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Loading... La vie sexuelle de Cathérine M.by Catherine Millet
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  r1hard | Nov 22, 2009 |  Hard to get into but persevered. Not keen on the style - too bitty. (  ) lizbedford27 | Jan 11, 2009 | Catherine Millet is a french art critic, author of the profoundly academic (read boring) L'art contemporain en France. She is also a swinger, who claims sexual experience with hundreds of men and women, often anonymously in a group setting. Any connection? Absolutely. The 20th century witnessed a deep interest in "conceptual art" -- art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. The artist Sol LeWitt put it perfectly: "In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art." Millet has simply applied this practice to the realm of sexual experience. For the word "machine" in the sentence just quoted, please read "woman", for the word "art" read "orgasm". The flat, unemotional prose, the decision to strip the characters of much individuality, aside for occasional penile peculiarities, and the resistance to much of any sense of continuity (either chronological or thematic) reinforce the integrity of the concept. The outcome is a noteworthy, if less than fulfilling, reading experience: much like, I imagine, an encounter with Ms. M. in a somewhat different context. (  )1  jburlinson | Jan 4, 2009 | First, a very brief synopsis: This is the story of the author's sex life, from childhood to her open marriage. That's it, really. I understand that ironically dispassionate accounts of this nature are supposed to be chic and clever, but it's really just pretentious and dull. If her story seems familiar, it's because it's the usual bored, priveleged girl attempts to entertain herself routine. The sex scenes (if they can be called that) read like police statements. Again, this is supposed to showcase that blase' attitude, which in turn is supposed to be a marker of...refinement? It's lost on me. It becomes increasingly obvious while reading that the author's "free" sex life is propped on boredom and popularity, and certainly not on a love of it. (  )2 9days | Aug 10, 2008 | peppone01 | Jul 9, 2008 | 
 I suppose there is a sense in which ''The Sexual Life of Catherine M.'' might be perceived as an erotic breakthrough, a daring leap into a place where no woman -- or man, for that matter -- has gone before. But that immediately raises the question: Is this really a place worth getting to? ''The Sexual Life of Catherine M.'' is as ponderous as it is heavy-breathing, which is saying a lot. As the author pursues ''fornicatory communion'' as frequently and publicly as possible, and as she approaches her mission ''with the application of a musician composing a fugue,'' she totes her critical acumen to places where it is not entirely useful. Her book lurches to and fro between the frankly obscene and the absurdly high-minded.
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(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:04 -0400)
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Wikipedia in English (2)
Als "neuer Klassiker der erotischen Literatur" geisterte dieses Werk einst durch alle Gazetten. Für Schlagzeilen sorgte nicht nur der "transparente Inhalt", sondern vor allem seine Autorin, Catherine Millet, Chefredakteurin eines französischen Kulturmagazins.
Doch Achtung: Wer Erotik erwartet, wird bitter enttäuscht! Madames Schilderungen, eingebettet in ein einschlägiges Vokabular, sind langweilig zu lesen und obendrein phantasielos geschrieben. In meinen Augen taugt das "Werk" bestenfalls als drittklassiges Drehbuch für einen billigen Pornostreifen. Selten gibt es Bücher, die ich nicht beendet habe, doch dieses Buch hat es geschafft!
Für mich ist es völlig unverständlich, warum es diese chronique scandaleuse auf irgendwelche Bestseller-Listen geschafft hat. Meinerseits gibt es einen Stern - allerdings nicht für den Inhalt, sondern das gekonnte Marketing. Man sieht einmal mehr: Sex sells.