The End of Obscenity
by . Random House, $8.95. Mr. Rembar is the lawyer who successfully defended Lady Chatter ley’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer, and Fanny Hill against legal suppression as obscene books. He did it, according to this lively memoir, by maneuvering all three cases to die Supreme Court, where he adroitly shifted the attention of the Justices from the content of the books to the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press. Mr. Rembar writes unpretentiously and well; he includes great chunks of courtroom dialogue, always dramatic stuff; he is brisk and clear in explaining legal arcanities for lay readers. He also has a passion for irreverent asides and semi-relevant absurdities, and indulges it in the most hilariously rewarding footnotes that ever jazzed up a book on a serious topic. Or is obscenity serious?