Customer Reviews

Cock & Bull

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Really funny, twisty stuff. If you like Martin Amis, then you'll love Cock & Bull. Really British stuff and proof positive that the contemporary Brit novelists are the only ones getting it done right now.

At a time when the term "intellectual" has practically become a pejorative expression in the vernacular of our language, Will Self ignores the trend followed by so many contemporary writers which seems to call for a dumbing-down of literature to serve the demands of mass appeal. In fact, he seems rather committed to the (perhaps Quixotic?) cause of trying to reverse this trend through his particularly cerebral style of wordsmithing which, I don't feel at all ashamed to admit, frequently sends me to the dictionary. No doubt, for many readers this factor alone will prove a substantial enough burden to turn them away from the wealth of linguistic generosity offered in Self's books, but that's their loss. In fact, whereas I'm sure that some may find Self's highly erudite vocabulary to be a kind of roadblock, one could just as easily make the case that this author's particularly acrobatic brand of dark humor and wicked irony would be nearly impossible to achieve except for its being performed beneath the tent of such fine wordplay.

"Cock and Bull" employs just such qualities in its wryly hilarious portrayal of, and eventual reversal of, individual and societal gender roles (and all the bizarre, yet often unexamined attitudes which usually go along with them). But, Self doesn't merely scratch away at the various superficialities inherent to human sexual relations. He goes deeper into the subcutaneous flesh of culture by lampooning the absurdities contained within subcultural movements, and the circumstances which may cause otherwise "normal" (even boring) people to slip into an "outsider" identification.

Suffice to say, if a highly entertaining excoriation of these complex matters intrigues you then Self's particular brand of savvy narrative style may also appeal to you, as it certainly does to me; and if that's the case then "Cock and Bull" will prove a great introduction to his writing.

If only I were a true reviewer of books instead of the Neanderthal pointing in the direction of Will Self grumbling out the words 'he good!' I have only read this book of Mr. Self's at this point, with Great Apes next on my list. It is his prose, his unexpected twist of phrase, and his British English slang ('offie', 'fanny', 'knickers', 'kit') that keeps me enthralled. It almost doesn't matter what the book is about; his sentences are like candy first popped in the mouth; the intensity of flavour makes you run it all round inside your cake-hole from cheek to cheek to maximize the joy. I found myself rereading sentences simply because of the words and images he'd juxtaposed.
As for the stories (there are two novelettes to the book), I found myself thinking about the scenes and the emotions long after I'd finished a chapter. One of the other reviewers in Amazon had mentioned that the woman in the first novelette, the one who grows a penis, had no personality, no depth to her. But Self has us grow with her in her development of a sense of pride and substance throughout the evolution of her penis (it ends up being much more than a nub). In the second story, likewise, our protagonist, Bull, is developing a vagina, and we come to feel vulnerable along with him, farce though it be. We almost fall in love with Bull, the muscular rugby player, who sobs uncontrollbaly at having had a 'bad day', feels lonely, and needs to 'talk.' He feels the hormones racing through his body.
I find that this book, short and to the point as it is, has altered my neuronal firing patterns in a permanent way. I will often think of the things Self has had his characters feel and experience. I'm looking forward to reading his other books and maybe catch him on one of the British game shows that he's been on.

In this book, Will Self explores gender. Unfortunately, he doesn't really commit. In the first book, a bored suburban woman develops a penis. She doesn't develop a true, honest to God, do-I-dress-left-or-right one, just a nub. There just is not a lot driving her, either. She just seemed like a sad little person, who never goes anywhere. In the companion story, a macho man develops a vagina on his leg. To use the AOL-type acronym, WTF? Why not commit? Why not put it where they generally are located? You certainly won't find one on someone's leg!

Both stories were too weak. He doesn't wake them up completely switched in gender, he does not really show how society treats men and women through the fresh eyes of someone who has undergone a full transformation. He just makes these oddball half-baked chimeras and has all of the consequence of the mutation be a result of their own internal ruminations.

Best ignore this one and enjoy his other, more entertaining books.

Didn't care for the bull. Kinda dug the C*ck. I thought that the story was insightful, funny, sexy, etc. Maybe that was a bit too much c#ck for some people. They should stick to reading John Grisham or the like.

There's this woman, right, and she grows a penis!! It's soooo rude! That Will's so naughty! And then there's this subtext about antisemitism and it's so, like, deep! Crikey, he's clever.

Will Self wants to be Kafka. Or maybe he wishes Kafka had never been born then he could have got there first. Let's be thankful good old Franz did beat him to it, and with a lot more style to boot. And Brett Easton Ellis does that shocking nastiness thing a whole lot better, too.