false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166717001m/16152.jpg 16152 3 Once again displaying her penchant-and talent-for scavenging extant texts, Acker (My Mother: Demonology) exploits Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and Pauline Reage's The Story of O, among other sources, fusing the carnal, the cerebral and the surreal into a fantastical tale. The story spans centuries and continents as it chronicles the adventures of O and Ange, whores who retire from the trade and hire a band of girl-pirates to help them find buried treasure. Told mostly through dreams and dream states and with casual shifts in point of view, the novel divides roughly into three sections. The first, "O and Ange," recounts the two women's days of prostitution: in China, O begins whoring at the request of a boyfriend; she then makes a pilgrimage to "the most famous whorehouse in Alexandria," where she meets Ange, with whom she escapes and discovers a map of buried treasure. The second section, "The Pirate Girls," introduces "King" Pussy, her youth, her two abortions and her sexual history. In the final section, "In the Days of the Pirates," O and Ange hire the pirate-girls and set sail for the treasure island. Acker writes a deliberately affectless, deadpan prose, rendering both the absurd and the disturbing (including several graphic sexual and physiological episodes) with a declarative nonchalance. Like Acker's other work, this campy and enigmatic novel is self-consciously provocative as she detonates her battery of literary and sexual references in order to illuminate themes of masochism and rebellion-but it's also often funny and invariably intelligent. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. 2174593 1996 Pussy, King of the Pirates total:207|5:46|4:66|3:61|2:21|1:13| 207 732 314 30 5 4 false false Thu May 31 15:59:43 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 16 08:24:10 -0700 2007 4 3 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sun Jan 27 19:49:43 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 27 19:50:22 -0800 2008 3 1 false false Fri Jan 18 15:53:21 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 24 10:18:07 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue Oct 14 13:25:14 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 13:27:20 -0700 2008 0 1 false false Thu May 15 15:46:29 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 15:47:29 -0700 2008 3 1 false false Wed Mar 26 20:47:26 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 26 20:51:47 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999 Fri Jun 05 08:19:47 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 11 08:05:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Dec 28 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Mar 12 10:26:38 -0700 2008 Thu Jan 01 22:41:52 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue May 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 07 09:39:05 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 00:12:40 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 02 10:21:48 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 07:38:41 -0800 2009 1 0 false false Wed Jun 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 14 21:55:27 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 23:22:22 -0700 2009 Pussy is like listening to someone's sexually themed-dream for 200+ pages. Symbols and images exist without context (or the opposite end of the range: blatant psychological explanation) and skip around without any sense of narrative or cohesion. In addition, repeated descriptions of masturbation and...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jun 18 03:11:48 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 03:14:08 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2000 Tue Mar 10 14:46:48 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 10 14:47:17 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1995 Mon Jan 05 10:05:56 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 10:07:09 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Nov 23 03:28:36 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 23 03:28:42 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Sat Sep 13 22:19:20 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 13 23:37:36 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Thu Oct 18 15:54:49 -0700 2007 Sat Apr 18 12:36:31 -0700 2009 I think this is one of the better Acker things that I've read. I liken her to jasmine tea... I like the idea of it, even the smell but when I get it in my mouth, I'm usually not really happy about drinking it...]]> 3 0 true false Thu Oct 11 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Feb 06 15:11:26 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 06 15:15:10 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Sat Aug 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 12 08:44:15 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 16 10:28:43 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue May 01 13:29:09 -0700 2007 Tue May 01 13:34:43 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=16152