Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

From The Turn of the Screw to Strangers on a Train #SixDegrees

As a starting point for a chain of connections #sixdegrees The Turn of the Screw has everything. Is it a mystery story or a study in overwrought and morbid psychology? There’s gothic horror, ghosts and governesses. Jane Eyre and Murdoch’s The Unicorn come to mind. It starts on Christmas Eve; there are strange children, one of whom has, for some…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Book Chain: Six Degrees and the Invention of Sex

Long before the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, bookish teens had Iris Murdoch. As the poet Philip Larkin (1922-1985) explained in Annus Mirabilis, sex was invented in 1963      Sexual intercourse began    In nineteen sixty-three    (which was rather late for me) –    Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban    And the Beatles’ first…

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