BOOKS

A HISTORY OF SEXUAL CUSTOMS by Richard Lewinsohn, M.D. Translated by Alexander Mayce. Harper, $5.95, 1958, 424 pp.

Dr. Lewinsohn graduated in both medicine and political science from the University of Berlin, with additional work at Munich, Goettingen and Paris. He has eighteen published books, for the most part, on sociological and economic matters and began work on the present volume as long ago as 1922. It should be noted that he made extensive use of such private collections as those of Carl G. Jung in Zurich, which may have given his book a certain coloration.

One opens this well-presented, scholarly work with considerable anticipation. Its tone is moderate. Its style lively and interesting. For once a translator appears to have treated an author well. Particularly commendable is the practice of placing all of the reference material at the end of the volume.

As one reads on, however, a feeling of disquiet creeps in. Can the story of man's sexual customs during Paleolithic and Neolithic times -roughly the first half million years of the race-be so neatly summarized in sixteen pages? Is a balanced "history" then possible when substantially all of the pages from 122 to the end of the book are devoted to events in Western Europe?

The author makes a strong case for the immense influence of the Napoleonic period on subsequent sex history, without in any way examining even such questions as just how much modern society reflects (partly

unconciously) a strong permeation from Oriental sources of Mithraic, or even tantric ideas, via Mme. Blavatsky and the astrology columns in our

newspapers.

Although Dr. Lewinsohn puts on quite a show of discussing objectively the place of male and female homosexuality during various periods, nowhere does he really add much to what was far more substantially handled half a century ago by Havelock Ellis. His own predilection with "the cunnus triangle" and other such anatomical features unmistakably colors his work throughout, betraying his iron-clad heterosexuality.

The student of homophilia is, therefore, left about where he was before: to wait with more or less impatience for an adequate. substantial handling by other scholars. We can be appreciative, though, of the increasingly frequent appearance of works such as this as precursors of better things to come.

-W. L.

THE BELL, by Iris Murdoch. Viking Press, New York, 1958. $4.50. 342 pp.

There is nothing literary or sensational about this book, but it does make for good reading and is highly amusing in places. The homosexuality in it is dry but good and the kisses between man and boy may be considered sweet. Iris Murdoch handles her homosexual love theme as well as Mary Renault (Last of the Wine) or Blair Niles (Strange Brother). The story is told in the third person, there is little dialog, yet Miss Murdoch goes deep into the minds of her characters with the cutting qualities of a scalpel.

The action takes place in an Anglican community that is attached to a

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