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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
Why I read this book is a long and convoluted story but regardless...it was a psychologically interesting read.
Omg totally absolutely delightful and interesting. started reading because cam and i started reading deleuze's masochism book - deleuze separates out masochism and sadism as two entirely different psychological phenomenon which i thought was really incorrect, but possibly a product of just reading sacher-masoch vs sade as very different writers. so i read venus in furs to find out (and i was correct)
venus in furs is really funny because its about a guy who has the love and affection of a beautiful woman but he just really wants to be a bottom and she is very resistant to it. through becoming her bottom she loses her affection for him. tale as old as time..... kind of a perfect sister novel to babygirl the movie because much like harris dickinson, severin is pulling something out of her, something possibly honest but also veneer and performance, that a fantasy being enacted is both an honest instinct but also exactly what it is -- a fantasy. i think it might be easy to read this novel as somewhat misogynistic (moral: if u give women power they will just hurt you man.....) but it is interesting how much explicit communication and resistance wanda has to dominating severin and how much they both explicitly talk about the push and pull of giving power and receiving it. by dictating their power dynamic and through his passivity severin is also exercising a particular amount of control over wanda and she, like a good gf, is the water that shapes itself to the glass. i thought wanda was compellingly written and interesting for the time period. gender book
venus in furs is really funny because its about a guy who has the love and affection of a beautiful woman but he just really wants to be a bottom and she is very resistant to it. through becoming her bottom she loses her affection for him. tale as old as time..... kind of a perfect sister novel to babygirl the movie because much like harris dickinson, severin is pulling something out of her, something possibly honest but also veneer and performance, that a fantasy being enacted is both an honest instinct but also exactly what it is -- a fantasy. i think it might be easy to read this novel as somewhat misogynistic (moral: if u give women power they will just hurt you man.....) but it is interesting how much explicit communication and resistance wanda has to dominating severin and how much they both explicitly talk about the push and pull of giving power and receiving it. by dictating their power dynamic and through his passivity severin is also exercising a particular amount of control over wanda and she, like a good gf, is the water that shapes itself to the glass. i thought wanda was compellingly written and interesting for the time period. gender book
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"Woman, as Nature has created her and as she is currently reared by man, is his enemy and can be only his slave or his despot, but never his companion. She will be able to become his companion only when she has the same rights as he, when she is his equal in education and work."
absolutely fascinating. von sacher-masoch married a woman who named herself after the love interest in this novella—and her memoirs reveal that she was running herself ragged trying to raise her kids and keep up the household while every night this guy tugged on her sleeve to put on a fur coat and beat the shit out of him. the furs, she wrote indignantly, were heavy!
in that sense there is no inherent liberatory value in the practice of SM. von sacher-masoch may remind us of the man who proudly gets pegged by his wife, thereby dissolving the patriarchy—but he doesn't do the dishes. the author's own ideas about women and class are bound up in this book, and (for all that von sacher-masoch became a cult icon of transgressive sexuality) they are as mind-numbingly selfish as may be expected from a man of his time and place.
it brings me no pleasure, then, to report that the book itself is in places very funny and endearing, and that the dialogue between the two main characters as they discover their own limits—hesitate, change their minds, go to extremes—is at some points startlingly organic. if I wanted to be very generous I might even say that the thesis of the book is ultimately quite hopeful—men can act like women, women like men, there is the possibility of "a Nero's soul in a Phryne's body"; and from the quote i put up top, which comes at the very end of the book, do I dare to surmise that, in an ideal world, a woman who stands on an equal socioeconomic footing with men can come down off her pedestal and throw off her furs?
absolutely fascinating. von sacher-masoch married a woman who named herself after the love interest in this novella—and her memoirs reveal that she was running herself ragged trying to raise her kids and keep up the household while every night this guy tugged on her sleeve to put on a fur coat and beat the shit out of him. the furs, she wrote indignantly, were heavy!
in that sense there is no inherent liberatory value in the practice of SM. von sacher-masoch may remind us of the man who proudly gets pegged by his wife, thereby dissolving the patriarchy—but he doesn't do the dishes. the author's own ideas about women and class are bound up in this book, and (for all that von sacher-masoch became a cult icon of transgressive sexuality) they are as mind-numbingly selfish as may be expected from a man of his time and place.
it brings me no pleasure, then, to report that the book itself is in places very funny and endearing, and that the dialogue between the two main characters as they discover their own limits—hesitate, change their minds, go to extremes—is at some points startlingly organic. if I wanted to be very generous I might even say that the thesis of the book is ultimately quite hopeful—men can act like women, women like men, there is the possibility of "a Nero's soul in a Phryne's body"; and from the quote i put up top, which comes at the very end of the book, do I dare to surmise that, in an ideal world, a woman who stands on an equal socioeconomic footing with men can come down off her pedestal and throw off her furs?
L'histoire d'un fatigant qui voulait se faire frapper pis qui s'est tanné.
Damn, pretty disappointed in Sacher-Masoch's writing (compared to the legacy of masochism). Don't meet your heroes.
Want to remember:
-suprasensual manhood
- dilettante decline
Want to remember:
-suprasensual manhood
- dilettante decline
I always love reading controversial books from bygone eras. Here is the book (and author's name) that gave birth to the term "masochism." Severin is a young man who is so obsessed with a woman that he vows to be her slave, wanting her to whip him and command him. It's quite unsettling at times, but it's very, very fascinating to think that this was written in 1870. It's hard to imagine the stir it created in the status quo. Even now, nearly 150 years later, we still see the link between pain and sexual pleasure to be taboo. I can't imagine living in such a sexually primitive time and reading this book. Just as important as its controversial nature is the quality with which the prose is written. It's short, but engrossing. You enjoy every page, and you don't really want it to end, as opposed to more modern bondage books, like Fifty Shades of Grey, which make you roll your eyes in disgust with each moan and orgasm of the characters. Venus in Furs is a book that should be more popular than it is, and it should be studied by all those interested in sexual exploration. This book also inspired a song by The Velvet Underground, also titled "Venus in Furs," which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest songs of all time.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Must read for anyone interested in classic erotica
funny
fast-paced
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes