Sexual Personae

Reviews / Votes

'A fine, disturbing book. It seeks to attack the reader's emotions as well as his/her prejudices. It is very learned. Each sentence jabs like a needle.' -- Anthony Burgess 'The ability to infuriate both antagonists in an ideological struggle is often a sign of a first-rate book ... Paglia is a conspicuously gifted writer ... and an admirably close reader with a hard core of common sense.' * The New York Times Book Review * 'Sexual Personae an enormous sensation of a book ... there is no book comparable in scope, stance, design, or insight ... A masterwork.' -- Harold Bloom 'A remarkable book, at once outrageous and compelling, fanatical and brilliant ... One must be awed by Paglia's vast energy, erudition and wit.' * The Washington Post * 'A crazy and brilliant survey of Western literature.' * Michael Pollan's 10 favourite books, <i>New York Times Style Magazine</i> * 'Camille Paglia's syncretic theoretical enterprise invoking Frazer, Freud, Nietzsche, and Bloom, from anthropology to influence theory and psychobiography, is an immense tour de force.' -- Pat Righelato 'One of the few thoroughly enjoyable works of criticism written in the American language in the last couple of decades ... immensely ambitious, vastly erudite, feisty, often outrageous, and sometimes dazzlingly brilliant.' -- Robert Alter 'Wild and brilliant.' -- Bruce Thornton 'A powerful account of gender as depicted in Western art and literature.' -- Melvin Konner 'Paglia marshals a vast array of ... cultural materials with an authorial voice derived from sixties acid-rock lead guitar ... Close to poetry.' -- Greil Marcus, author of <em>Lipstick Traces</em> 'Paglia charts a vast theory of western culture and its Decadent undertow, detonating sacrosanct contemporary thought and doctrine at every turn ... "Pagan" in its own pictorialism, sprawl, and unstopped prose, her unusual book creates its brilliant effect from an explosive fusing of scholarship and theatre.' -- <em>Kirkus Reviews</em>, starred review 'This book is a red comet in a smog-filled sky ... Brilliant.' * The Nation * 'An essential public intellectual.' * Vice * 'Camille Paglia is a force of nature. She sees art as a defence against the chaos; now more relevant than ever.' -- Erdem Moralioglu, founder of ERDEM</strong>