Like all Comedy Classics -this has got better with time!
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The follow-up to "Sucking Sherbert Lemons", Carson's classic comic novel of adolescence, Catholic guilt and homosexuality manages that rare thing, it is even better than its predecessor. Benson is now at University at Aberystwyth in the mid 1960's and religion has taken much more of a back seat in his life (although guilt hovers menacingly around) and philosophy and his role as Vice President of The Overseas Students' Society has taken its place. The pace never flags and I doubt if a funnier campus-based novel has been written. I loved this more on a recent re-reading than I did when it first came out.
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Benson's further adventures, now at University
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Martin Benson, the "homo" catholic student hero of Sucking Sherbet Lemons is now studying at Aberystwyth University, having done better than expected in his A levels. A little out of his depth at times and easily influenced by his peers, Martin struggles to maintain his dignity. He dotes on Dylan, and plunges into Plato, all the time questioning motives and sincerity. His wandering mind, vivid imagination and troubled conscience continue to accuses him (in the guise of his former vindictive teacher Brother Hooper), or excuse him (in the form of TV presenter Fyfe Robinson).
By default he is elected Vice-President of the Overseas Students' Society and, typically, taking his role very seriously concerns himself individually with each foreign student; and woe betides any Aberystwyth inhabitant guilty of prejudice against them.
He is of course still trying to come to terms with himself, and in particular his sexual orientation; how, if he were made or born a homo, can the Catholic Church condemn him for it? And if he is made this way, when will he find the "One"; could it be the dark, seductive and well built, in every particular, Nigerian Enoch Mohammed, or the shy but friendly Sudanese, Omar? Then to confuse matters further, what do his strangely enjoyable experiences of submissiveness at the hands of The Man who picked him up at the Railway Station conveniences reveal about him? Right to the end Benson is torn between doing what is right for him, and what is perceived as right.
Set very much in the 1960s, and following in the vein of Sucking Sherbet Lemons, but with more confidence and even touch of the surreal, Stripping Penguins Bare is a very funny and entertaining read; at the same time it is very perceptive and thought provoking, especially as regards the role of the (Catholic) church. I very much look forward to reading further adventures of Benson in Yanking Up the Yo-Yo.
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