of human relations. And other aspects of man's relationships to his fellows have been given a sinister coloring which is negative in almost all cases. It is this distortion which gives rise to the evils of so-called obscenity, censorship, and the exaggerated emotional reactions of discussion in the areas concerned. Hitherto it has been almost impossible to discuss in public such important subjects as venereal disease, extra-marital intercourse, or even birth control and problems of strictly legitimate marital situations. Sagarin feels that this state of affairs should be changed and perhaps the best way is to remove all prohibitions to the use of language at present. Thus a truer and more rational view of the social value of an activity might be developed. He says:

the withdrawal by society of its normal prohibitions might give special emphasis to the social value of an activity; the use of obscenity might canalize human emotion into prescribed and socially desirable channels at times of crises; and it might offer stimulus and reward to workers during a joint activity. (25)

The need is especially great in the case of children who may develop attitudes toward sex which are wholly negative and which become obstacles to wholesome and normal activities in later life.

A notable group of distinguished writers is definitely supporting the view of absolute freedom in the use of language, a view sustained theoretically and practiced in this book, while certain critics, principally religious, are bitterly opposed to the relaxing of the ancient tabus to any extent. In any case greater freedom is obviously gaining ground in the courts, in publishing, and elsewhere. The language which creates biases and the biases which create language are certainly being challenged as

one

never before, and, in spite of the author's remaining somewhat doubtful, rationality in the area of sex and the use of related language does seem to be gaining on the whole. The very publishing of this book with its completely uninhibited character may be a landmark.

THE

T.M.M.

IMPRESARIO by John Money, New York, William Morrow and Co. 1961.

This is a dreary little English story about-well, it's difficult to say. If one is to go by the title, then the central figure of the book is Bill Pleasance, a theatrical producer of uninspiring tastes and complicated domestic life. There is also the possibility that the central figure is meant to be Donald Beamish, the narrator, a pallid, almost invisible young English-master in a good private school. Perhaps it is 12-year-old Ben Pleasance-really Ben Ennismore-Pleasance's adopted son whom he loves with profound desperation.

In any event, the story is a tangled one of many marriages, first that of Charlie Ennismore, a failed military officer in World War II, to the beautiful and neurotic (half-alcoholic, halfnymphomaniac) Josephine who mothers his son; second, Josephine's marriage to Pleasance, who has replaced Ennismore in the trenches as commander and now replaces him in the marriage bed. At last, in the midst of a boring and macabre tour of the battlefields of Europe where Charlie Ennismore's life fell to pieces years before, Josephine runs off with Max Hudson, her long-time paramour during her marriage to Pleasance.

These disparate people cling together throughout the story-the exhusband, the present husband, the lover-in an apparent attempt by the author to show how people need one

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