March 6, 2015
Okay, okay, okay. I more or less knew what I was getting into when I chose to read this book, considered a classic work of erotica (and French to boot). For a long time I've had a fascination with BDSM, but more as a fetish and not as a lifestyle. This book, about a very sexual young woman who is prompted by her boyfriend to become a slave, is pretty extreme. For being erotic, and French, I imagine that it definitely pushed boundaries when it was first published, which is probably why it's still known and read today. That's the only way I can explain it, because this book is only okay...and incomplete, too.
There are some disturbing elements here. It would be one thing if all participants were consenting adults. O is for sure, she chooses this lifestyle and comes to take pride in it, and bully for her. But there are at least a couple of references to teenage girls (I'm talking like 15-years-old) getting involved in sex with adults. Ummmm, that's not right. It's one thing when curious teens experiment with each other, but plain wrong for an experienced adult to take advantage of a young girl, even if she is willing. Sir Stephen, O's master, wants to take inexperienced Natalie to Roissy, a chateau where women are broken into this lifestyle. So yeah, disturbing.
Also, there's the fact that Sir Stephen and René (O's original boyfriend) want to force Jacqueline to submit to them and become a slave. That's rape, guys. That's not cool at all.
I did find O's feelings about her situation to be interesting. She first goes to Roissy to please René, though it doesn't seem like they've "played" very roughly before. At the beginning of the book, she's terrified at the thought of him leaving her. But when she's turned over to Sir Stephen, René's kinda-step brother, she comes to love her harsh new master and to view René as being almost...inadequate? As far as that goes, it seems perfectly natural. I might have enjoyed the book more if it were actually complete; some early French versions, apparently, featured some different endings, but the common theme is that Sir Stephen, one way or another, leaves his slave. She'd talked herself into the idea of him loving her...he even said so sometimes. But come on, love isn't built on that, and he essentially said as much their first time together.
Obviously this is a work of fantasy, based on the author's appreciation of the works of the Marquis de Sade, but the elaborate BDSM societies described were over the top. Like, all these people have nothing better to do all day than to participate in customs that reinforce dominance or submission, and to have sex. Get a fucking life, people. Had the story just been between the principle characters, and had cut out the Roissy and Samois shit, it would have been a lot less ridiculous, and I might have cared more about those main characters.
As far as the quality of the writing, it was again only okay. The most detail was put into the sex or torture scenes, obviously, and that's fine. But there are lots of other things happening: O's complicated feelings for Jacqueline, René and Sir Stephen's plot, O's overall change in perspective. And the reader is only really told these things, not shown...something that I really hate to see in a narrative. The scene changes at these times are super abrupt. With all of the detail and care put into the sex scenes, you'd think at least half as much could go into the rest of the story.
For the fact that this book is so famous (or perhaps infamous) and I've been curious to read it for quite some time, I'm glad that I picked it up. But if I'm looking for erotica, I can find better on the Internet.
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