This sexually irreverent novel by Terry Southern wouldn't have spawned
a 1968 cult movie with Ewa Aulin had it not been for the catalyst that
sets things in motion. Candy Christian, a beautiful girl who just happened
to be born on Valentine's Day, writes a paper on Contemporary Human
Love for her instructor, Professor Mephesto, saying that "to give of
oneself--fully--is not merely a duty prescribed by an outmoded superstition,
it is a beautiful and thrilling privilege."
And things go really cockeyed from there. A tryst with Manuel, the
Mexican gardener, in full application of her paper, leads to the hospitalization
of her father, and her voyage into the wide, weird, world. It isn't
that she's missing much. Her father's a stodgy conservative businessman,
her aunt Livia is a vulgar hussy who uses sexual innuendos as regularly
as one blinks. However, her adventures lead her into meeting people
who want nothing more than to rip the wrapper off and have a bite of
that... candy. Oops! Candy, I mean. Others downright hate her. The poor
girl has the best of intentions and doesn't want to rock the boat for
the sake of preserving her credo, and hence lets them take advantage
of her without knowing that they are.
Written as it was in 1958, I can see how it shocked America and Europe.
Dr. Krankeit's assertion that self-gratification is actually healthy
is a message to the repressed people of the world: "This mechanism you've
contrived to keep your sexual lust a secret from the world, and from
you yourself, is causing you more trouble than you realize."
Southern's writing is brash, profanely funny, and will cause cause
conservatives hairs to stand on end even today...