Passion? Lust? Frustration? Laughter? Read on
Catherine Fox – funny, sassy, down to earth.
BOOK REVIEW – “THE BENEFITS OF PASSION” BY CATHERINE FOX.
Published by Marylebone House 2015. First published in 1997.
ISBN 978-1-9-10674-00-0 also available as an e book.
Catherine Fox has written at least five books solo and an additional autobiography (“Fight the Good Fight”) which is an entertaining history of her life growing up and being a young mother and a martial arts aficionado together with being wife of a man working in the Church of England. She first had the above book published in 1997, and has clearly re-published this year.
Catherine studied English in Durham and went on to get a PHD in Theology. She is a former diarist for The Church of England Newspaper and is a writer who can pack each and every paragraph she writes with vivid description, and in this novel, humour and action together with quite often a touch of romance, and if not romance, then lust! I feel sure that other diarists in the past on reading her “offering” as a weekly diary reporter to a national British weekly paper must have had a twinge of sour grapes that Catherine could be so spontaneous, rib ticklingly funny and original whenever she wrote her column.
What is most original about “The Benefits of Passion”? Firstly it is told almost wholeheartedly from the female viewpoint, together with making room for the male reader to “get in” with the story. Secondly the female characters are feisty and have a definite tendency to be totally “nymphomaniacal” in their attitudes towards the male characters, most definitely to the point of farce. What tends to be frustrating about the storyline is that closure to a lot of these scenes of the female characters lusting after their hearts’ desire leads quite often to a totally cold situation where the female characters are infuriatingly rebuffed by controlling yet heterosexual behaviour by the male counterparts. However as a solace to the scenarios is hilarious description and dialogue which keeps you reading.
Are we really bothered whether one of our heroines succeeds in working in the church? Well, we are certainly informed that she is totally fallible where her ability to fall for men are concerned, and about her own private self examining as to whether she is up to the job emotionally as passages are devoted to her own personal self searching in the bigger picture with God on board. In effect this gives us as readers a sense of distance between humans and God and the church is kind of sandwiched in between containing “mere mortals” with their own idiosyncratic flaws and failures.
What is the purpose of writing a book where the girls are full of uncontrolled lust and the guys are more restrained and controlling so that “The Benefits of Passion” are actually hardly revealed between its pages? It is hilariously funny and descriptive, and I defy any reader to be unable to identify with one or several of its “purple” passages and in the perspective of how controlling men are described, it could be a solace and a reassurance to lusty ladies that men are good sorts and are capable of not only controlling their sexual urges but also of restraining themselves from “going all the way” with passionate amours. Read and see for yourselves. You certainly won’t read it and weep!
Final note – if all novels contain a little of the writer’s own experiences lets hope Catherine’s male friends know who they are and that she quite clearly adores men in a passionate way! Catherine makes it obvious that social intercourse between men and women cuts both ways. Women can’t always blame men if they enjoy being “hit on” – and it creates fun and romance most if not all the time. Enjoy!
Penny Nair Price