Adventures in the Orgasmatron - Softcover

Christopher Turner

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007507747 ISBN 13: 9780007507740

Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd, 2012

Synopsis

A student of Freud, psychoanalyst William Reich developed a theory in the 1930s that proposed sexual permissiveness as a means to alleviate repression and improve health. His ideas prepared the way for the sexual revolution of the 1960s and his machine to focus 'orgone energy' was ultimately lampooned by Woody Allen as the orgasmatron in Sleeper. Christopher Turner's much-praised book tells the story of the radical and influential thinker and his extraordinary life.

About this title

About the Author

Christopher Turner lives in London and writes for The Guardian, the London Review of Books . He is an editor at Cabinet magazine. This is his first book.

Review

"How [Reich] went from being one of the inspirational figures of the psychoanalytic movement, as a clinician, a teacher and a writer, to being a cult figure on the margins of 1960s America is an extraordinary story, and Turner tells it with subtlety and panache. Turner has interviewed many people who knew Reich well, and he casts his net wide, setting Reich's quirks and crimes in their historical context so that a portrait of the man emerges rather than a diagnosis." --Adam Phillips, "The London Review of Books "" Very amusing and intelligent . . . This book will change the way in which we employ that increasingly lazy phrase 'thinking outside the box.'" --Christopher Hitchens, "The New York Times Book Review ""Christopher Turner's smart, thorough, wholly engaging book takes the reader on a tragicomic adventure of the history of an idea that became an object: Wilhelm Reich's orgone box. What began in Vienna with Sigmund Freud's belief that the sexually repressive mores of society can make people sick evolved into a utopian, quasi-scientific fantasy that spread through Europe as fascism rose and eventually crossed the ocean to the United States, where it would play a crucial role in what is now called the sexual revolution. Turner's measured account, bolstered by interviews with various characters close to the action, is a study in charisma, belief, and mental contagions that infected an entire culture, and which are still with us today." --Siri Hustvedt, author of "The Summer Without Men ""Turner has created a masterful synthesis of social history, psychosexual theory, obsession, and farce. The narrative is a madcap parade: Freud and Einstein, Leon Trotsky and Mabel Dodge, the Red Scare and UFOs, Ginsberg and Burroughs, Bellow and Mailer, Dwight MacDonald and James Baldwin, Woody Allen and Kurt Cobain--and Wilhelm Reich's quixotic hunt for the ideal orgasm." --David Friend, Creative Development Editor at "Vanity""Fair, " and author of "Wat

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0007507747
• ISBN 13: 9780007507740
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400