Literary Undergrowth

The Undergrowth of Literature by Gillian Freeman (Nelson, London 1967, UK. 30s).

This book is ideal for browsing through in a bookshop if only to look at the illustrations. It does not intend to be any more than a journalistic account of various magazines devoted to various forms of sexual fetishism but even so it is sadly lacking in any kind of valuable analysis.

Miss Freeman has read many obscure and not so obscure (Playboy and Nova) publications which are generally regarded as bordering on the pornographic in the sense that sex is considered more for hedonistic than procreative purposes.

The author subscribes to the view that readers and puublishers of magazines devoted to such fetishes as leather, rubber, and "bondage", not to mention homosexuality and lesbianism, are to be pitied rather than understood.

She seems to have written this book more for Sunday supplement type consumption than for any genuine contribution to the Human Sexual Response syndrome.

Despite a light-hearted style interspersed with long quotations Miss Freeman lacks a non-puritan sense of humour—a depressing and disappointing book concerned with a field of literature that deserves more sympathetic treatment.