Story of O

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 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 show more 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 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 show more 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

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, 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 show more 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

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 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 show more persist. show less

Something is made of an idea that woman could not have written this, yet did. Since it begins with a woman abandoned by her lover to be debased and gangraped, I was suspicious of the idea that a woman felt personally inclined to put this fiction out there. Indeed, true author Anne Desclos' lover and employer Jean Paulhan, a fervent admirer of the Marquis de Sade, made a remark to her that no woman was capable of writing an erotic novel of that type. To prove him wrong, Desclos wrote this graphic, sadomasochistic novel that was published under the pseudonym Pauline Réage in June 1954. OK, now that I believe and that was a stupid challenge I would expect to come from a man and to be lost in challenging any woman with a typewriter. That show more being cleared up, the rest of the story is repetitive and not moving. show less

I never had any intention of reading [b:Story of O|40483|Story of O|Pauline Réage|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1169436577s/40483.jpg|2462307] until I was recently asked to review it. I knew I wouldn't like it, that it is not the kind of erotica I usually waste my Sunday afternoons with, so rather than purchasing the whole thing, I instead decided to read the Amazon Kindle sample. That, I'm afraid, was way more than enough. I'm not sure whether the sample starts at the beginning of the story or not, the first chapter felt a little out of place, but then none of what I read really followed the format of a regular novel.

The sample starts as it means to go on:

"Get in," he says. She gets in.

I laughed at this. Perhaps I shouldn't have. show more Perhaps I shouldn't laugh at the fact that O allows herself to be objectified and used sexually, perhaps I should pity her for feeling that it's okay to be ordered around in this way. Oh well, I'm just a firm believer that if someone tells you to jump off a cliff and you jump off said cliff, then it's your fault for being a cliff-jumping moron. Just sayin'...

Anyway, as far as your regular run-of-the-mill sex goes, there's hardly any description. It's all entering and plunging and then it's all over. The whipping, however, gets a lot more attention than the sex does, the whole sample doesn't actually feel like erotica unless you're the kind to masturbate while Crimewatch is on. This is a story of violence, not sex. Because sex is a two (or more) way thing regardless of whether it is BDSM or straight-up (lol, pun!) vanilla. If all the participants aren't invested in the sexual activities and aren't getting pleasure out of it then it isn't sex, it's rape.

Okay, okay, before I get carried away with that idea, it's kinda important to point out that it wasn't clear as to whether O was giving consent to what the people were doing to her. She screams and she cries, which to me is something negative, but I'm no expert on how people behave during this kind of sexual encounter. We are not treated to O's thoughts, only her actions and the actions of the people around her. She doesn't express regret, sadness or even pain inwardly.

The only thing that is clear to me (and makes me feel sick) is that the men who are doing all this stuff to her are not concerned with her pleasure. Which, as I said in my review of [b:Fifty Shades of Grey|10818853|Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1)|E.L. James|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1300842729s/10818853.jpg|15732562], is important because all parties are supposed to get something out of it. In BDSM relationships, submission is something that a person chooses to do and wants to do because they enjoy what it gives them and what it gives the dom. It is not forced out of someone. The psychological aspect of BDSM is a lot like how it is (or should be) with regular sex. You give pleasure, you get pleasure. However:

"If you do tie her up from time to time, or whip her just a little, and she begins to like it, that's no good either. You have to get past the pleasure stage, until you reach the stage of tears."

These men are evidently trying to break O. They rejoice when she is in pain, when she is distressed, and when she screams or cries. For me, trying to hurt someone for the sake of hurting them - not to give them what they want - is no different from rape. It is sick. This is sick:

The gag stifles all screams and eliminates all but the most violent moans, while allowing tears to flow without restraint. There was no question of using it that night. On the contrary, they wanted to hear her scream; and the sooner the better.

You could argue with me that O actually wants all of this to happen, so I have no point. We are not told what O is thinking, she never speaks to say whether she wants it or not, but I cannot be the only one thinking that this is not the sign of a woman enjoying herself:

Then one of the men, holding her with both hands on her hips, plunged into her belly. He yielded to a second. The third wanted to force his way into the narrower passage and, driving hard, made her scream. When he let her go, sobbing and befouled by tears beneath her blindfold, she slipped to the floor, only to feel someone's knees against her face, and she realized that her mouth was not to be spared.

Though, personally, I think her mouth is the least of O's problems if he's shagging her belly. What's that all about? For you clever dicks out there, I'd just like to point out that yes, I do realise that he is actually talking about her vagina.

So, has [b:Story of O|40483|Story of O|Pauline Réage|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1169436577s/40483.jpg|2462307] changed my opinion about BDSM erotica and whether it is dehumanizing/sexist/etc.? Nope. But I'm learning more and more that people automatically categorize books that combine pain and sex as BDSM, even though they're not, or it's questionable. In BDSM, both the dom and the sub have got to want what's happening, or else it's simply abuse. Though O is hard to understand, there are about twenty quotes from the sample alone that suggest she isn't enjoying being tied up and hurt. And that's why this story is not erotic, but merely fucked up. show less

Shocking to say the least. Very well written erotica which certainly puts it above most in the genre. But I do have some troubles digesting the story. I like erotica, but I'm not into hardcore bondage and S&M which most of this book is. Therefore I cannot really understand why it is such a classic and got an entry in the book "1001 books you must read before you die".
Still, I can say I read it in one sitting as it is very gripping and written in an extremely engaging style. Can you tell I'm torn about whether I should like this book or not?