review of
Harold Livingstone's The Climacticon
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - January 23, 2018

The cover proclaims: "THE MACHINE ANY RED-BLOODED MALE WOULD PAWN HIS WIFE TO GET." - but the sentence ends w/ a period rather than an exclamation point. Does that mean it has something to do w/ PMS? The cover is a quasi-Surrealist cartoon w/ a central female-type form w/o arms, a duck-like face, an oscilliscopish read-out in the belly - flanked by background figures of a male chasing a more-or-less nekkid female thing, etc. I like it. I expected the machine to be something that triggers orgasms. It's not. Instead, it seems more like a parody of Scientology's e-meter - one that doesn't require physical contact w/ the human under scrutiny:

""What are the dials for?"

""This, on the extreme left," he said, tapping it gently with his thumbnail, "this is the 'emometer.'["]" - p 27

The Climacticon was copyrighted in 1960. The E-Meter was patented in 1954:

"Electrodermal activity (EDA) refers to the changing electrical charges observed on the surface of the skin. EDA meters were first developed in 1889 in Russia, and psychotherapists began using them as tools for therapy in the 1900s.

"Volney Mathison (chiropractor, radio engineer, psychologist, and hypnotist) built an EDA meter based on a Wheatstone bridge, a vacuum tube amplifier, and a large moving-coil meter that projected an image of the needle on the wall. He patented his device in 1954 as an electropsychometer or E-meter, and it came to be known as the "Mathison Electropsychometer". In Mathison's words, the E-meter "has a needle that swings back and forth across a scale when a patient holds on to two electrical contacts". Mathison recorded in his book, Electropsychometry, that the idea of the E-meter came to him in 1950 while listening to a lecture by L. Ron Hubbard" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-meter

The main character, a person of dubious & self-serving character who works in advertising, tries out the Climacticon:

"That week end I had my own troubles; "troubles" being a relative term, and in this case, a matter of opinion. I had talked Richard Richards into lending me the Climacticon (Richard was the last of the big beer drinkers; with three Tuborgs in him, he would agree to anything), so what started as a bleak week end turned into a satyr's dream. I'll spare you the details; there isn't enough room here anyway. What happened at the Saturday night YWCA dance would fill three full-size novels alone." - pp 29-30

I concur. I was at that dance & the floor was so slippery around the narrrator that it was almost impossible to walk near him without falling on the floor legs akimbo. No men even tried to.

""Now, darling," Dominique whispered, her breath hot in my ear. "We'll go to your place. I've been so selfish. I've suffered terribly all week end."

""Dominique, I've got to work tomorrow," I said."

[Did I say that?! That's so unlike me!]

""You've got to work?" she cried, stepping back again, peering at me. "My God! What's happened to you? You look like a tired old man!"

""I don't feel too well," I said. "Maybe it would be better if I just went home and got some sleep."

""Oh, Hank!"

""Really, Dominique, I don't feel well," I said"[.] "I took the Climacticon off the bar now and placed it in my pocket. "In fact, I can hardly walk."" - p 31

'Just say no to constant weekend-long sex with the aid of a Climacticon' as Nancy used to say.

The bosses in the novel are presented as bullying unscrupulous blustering men who succeed mainly w/ a bulldozer style. One of them is "T.R.":

"T.R. claimed that too much time was wasted on the indefinite article, and he believed perfect speech was that used in newspaper headlines. He had charts and figures proving that over a normal life-span you lost two years and three months of your life by punctuating your speech with the indefinite article." - p 39

I've been working toward removing superfluous material from language for over 40 yrs now. Let's see what happens when "a" & "an" are removed from this review:

""T.R., let's give the boy" "chanct to collect his thoughts," said Sandy. "After all, ain't evahday fella makes the vahsity. Gits hisself promoted to five windahs." He peered very meaningfully at me, then took T.R.'s arm and guided him out of the kitchen. They sat on the edge of the bed again, regarding me like twin owls." - p 80

Waddya think? I don't think it made enuf of a difference. Maybe it wd be better to remove all "a"s altogether & all "an"s regardless of whether they were separate or inside another word. That shd make a difference:

'"You're ruining my business," she sid. "Don't you hve y considertion?"

'"I'm sorry, I didn't—"

'"You're sorry?" she cried. "I've got three kids d mother to feed, d you're sorry. You're being sorry doesn't help me. He's sorry, tht's something!"' - p 99

Not that big of a deal, right? It's kindof like taking the F sharps out of Beethoven's "Fuer Therese", it didn't even correct the "You're" that shd be a 'Your' at the beginning of the 2nd-to-the-last-sentence. Well, back to the drawing Climacticon.

W/o telling you exactly what the Climacticon does, can you guess from this passage?:

"The pretty girl over whom the fight had started had just dashed to a table in the center of the lounge and snatched a Climacticon from the fingers of a startled man. She flung the machine to the floor and began jumping on it.

""I've had enough!" she screamed. "I can't stand it anymore!"" - p 103

Is it an improved pepper-grinder?

Remember, this was 1960 & HUAC was still in existence: "HUAC’s controversial tactics contributed to the fear, distrust and repression that existed during the anticommunist hysteria of the 1950s. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, HUAC’s influence was in decline" ( http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/huac ):

""Jim Maginty," Chatterly said. "Senator Maginty, my boss. All right, buster, turn it on."

"I reached up and turned it on. A deeply sonorous voice boomed suddenly from the speaker: " . . . and I have here in my hand a piece of paper with six names. Six names, names of men and women in Government service who have become notorious—nay, infamous—infamous for their liberal views. Liberality, and immorality—twin daggers poised at America's heart!"" - p 105

Is he talking about those pointy bras?

""The League of Free Women has pledged itself to work unceasingly for state and federal legislation outlawing the Climacticon," said Mrs. Macintyre. She had spoken shoutingly, her mouth only inches from the microphone, and the announcer gently pushed her back. "This machine, the Climacticon, outrageously denies women their most sacred right—the right to the privacy of their emotional feelings. It is a sad commentary, indeed, when a man can walk into a store and purchase a machine that tells him precisely what a woman feels for him. You might as well invent a machine that reads our minds, and have done with it."" - p 118

I tried using a pepper-grinder to determine exactly what a woman was feeling for me but the results were ambiguous. I'm pretty sure my name made it to the list b/c of this:

""Mr. Chairman, I have here in my hand a list of fifteen names. Fifteen names, Mr. Chairman, of individuals with the colossal effrontery to call themselves American citizens. Fifteen sewer-dwelling rats who have participated in this gigantic plot, this Liberal-directed conspiracy to undermine the entire moral structure of our great and glorious and God-fearing American way of life! Fifteen names, Mr. Chairman. Fiftten known subversives!"" - p 128

I wodner wch 15 names of mine he had?!

"Girls could no longer claim virginity, nor men good inentions. Bridge, poker, gin rummy—all games of chance—would fast become extinct. Brand names—automobiles, cigarettes, soap, gasoline, toothpaste—would disappear. Along with our two-party political system.

"You know what anarchy is?" - p 165

There you have it. As soon as truth is measurable & detectable, society's norms fall apart. No wonder yr average liar fears anarchy so much.

THE END ( )