A small book about a man and his penis. If you're going to be uncomfy with this, I suggest you click away now. I will try to be tasteful although the writer wasn't.
Mordecai Richler won a Governor General's Award f this book in the 70s. The writing is convivial in tone, and there is a current of humor through it. The writing style was right up my alley, which I why this book took all of an hour and a half to read. Clear and intuitive, just the sort of prose that ought to be made in Canada. Themeatically...
It's about a man who is never sure he's big enough, and he is mistakenly called Jewish, which he isn't, and he is accused of being anti-semetic when he tries to correct the mistake. He tries to clear up these things while his marriage falls apart a he has an affair with a woman half his age. It's kind of a mid-life coming of age story. He battles feelings of irrelevance, inadequacy, and frustration with the norm. I loved the dark humor that th author draped around these themes, which haunt all of us to some extent.
Then everyone talks about sex a lot. It isn't particularly lewd, it's just kind of Freudian. I did find it funny, but I would likely not recommend to my general acquaintanceship because it's weird to tell someone to read a book about a... Yeah.
So I would probably read something else by this writer and check it over first for genitalia before reading the whole thing.
I am getting Candide from the library today! Back on to solid, dick-free ground for a few days!
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