Cock and Bull

May 3, 1993
Issues of gender identity move from the philosophical to the physical realm in these two racy, startingly inventive novellas of genital anomaly set in contemporary London. ``Cock'' introduces Carol, a dissatisfied housewife who, while coping with her husband's sloppy alcoholism and her own quest for sexual fulfillment, sprouts a penis. ``Bull'' tells of John Bull, a rugby enthusiast and frustrated sportswriter who awakens one morning to find behind his left knee a strange, deep wound that he will soon learn is a vagina. Self ( The Quantity Theory of Insanity ) relates these Kafkaesque fables with an acerbic wit and a narrative mastery that make the absurd seem credible and the commonplace absurd. Indicting all listeners and tellers of stories through ``Cock'' 's vituperative narrator and through ``Bull'' 's mockery of journalism, Self treats his readers alternately to biting satire and to flashes of insight, delivering all in zestfully erudite language.