My Uncle Oswald is a slight book, lacking the thematic or stylistic com plexity that would lend it easily to discussion. A discussion might best approach the book as a satire on modern cultural mores and practices. The silliness of trying to breed geniuses through artificial insemination is ripe for satire, especially since many people take it seriously. Satire often has a serious purpose, may be seen as an expose of the irrationality of eugenics, which had horrifying consequences in Germany and Japanese occupied Manchuria in the 1930s and 1940s, not long after the events in My Uncle Oswald take place.

A sex farce should be funny. The humor can be very sophisticated or it can be obscene or somewhere in between. My Uncle Oswald seems intended to be primarily light reading, with its serious themes deemphasized in favor of lighthearted pleasure. Discussing how well the...