Looking for novels with men who have been somehow wounded sexually. There are numerous great gay novels, but what about heterosexual ones ? I can think of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and A little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Kafka's work is suffused with an atmosphere of sexual anxiety. Perhaps Portnoy's complaint simply since his frustration weighed on him so heavily....Others ?
You may want to see how you like Ford Madox Ford's quartet of novels: Parade's End, Some Do Not, No More Parades, and The Last Post (AKA A Man Could Stand Up). The protagonist is not broken exactly, but between a badly failed marriage and the strain of WWI-era military life he is hanging by a thread. Issues of sexuality and abstinence are explored in his redemptive relationship with another woman. I think the books were also made into a BBC series.
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 11-29-2017 at 07:36 PM.
In A Clockwork Orange the main character is wounded sexually because he is renedered incapable of engaging in sex after undergoing treatment for his psychotic behavior. You need the nadsat glossary to understand the novel.Originally Posted by spiltteeth
https://soomka.com/nadsat.html
Last edited by Red Terror; 11-30-2017 at 11:39 AM.
There has never been a single, great revolution in history without civil war. --- Vladimir Lenin
There are decades when nothing happens and then there are weeks when decades happen. --- Vladimir Lenin
I suppose Pip in Great Expectations is emotionally burnt out by the end of the book, depending on the ending you want to believe. His love affair with Estella was pretty one-sided and he never managed to form an loving attachment after her.
Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two cities was sexually wounded too. In his case it was probably syphilis, but it meant he could not hope for a happy marriage.
According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
Charles Dickens, by George Orwell
Maybe the cuckold --- Sir Clifford Chatterley----in Lady Chatterly's Lover is sexually wounded because he is paralyzed as a result of W.W.I. and his wife cheats on him with the gamekeeper Mellors.
There has never been a single, great revolution in history without civil war. --- Vladimir Lenin
There are decades when nothing happens and then there are weeks when decades happen. --- Vladimir Lenin
Good call. I recommend Sons and Lovers, and maybe Women in Love.
Lolita would be a more unconventional choice.
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