Anne Desclos (1907–1998)
Author of Story of O
About the Author
Series
Works by Anne Desclos
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Desclos, Anne
- Legal name
- Desclos, Anne Cécile
- Other names
- Aury, Dominique
Réage, Pauline - Birthdate
- 1907-09-23
- Date of death
- 1998-04-27
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Sorbonne
- Occupations
- journalist
novelist
translator
literary critic - Organizations
- Gallimard
- Awards and honors
- Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (1960)
Leather Hall of Fame (2020)
Prix des Deux Magots (1955)
Prix des Critiques (1956) - Relationships
- Paulhan, Jean (lover)
Thomas, Edith (lover) - Short biography
- Anne Desclos was born to a bilingual family and began reading in French and English at an early age. After completing her studies at the Sorbonne, she worked as a journalist until 1946 when she joined Gallimard Publishers, originally as an editorial secretary. There she began using the pen name Dominique Aury. She had a brief marriage in her early twenties that produced a son. An avid reader of English and American literature, Aury became a highly respected translator of such authors as Swinburne, Waugh, Woolf, Eliot, Fitzgerald and many others, whose work she introduced to the French public. She also became a literary critic and was named to the juries of several prominent literary awards. She had a longtime affair with Jean Paulhan, a French writer and publisher who was married and 23 years her senior, and wrote "The Story of O" to please him. It appeared under the pseudonym Pauline Réage in 1954. Anne Desclos admitted authorship -- and her true identity -- many years later.
- Nationality
- France
- Birthplace
- Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, France
- Places of residence
- Paris, France
- Place of death
- Corbeil-Essonnes, Île-de-France, France
- Associated Place (for map)
- France
Members
Reviews
Per poterlo capire, questo è un romanzo che va affrontato con la mente aperta. Perché parla di scelte, non sempre comprensibili e non sempre neppure concepibili, ma senza dubbio scelte, libere e consapevoli. È stato già detto tutto sulla trama (la violenza, l'annullamento totale della persona, in questo caso la donna, la mancanza di dignità eccetera eccetera), meno spesso si precisa che, prima di ogni nuovo gradino di violenza e di mortificazione, ad O viene chiesto, esplicitamente, se show more vuole. E lei vuole. È per questo che trovo un po' strumentale il collegamento al tema "violenza sulla donna", perché per come la vedo io qui si parla di una cosa un po' diversa.
Ho preso il romanzo come un'opera di narrativa: prendo per buono quello che mi viene raccontato. Senza sovrastrutture. E allora mi accorgo, come già suggerito dalla prefazione, che la storia è pervasa di pudore. Mi accorgo che non ci sono solo scene di sesso particolare e di violenza (raccontate muovendosi sempre in maniera impeccabile nel campo minato delle numerose possibilità di scadere nel volgare e nel pecoreccio), ma c'è anche una parte introspettiva in cui è la protagonista a parlare di sé, a cercare di spiegare quello che a molti di noi sembra inaccettabile: raggiungere l'apice del piacere all'apice del dolore; il sollievo procurato dal rendersi un oggetto. Il mondo è bello perché è vario: e in questa varietà alcune persone provano piacere a sottoporsi ad umiliazioni; altre a infliggerle. Non è una cosa semplice, e trovo che l'autrice abbia fatto un bel lavoro. Persone così esistono da sempre, là fuori. Penso che Histoire d'O racconti bene, in maniera anzi molto femminile, che cosa provano queste persone e cosa sta dietro a una scelta ai più incomprensibile. E tanto mi basta -scusate se è poco- per farmi apprezzare un'opera di narrativa. show less
Ho preso il romanzo come un'opera di narrativa: prendo per buono quello che mi viene raccontato. Senza sovrastrutture. E allora mi accorgo, come già suggerito dalla prefazione, che la storia è pervasa di pudore. Mi accorgo che non ci sono solo scene di sesso particolare e di violenza (raccontate muovendosi sempre in maniera impeccabile nel campo minato delle numerose possibilità di scadere nel volgare e nel pecoreccio), ma c'è anche una parte introspettiva in cui è la protagonista a parlare di sé, a cercare di spiegare quello che a molti di noi sembra inaccettabile: raggiungere l'apice del piacere all'apice del dolore; il sollievo procurato dal rendersi un oggetto. Il mondo è bello perché è vario: e in questa varietà alcune persone provano piacere a sottoporsi ad umiliazioni; altre a infliggerle. Non è una cosa semplice, e trovo che l'autrice abbia fatto un bel lavoro. Persone così esistono da sempre, là fuori. Penso che Histoire d'O racconti bene, in maniera anzi molto femminile, che cosa provano queste persone e cosa sta dietro a una scelta ai più incomprensibile. E tanto mi basta -scusate se è poco- per farmi apprezzare un'opera di narrativa. show less
Story of O is certainly a seminal novel of its type, supposedly the first book to be written by a woman in emulation of de Sade's novels. Despite the subjugated female protagonist (typical of de Sade), the focus has more in common with Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, where there is no sadistic sermonizing from the dominating characters, just unembroidered imperatives. The sense of contract and continually rising stakes are vivid. De Sade never lets the reader lose sight of his show more ideological preoccupations, but I found any such message here to be ambivalent at best. Reage does little to manage the reactions of the reader, who may be titillated, engrossed, or horrified by the sequence of events.
