review/sifting threw the narrative for meaning

Will Self’s, Cock, is essentially an exploration in gender dynamics and one character’s radical shift toward a fully autonomous life as a marginalized person. In the transgressive style, Self utilizes a polyphonic narrative structure as it includes both the narrators interjections and subjectivity, along with the inner narrative of Self, who is presumably the listener of this story. The narrator, referred to as the Don, is an ambiguous traveler, who lacks a positive form and his character, characterizations, and even shape seem to continually shift throughout the narrative giving the story a hint of surreality. Eventually, this surreal element pertaining to the Don’s demeanor is clarified as we come to understand that his narration of these supposed events are actually those directly relevant to the Don himself. Regardless, what is also interesting about this character is not only his grand finale in relation to Self, but his intermittent espousal of opinions ranging from anti-Semitism , homo-phobia and moreover; and indictment of anything and everything that accompanied modernity. The Don will interrupt his story in order to cite some verse, interject an opinion, and articulate his presumptions about the inner-workings of his audience’s mind. Most important however about the Don’s narrative, which I don’t think really translates to the reader’s experience as one does not find themselves confined to share a space with this loathsome creature is how it is affecting Self. That is, Self explains, “he was managing- once again- to marginalize me ”(102). I think this is really the crux of the thematic content of the book, and unfortunately, is a bit un-relatable as far as how it conveyed. The Don’s intermittent commentary is from its onset, is characterized by its disdain for most things however, it is not until he reveals himself as the protagonist (or antagonist of the story depending on how you view it) does one get a sense of how it is his undefined sexuality that really contributes to his own marginalization and that his rhetoric is more reactionary than anything else. That is, perhaps the Don’s rhetoric is in some sense supposed to signify what he refers to as the “true horror” of being a person beyond classification and therefore unable to relate to people beyond the realm of things they might share disdain. Eventually, the Don has his way with Self, not once, but twice. It is this reader’s opinion that one is to interpret the act of degradation as one which represents total marginalization for Self. Indeed, the scenario is so bizarre that Self cannot even bring himself to report it to the authorities, who he regards as family men that would ultimately blame him for inducing the rape. Ultimately, the book and it’s overarching moral or ethical aims have escaped this reviewer due to the inaccessibility of this close encounter with the undefinable. Be that as it may, the story is worth reading as it demands from readers some sort of interpretation, which to me is a mark of decent piece of fiction.