I’m sure every book addict has felt it – that sudden craving, that fierce irrational (irrational? a book lover?) itch for a certain book – the overwhelming urge TO HAVE IT. I must admit that it wasn’t really love at first sight when my book seeking confrere, the legendary Sheridan of Cross Street, first brought my attention to it. Robert Anton Wilson, I said Whoop-de-doo. I mean there’s a lot of RAW out there. Being a paranoia/conspiracy fan I’ve always sort of wanted to read one of his illuminati books, but like a lot of sci-fi/speculative fiction there are so many series and books in series and spin offs of series that I wasn’t sure where to begin. There’s also a sort of fey/twee/smart aleck quality about that kind of stuff that slightly nauseates me….but then Sheridan said "But it’s his non-fiction. You don’t see that all the time." That certainly piqued my interest – I mean the man was an infamous conspiracy polymath and I’d be more interested in reading what he seriously thought unadorned by the cutesy stuff.
Hmmmmm I said taking it for an examination, and I think that’s when the craving hit me. It was called Ishtar Rising or, Why the Goddess Went to Hell and What to Expect Now That She’s Returning, the back cover copy describing it as "…a journey through esoterica and erotica, explaining why Eve in the bible and Eris in Greek myth were both involved with nefarious apples…why attitudes toward the female breast correlate with war and peace…why the Great Goddess of the ancients went to Hell, and why most of us go to Hell in our dreams occasionally…why female pacifists baring their breasts in front of the Pentagon were unconsciously repeating an ancient religious ritual…why celibates have burned so many ‘witches’…and more!" And then there were the pictures, which ranged from the Venus of Willendorf and my beloved Minoan Snake Goddess to classic nude paintings to vintage and modern tit shots. Let’s just say it called out to me, loud and clear.
But try getting a book away from Sheridan. Even in his store he’s often strangely loathe to part with stuff he has only one copy of, and do not believe it when he says he’ll look it over and maybe bring it back to you next week, because once it’s in his box you will never see it again. I knew I had to get that book then and there. We’re pretty good about trading books we’ve found during the sale, but I didn’t have anything in my pile that would dazzle him and I could tell this one wasn’t going to go for future considerations. I was so feverish with book lust that I actually peeled off a fiver and laid it on him, and even THAT didn’t quite overcome his reticence. But the true book fiend is shameless and I had the book in my possession and wasn’t letting go. Fortunately for a good friendship, Sheridan found another non-fiction Wilson title, and that plus the five spot consoled him.
Well, I’m not sure that this book was all that, but I did dig right in and dig it I did. It was a little disconcerting learn that the title of the original edition was The Breast Book and to read in the introduction that "This book, frankly, got written originally because an editor at Playboy Press asked me if I could write a whole book on the female breast." There is the quality to it of a bright kid trying to show you how bright he is with myriad references and also how cool he is with the occasional dirty joke, and, especially at the end, of writing just to fill space, but, despite that there is something profound about it. There’s good stuff about evolution, the goddess and, yes, the hidden centrality of the breast in human consciousness. It was revised in 1989, but is essentially a product of the heady openness and optimism of the sixties. Midway through Wilson goes on an extended anal/oral Freudian jag which seems a tad reductive, although every word about the uptight religious types rang true about the Bush regime, with special relevance to John Ashcroft’s amazingly puritanical act of covering the bare breasts of the statues in the Justice Department. Its hope for a immanent world of goddess returning liberation seems quaint now, but all in all I’m glad I grabbed it out of Sheridan’s hand.
Here’s a couple of passages I especially liked:
The force that made men out of apes is the force that makes a man stare at a nipple and makes that nipple harden proudly under his gaze.
On the level of verbal argument the cynics always win, have always won, and especially since Hiroshima must always win. The only answer to them that carries conviction is the spontaneous and unpremeditated surge of life when, always unexpectedly, Beauty and Joy manifest themselves and you know why you are here and what you must do. The illumination is always intimate, always sensual, and almost invariably sexual, either in the specific sense or in a more general way. No other power can withstand the paranoiac pragmatism that constantly reminds us that we must die, that all we build must crumble, that there is no point in anything.