Other readers seem to have made more of the character Rene than I was able to find here. He is important in that O's affection for him serves as a principal motivation in the first parts of the book. But she does indeed transcend that affection through her experience of her "condition." And it's hard for me to imagine any reader being seriously sympathetic to O's initial devotion to Rene. He is drawn sparsely and unflatteringly.
There is little in the way of graphic detail regarding the many sexual acts in the story, so that the reader's imagination is enlisted in the erotic effects. What particulars of sex acts there are mostly fall in the early parts of the book. Reviewers often accordingly judge the middle and end to have become "slow." And yet I found that they tended to accelerate in terms of the shifting of personal relationships and the psychological transformation of O. Few readers seem to remark the somewhat predatory lesbianism of O, which is so pivotal to the central sections of the book, although hardly any fail to react to the body modifications of corseting, piercing, and branding.
The end of the book is abrupt and unconventional. A metafictional epilogue glosses two versions of a "suppressed" (unwritten, I surmise) concluding chapter which would have completed the plot. But "The Owl" which serves as the actual last section is unconcerned to resolve any of the tensions developed in the book. Instead, it sets them on a pedestal for a final appreciation. show less
Other readers seem to have made more of the character Rene than I was able to find here. He is important in that O's affection for him serves as a principal motivation in the first parts of the book. But she does indeed transcend that affection through her experience of her "condition." And it's hard for me to imagine any reader being seriously sympathetic to O's initial devotion to Rene. He is drawn sparsely and unflatteringly.
There is little in the way of graphic detail regarding the many sexual acts in the story, so that the reader's imagination is enlisted in the erotic effects. What particulars of sex acts there are mostly fall in the early parts of the book. Reviewers often accordingly judge the middle and end to have become "slow." And yet I found that they tended to accelerate in terms of the shifting of personal relationships and the psychological transformation of O. Few readers seem to remark the somewhat predatory lesbianism of O, which is so pivotal to the central sections of the book, although hardly any fail to react to the body modifications of corseting, piercing, and branding.
The end of the book is abrupt and unconventional. A metafictional epilogue glosses two versions of a "suppressed" (unwritten, I surmise) concluding chapter which would have completed the plot. But "The Owl" which serves as the actual last section is unconcerned to resolve any of the tensions developed in the book. Instead, it sets them on a pedestal for a final appreciation. show less
The buzz around the 50 Shades phenomena still hasn't subsided. There's now a magazine dedicated to the series and a new book due out in December. I didn't really want to read another book from this series but I thought I'd delve into the genre again and decided to read The Story of O. This book shows how S&M is definitely not something new. The book is over 50 years old and in my opinion is far superior to 50 Shades of Grey, which at times read like a silly soap opera. I'll never fully show more understand why women will willingly submit themselves to such debasement but The Story of O does gets much more into the psyche of the character than 50 Shades, so I do have a somewhat better idea of how and why this alternate lifestyle continues to persist. show less
I didn't especially care for this book- not because of the explicit, erotic content; I came to this book fully cognizant of what I was going to be reading. Rather, I disliked the writing style (although, granted, perhaps something was lost in translation from French to English.) I kept thinking of "Fanny Hill" as I read this book, mainly because of the sometimes stilted tone, but also because of the disconnect I felt with O. There are some impressive psychological undertones to the story, show more and I can certainly see why this book is considered a classic, particularly when it comes to erotica. Unfortunately, as with many classics (I'm looking at you, "Madame Bovary"), I found myself disinterested and pleased only when I reached the end of the novel. (I will say this: what an ending! It will definitely stay with me - I still can't shake the memory of the final paragraphs of "The Grapes of Wrath.") show less
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- Rating
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- 101
- ISBNs
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