Cock and Bull

by Will Self

Carol, the heroine of Cock, is extremely dissatisfied with her married life. Realisation that her husband Dan is not the man for her has come too late and insult follows injury as Dan's drinking problem gives way to an obsessive fervour for Alcoholics Anonymous. One evening while Dan is out, Carol discovers something entirely unexpected about herself that leads her into rather twisted and distinctly uncharted waters ... On the flip side, there is Bull. John Bull is a man's man. A rugby player, a drinker. He's also about to wake up to something of an anatomical surprise, a surprise that his doctor seems to be much more interested in than is entirely proper ...

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Horror, Contemporary, British Literature, Novels, Novella

275 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 1992

About the author

William Self is an English novelist, reviewer and columnist. He received his education at University College School, Christ's College Finchley, and Exeter College, Oxford. He was married to the late journalist Deborah Orr.

Self is known for his satirical, grotesque and fantastic novels and short stories set in seemingly parallel universes.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those seeking a pass into the perverse otherworld of Britain’s one-man imaginarium Will Self, these polymorphous novellas are a fine beginning. In ‘Cock’ a provincial wifey sprouts a string-bean male appendage that envelops her femininity, turning her into a masculine beast seeking to part the bald hillocks of her hubbie’s buttocks for some anal adventure. In ‘Bull,’ sports hack John Bull acquires a set of fleshy she-lips on his backleg and starts a strange affair with a vaginally fixated, philandering GP. If these summaries don’t naphthalene your imagination then there really is no reason for you to read books. (Reading Self makes one inclined to use naphthalene as a verb—pardon me). Cock & Bull is a modern horror story—the horror of warped selfhood, how genital-gendering can lead to a strange transvestism of the self, can scramble our notions of wo/manliness so badly we don’t know whether to give or receive anymore. As usual, Self dazzles with his linguistic foreplay, taking us to a dreamy little climax with his powerful intellect and grotesque imagery. A sick treasure and one of my personal favourites, along with How the Dead Live. Bookspotters’ Note: This hardback edition from Atlantic Monthly Press circa 1993 has the best cover art. This is a re-read from a few years ago.

[Shovelmonkey1 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Chapter One - a woman grows a cock
Chapter Two - a man grows a vagina

Finis.

Wilf Self shudders, heaves a replete sigh of onanistic literary release and puts down his pen(is).

[Trin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Will Self really needs to shut up about vaginas. If I have to read another highly-pretentious, “literary”-crude, half-lustful and half-petrified description of the female genitalia—of which this book contains, oh, dozens—I may have to do something…unladylike. I mean, bloody hell! It’s a vagina. Get over it.

This book intrigued me as all (all? There is so little. Sigh) published genderfuck intrigues me. It’s broken into two parts: the first involving a woman who grows a penis, the second involving a man who grows a vagina. The second is okay—I don’t think it actually says anything interesting about gender, but bits of it are sort of weirdly hot, if you like that sort of thing. (And I do, okay? Leave me alone. *g*) The first, however…ew. EW. Apparently, a woman who grows a cock will immediately rape her husband to death. And then rape random strangers on trains. Lovely! I’m not really sure what this is supposed to be saying about gender, either. Or about people. Well, except that Will Self apparently hates everybody.

This is one of those books that makes me despair of “literary fiction.” It also made me want to take a long, thorough shower.

[Oblomov · Rating 1 out of 5]

This desecration of a tree's corpse repeatedly mistakes infantile cruelty for humour, puerile bad taste for fearlessness, gross and overused stereotypes for character and a potentially interesting concept for an actual plot.
Having shat out this misogynist, misandrist, transphobic, elitist, badly written and embarrassingly unfunny mess, I wouldn't grumble if those close to Mr Self defenestrated his computer before the purple prose writing tosser types anything else.
If you do want something coarse, crude and cruel but actually good, may I suggest Lala Pipo, Hashish or binging Doug Stanhope stand-up rather than insulting your brain cells with this rancid sewage.

[Hon Lady Selene · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF-ing because life is short and this is Bull(shit).

[Elena Papadopol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mi-a placut mai mult prima poveste, desi au fost ambele foarte ciudate.
Tinand cont de temele prezentate si stilul de naratiune, sunt convinsa ca voi incerca si alte lucrari ale autorului. 😊

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Cock" surprised me in the bad way. It wasn't what I was expecting, in the bad way, and it kind of horrified me, in the bad way. It turned out to be something I probably wouldn't like, in the bad way, even if I'd been expecting to read it in the first place.

"Bull" is amazing. I love it a lot. It's actually pretty hot, and an interesting read.

I hope my preference for the story about the man who grows a vagina and has an uberqueer affair with his male doctor over the story about the woman who grows a penis and rapes and murders her husband doesn't say something about my feminism.

