Sexuality
Written as a diary account in which Oswald promises to finally get around to telling readers how he made his fortune, this book is really about two-hundred pages of digressive material that pursues Oswald’s prime subject of interest: sexual conquest. Even the metaphors about sexuality are sexual in nature. For instance, Oswald’s initial account of meeting a woman with the James Bond girl-esque name Yasmin Howcomely:
“Never in my short life had I seen a girl or a woman with such a stench of salacity about her.”
Freudian Analysis
Miss Howcomely eventually submits to a psychoanalysis session with one of the many real-life historical figures in the book, Sigmund Freud. Freudian psychology is a morass of metaphor about sexuality so, really, how could the author fail to take full advantage of this opportunity:
“It may interest you to know, fräulein, that the carrot and the cucumber are both very powerful sexuality symbols. They represent the masculine phallic member. And you are vishing either to chop it up or to pickle it!”
Snozzberries
In Dahl’s Willy Wonka, a snozzberry is an imaginary fruit the flavor of which is included on his lickable wallpaper. For Yasmin, it is a metaphor of an altogether different flavor:
“I grabbed hold of his snozzberry and hung onto it like grim death and gave it a twist or two to make him hold still.”
Arthur Conan Doyle
The “plot” of the novel, such as it is, involved Yasmin using all the powers her stench of salacity can muster to retrieve sperm samples from those men identified as living geniuses for…well, does it really matter. Suffice to say that is the plot and it affords the opportunity to include famous names like Freud, George Bernard Shaw (whose “snozzberry” she grabs) and Arthur Conan Doyle. The latter is the object of one of her most insulting sexual metaphors:
“Just another writer with a thin pencil.”
Sex and Tennis
At one point Yasmin’s seductive powers of concentration inspire the author to extend a metaphor linking sex and tennis beyond all reason. The result is both absurdly ridiculous and literarily impressive:
“Finally, she lost patience and I saw her right hand, the one which was grasping, as it were, the handle of the tennis racquet, I saw it give a wicked little flick. It was as though she were making a sharp backhand return to a half volley with a quick roll of the wrist at the end of the shot to impart topspin. A vicious wristy little flick it was, and it was certainly a winner, because the victim let out a howl that rattled every test tube in the lab.”
