading about a guy who suddenly grows a vagina beind his left knee. That brings us into the subject matter. First we have 'Cock: A Novelette'. In it this woman, over a period of time, grows a fully functional male penis. In 'Bull: A Farce', a rugby player is bestowed by fate with a fully functional femine genitalia network, so to speak. There are, however, complications to both of these. Cock and Bull is a good read for postmodernists or anyone who thinks that books are dull. Be warned, however, the writing stlye is complex and hard to understand if you are not equipt for the task. Very good book though, over all.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gender swap, November 1, 2007

By 

Sirin (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cock and Bull (Paperback)

These two novellas, written at great speed during a holiday in Morocco, when Self was, as he proclaimed himself 'high on marijuana' have the brio and freshness of stories rolled out with swift, merciless satire.

The concept is similar in both stories - exploring the murky waters of human sexual identity, but the pace differs. In 'Cock' a woman trapped in a moribund marriage to a bloke whose idea of sexual seduction is to ask if he can 'climb on board' gradually finds the grisly stub of her clitoris growing and expanding into a fully fledged penis, which takes over her personality giving it freakish impulses.

In 'Bull', the metamorphosis is more sudden. Like Gregor Samsa, Bull, a slightly dimwitted, naive rugby player who implausibly writes an arts column for a listings magazine wakes up one morning to find a vagina has sprouted in the crook of his knee. Strange things happen to him as he tries to come to grips with this, and the curious attentions of his doctor Alan Margoulies...

This is not Self's best work. It pitches well, but the stories are too frenzied and overwrought to have the subtleties and satirical power of his greatest stories. But there is still plenty of humour, and like all Self's writing, his prose holds up an ugly and uncomfortable mirror to ourselves, and our modes of living.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars When men and women switch roles, March 13, 2001

By 

David G. Phillips (Jersey City, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cock & Bull (Paperback)

A definite oddity of a book that explores how and why men and women are infinitely different. One woman grows fully functional male genitalia and conversely a male is disfigured with female genitals in the back of his knee. What's most interesting about the books is the emotional metamorphosis, not necessarily the physical one that these two independent people experience.

I liked the idea of the book, however I found the vocabulary to be grandiloquent at times. Reading this book with a dictionary nearby was a necessity for me. This isn't necessarily a weakness, however I found that the book should have been a little more decipherable for being such a small novelette. The story itself was grand; the vocabulary just confused and overshadowed the narrative. I liked the book, and I recommend it, just be prepared to sit with a dictionary while reading.