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tendo em vista as influências de Self como Ballard e Burroughs e a premissa das novelas, eu esperava bem mais. A primeira novela é absolutamente intolerável de chata, embora existam algumas frases esparsas beirando a genialidade, a segunda é bem melhor, mas Self comete o erro de utilizar o sexismo clássico e rasteiro para delinear as bases do seu estilo. O que não quer dizer que eu vá desistir do autor, quem sabe em obras de sua maturidade ele não tenha aprendido a refinar melhor a sua ironia.

P.S. Devido ao alto grau de reviews com conteúdo moralista que encontramos em Burroughs e Ballard no Goodreads com notas baixíssimas, achei que Cock and Bull fosse vítima do mesmo tipo de suscetibilidade, mas não é bem o caso.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cock and Bull is two independent stories back to back; connected through their core theme of an person who develops secondary genitalia, of the opposite gender. I didn't read them back to back – instead I read the first story, Cock, during a slow period in a non-fiction book on English grammar and then picked up the second story, Bull, a week (and two further books) after that. Both are typically Selfian; brutal tales of abuse, gender stereotype and role reversal. Both are set against tales of depressing characters and backgrounds where the change is a catalyst to allow the protagonist to break free from that world to either damage, or be damaged by, those around them.

The first, Cock: A Novella, is the story of an unhappy relationship – a drunken meeting at university leads to an increasingly alcoholic marriage – and the effect that relationship has on both Carol and Dan. Carol is a put-upon wife who settled for Dan because she assumed she couldn't do any better. He was the first (and only) man to every make her cum so she married him, but it never happened again. Dan is a dick. A figurative dick rather than a physical one. As they shamble through their marriage Carol slowly develops her secondary genitalia: a penis. Obviously this starts to change the dynamic of their relationship as Carol discovers a new, and totally different, personality as well.

The second, Bull: A Farce, is the story of John Bull, a man's man, a sports writer forced to write the cabaret column in a local rag. Unlike Carol's, Bull's secondary genitalia appears overnight; a fully-formed vagina on the back of his left knee. Also, unlike Carol, he takes the sensible decision to actually see a doctor about it (although he believes it to be a cut and/or burn sustained while drunk). The story follows the paths of John Bull and Alan Margoulies (yes, try saying that name out loud), his doctor, as well as a small supporting cast (including the awful comedian, Razza Rob, who we are led to believe is the cause of Bull's condition).

The narration style is unusual in the first story, but seems to work quite well: the unnamed narrator is a (presumably) Jewish guy on a train who is being told the story by a university don he met in the carriage. The don is relating the events as if a story he heard or an investigation he was involved in. At times the story jumps from the lives of Carol and Dan to the events in the carriage and then back again. Towards the end the don falls into some awkwardly anti-Semitic rants against the narrator (who I assume represents Self) which felt very out of place in the novella – and was what lost it the one star.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Kafka and Wilde decided to collaborate over a bottle of absinthe they'd twist words into a story like this. A sincerely bizarre look into the nature of the sexes from the other's point of view.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wordy and pervy, something for both sides, many tickled fancies.

[Daniel Percival · Rating 1 out of 5]

An education in what not to write. Never have I come across such a self-gratifying, reductivist and Daily-Mail-friendly exploration of genitalia and its links to masculinity and feminimity that indulges so freely in extraneous, superfluous detail. If Will Self's aim was to 'challenge' the reader, he may well of succeeded in the sense that my wading, cutting, through the black-sludge-passing-as-narrative that masquerades as multilayered existential complexity, did indeed leave me with a bad taste for reading en masse.
(Oh and using italics to embed parallel story arcs does not translate as quirky and interesting, rather cloying and obvious)

[Steven Godin · Rating 2 out of 5]

After the awful Umbrella I said I wouldn't read anything else by Will Self but thought I'd try this after picking it up cheap as chips. Again, I didn't like the writing style or its content and this time I really will never read him again. He just isn't for me.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cock & Bull was recommended to me by a friend of a friend, and I found it in a thrift store not long after, so I picked it up, figuring why not. The description leaves plenty to be intrigued about - a story about a woman who grows a penis and story about a man who grows a vagina.

Cock leads us into the life of a not-so-happily-but-also-not-so-unhappily married couple. Carol & Dan get together one drunken evening and end up marrying. The couple slowly descends into alcoholism (especially Dan). Meanwhile, Carol, tormented by her husband's drinking, but also thrilled to be given time to discover her own sexuality, begins to grow a penis. Bull introduces us to Bull, an aggressive and awkward rugby player and sports fanatic, stuck in a job he hates, who wakes up one morning to find what he suspects is a burn and/or a cut (but it's actually a vagina). He goes to his doctor, a philandering but otherwise goody-goody human being, who is disturbed at how much he is turned on by the vagina in Bull's leg.

The stories are already grotesque and take a turn for the more grotesque, but Self is a master at easing the reader into each development, so about the time the action gets really salacious and shocking, you're basically expecting it. Self operates within rather stereotypical gender roles - Carole grows more aggressive when she grows a penis, Bull becomes more vulnerable - but he does so in a way that seems to make a mockery of them, or at least point out how outdated and ridiculous they are, which really extends beyond each particular story into the point of pairing them together. Each character, whether in possession of new genitalia or old, has their own weaknesses, strengths, vulnerabilites and aggressions, but it's easier to feel as though they're magnified due to Carol & Bull's circumstance. In reflection, Carol & Bull could've met the same fates had they been born with the genitalia they acquired. A really fascinating read, and highly recommended for anyone who wants to do some thinking about gender roles (which should be everyone). Might be for the best if you have an open mind or aren't easily shocked, though.

[charta · Rating 1 out of 5]

Non è cattivo, non è malsano, non è volgare e, soprattutto, non è comico.
Il narratore onnisciente tratta con disprezzo le sue ibride creature, come se la loro insignificanza e la loro labilità emotiva e mentale fossero autonome e non sue precise scelta, prodotto e portato.
In più ritiene deficiente il lettore, che gratifica con un linguaggio sciatto, in cui le parole pene e vagina, declinate altresì in sinonimi che vanno dall'alto all'imo, ricorrono con frequenza maggiore della punteggiatura.
Fritto misto di genitali democraticamente spalmati in corpo maschile e femminile, si vorrebbe, partendo da un organico basso, disquisire di politica, cultura e società, restando, invece, un libro realmente del cazzo.

[Bandit · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book could have been good, possibly great, the premise is interesting enough (gender reversal, etc.) and the writer is obviously talented, but instead to me it was an unpleasant non-engaging couple of stories about unpleasant uninteresting (with possible exception of Bull) characters and their sad lives ranging from insignificant to appalling and back. Altogether too precious, too pretentiously self-aware and too shocking for the sake of empty shock value of a book. Maybe I just really really wasn't in the mood for it. Either way this one I can't recommend.

[dom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aggressively droll. I get the impression that Self enjoys authorial control, or the ability it gives him to subject his domesticana marionettes to various compromising positions for his own sick sick pleasure.

There’s an undercurrent of malice to it, like a kid torturing insects or shooting bullets at someone’s feet to make them dance

with that said, I liked it - 3/5

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have often said that if I were to have 3 wishes, one of them would be to have a penis for a day. This book takes that entire concept and just runs with it. The writing isn't the best, but the concept is amazing.

[Dennis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't a very entertaining book. There's a type of British humor which is pure cynicism but this book was more misanthropic than anything, in a juvenile sort of way. There was an idea here that was valid but poorly developed, more immature than provocative. Good thing it was so short.

[Renzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit funny, a bit pretentious.

[Bel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Objectionable on many levels. Given the premise and Self's undeniable talent as a writer it could have been much much better. I wouldn't have bothered finishing it if it weren't for book club.

[Pollyanna Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it shone in parts and had some memorable one liners, I was disappointed with this book. The concept was captivating but the delivery disappointing. In both stories, I found no characters likeable bar Bull in the second tale. Every other character was simply horrible. Exploring toxic masculinity and penis envy is something I find interesting and Self did some aspects of this well. For example, Bull, a tough, strong rugby player (his name literally meaning a male cow, normally with horns), he was the symbol of a stereotypical man and for him to grow a vagina was very clever, because his whole identity was completely questioned. For Carol, in Cock, she gains the power that was taken from her repeatedly by the men in her life. Again, interesting concepts but I just didn’t agree with Self’s writing style. While the ending was clever and I’m happy for Bull, I don’t think I’ll be picking this book up again.

[Marina · Rating 2 out of 5]

what the hell did I just read

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

What the fuck

[mackenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

gag to the gag to the gag gag GAG!!!!!!!

[Ekin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cock & bullshit

[Elyse Porter · Rating 2 out of 5]

My motivation for this book was finishing it in 2024 so it would stay off my 2025 wrapped.

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just didn't get it.

[Gerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sure I read this book years ago but enjoyed it all the same this time round.

At times I struggle with Will Self's writing for a number of reasons including his use of long obscure words, which while interesting and educational, I sometimes feel they are there solely to remind the reader that the author is a highly educated intellectual rather than to enhance either the story or the literature. I get a feeling of pretentiousness and smug superiority. I also think there are times the flow of the book is missing and the style is not particularly consistent, especially in the first novella - as if bits have been pieced together or added at a later time.

I may be wrong but it is for these reasons I've rated this as a three star book and not higher.

The book is made up of two novellas. The first is the story of Carol who is a young girl in an unsatisfying marriage. The second story is about a young man, rugby player, journalist and one of the lads.

There are some similarities between the two stories but they are not really linked in any other way than they each appear between the covers of this book. They both deal openly and amusingly with sexual and emotional issues but in an amusing way.

Despite my earlier criticism of the writing, I did enjoy them, especially the second novel which (billed as a farce) has some genuinely very funny moments and I suggest this is the stronger of the two books where the writing is more consistent.

In conclusion I would recommend this book despite the three star rating.

[Arthurium · Rating 5 out of 5]

*chefs kiss* right up there with The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks as a book I will endlessly and shamelessly tell people to read