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Labour 5: To Clean the Augean Stables
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Has to be The Story of O on Kindle. Can't find Dirty Havana Trilogy anywhere. O is on Audible in French, but I think I would miss too much trying to listen in French.
I have been working for the past half year on the wind up of a biomass plant - a power plant fueled by turkey, uh, litter. That's enough poop for one year. I'll pass this month.
Both of these sound like a Herculean challenge...
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What would be a challenge if there were no challenges in it :-) It could have been worse, I was tempted to choose American Psycho for this one... Rabelais could have also qualified, but this was way too long.
Story of ORating: 3 stars
Read: May 2017
This really isn't my cup of tea, but it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I had a pretty good idea for what to expect beforehand which saved me a lot of shock. Part of me could not understand why she was agreeing to this treatment, but on the other hand I could (somewhat) see it from O's perspective (even though I found her unquestioning devotion to Rene frustrating). Yes, it is over the top and shocking, yet, at the same time, I did not feel it was gratuitous. It is less a book of erotica and more one of psychology. I think what helped me to better understand the novel was reading the preface written by the translator (the female translator, not the male).
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2/5
I think I should get more than 2 points for reading this book, it was sheer torture (pun intended).
In my opinion, this book made the list for a couple of reasons. It was shocking for the time period, first published in 1954, it was written by a woman who only wrote this one book and never spoke about it. My book jacket states this was the book that introduced erotic fiction to the world.
This was a story I could have done without. The introduction states “How far will a woman go to express her love?” but I don't think this story had anything to do with love. It was the story of the degradation of a woman. The first chapter The Lovers of Roissy had me so off kilter that I didn't think I was going to make it through the book. The level of violence against women was more than I expected. I was relieved when the second chapter changed courses. My plan for the book was to read it fast and just get it over with but I found myself needing a break between chapters. Also, I have to remember not to read the introductions before I read the book as they gave the ending away.
I hated the book so 1 star but the writing was good so I gave it another star.
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This novel resulted from a dare issued by Jean Paulhan, then leading the Nouvelle Revue Française, to his employee-cum-mistress, Anne Desclos, a.k.a Pauline Réage. Being a Sade specialist, Paulhan once told Desclos that women could never write an erotic novel. The result of that dare sparked a mini-revolution in the genre and a lot of controversy. Granted, this is not everyone's cup of tea . Nevertheless, it is more by the psychological depth of the novel than the graphic nature of certain sections that this revolution emerged. Even though you can be left at times scratching your head trying to figure out why O submits herself to all the trials of this enslaved condition, it remains a demonstration of the extent through which a woman will go to convey her love (feminists will probably strongly object here; maybe not Kathy Acker though). I don't think anything felt gratuitous in this novel, and it probably helped that it was written by a woman. Those who have read and raved about 50 Shades of Grey should perhaps have a look at this novel instead.
Story of O by Pauline Reage
★★
This would have been a 1 star read but the writing style is actually not that bad, can't say the same for the subject matter though.
This book is frequently compared with 50 Shades of Grey which is unfair for 2 reasons 1) 50 Shades is terribly written and 2) 50 Shades is far superior in terms of erotic writing because it is clear from the beginning of the relationship that Ana is a WILLING and CONSENTING adult. Ana knows ahead of time what she is agreeing to and that if she is ever uncomfortable she can stop things at any point.
The opening chapter of O as far as I am concerned shows a young woman who is kidnapped and raped by at least 4 different men. The fact that she has no idea what she is agreeing to and the fact that she is told if she doesn't comply willing she will be forced all indicate to me that Rene/ the elite are not concerned with female consent.
O may come around to enjoy the slave lifestyle but I just cannot forgive the first chapter where it is implied that lack of consent is fine and dandy and that the woman will come to love it if she loves her man. This message is also reinforced later in the book as well.
How many parents are right now trying to convince their daughters that they don't have to have sex to prove they love someone? Well this books just tosses that theory away and that is not a message I am comfortable with.
Well written fictional account of one woman's mental and sexual life? Yes. Love story? No. Erotic? No.
★★
This would have been a 1 star read but the writing style is actually not that bad, can't say the same for the subject matter though.
This book is frequently compared with 50 Shades of Grey which is unfair for 2 reasons 1) 50 Shades is terribly written and 2) 50 Shades is far superior in terms of erotic writing because it is clear from the beginning of the relationship that Ana is a WILLING and CONSENTING adult. Ana knows ahead of time what she is agreeing to and that if she is ever uncomfortable she can stop things at any point.
The opening chapter of O as far as I am concerned shows a young woman who is kidnapped and raped by at least 4 different men. The fact that she has no idea what she is agreeing to and the fact that she is told if she doesn't comply willing she will be forced all indicate to me that Rene/ the elite are not concerned with female consent.
O may come around to enjoy the slave lifestyle but I just cannot forgive the first chapter where it is implied that lack of consent is fine and dandy and that the woman will come to love it if she loves her man. This message is also reinforced later in the book as well.
How many parents are right now trying to convince their daughters that they don't have to have sex to prove they love someone? Well this books just tosses that theory away and that is not a message I am comfortable with.
Well written fictional account of one woman's mental and sexual life? Yes. Love story? No. Erotic? No.
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**Disregard my previous claim for Story of O. I decided to read both books and want the points for this one instead.**Book: Dirty Havana Trilogy
Read: May 2017
Rating: 2 stars
This totally isn't my kind of book. Apparently it is liked by many others, given its decent ratings. It is essentially a collection of inter-related short stories broken down into three segments. It reads like a memoir, and is thought to be semi-autobiographical. The main character's name is Pedro Juan, like the author.
The Good: The author painted a vivid picture of poverty in Havana in the early 90s. He spared no details in descriptions. You can feel the desperation of the character's situations. They are essentially in survival mode. Despite the coarse language, it was actually poetic at times. If you could take all of the crude stuff out, it would be a really good book (but very short...)
The Bad: The main character is sex-obsessed man in his mid-40s with the sex-drive of a man half his age. The reader is subjected to frequent descriptions of graphic sex and body parts. In this respect, it reminded me a lot of fellow Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas' book Before Night Falls. Although the author has preferences, he
The Ugly: The book is just over the top vulgar and crude. I am not a fan of large doses of foul language and lurid descriptions of violence and depravity.
I really wish this type of book was not on the list.
The Story of O by Pauline Reage★★
It is intriguing to read what another woman regards as erotic. Her fantasies are not my fantasies and the subjugation and objectification are extreme. Nevertheless it forces the reader to question the border between eroticism and pornography, and to ponder why someone's predilections may involve pain and humiliation. What I find distasteful might be just what is needed to push someone else's buttons, so to speak! The SM scenes were intriguing but I found the passages where O's thoughts and reactions are explained to be clunky and unbelievable.
Story of O by Pauline Reage
1 star
A book about a young woman who subjects herself to subservience and humiliation in a sexual relationship with a man she says she's in love with. I did not like this book at all. It is totally beyond my imagination that anyone would submit to this type of submission...and actually want to do this, thinking that the person you loved required it to maintain the bond. Even though the book was not quite as sexually explicit as I was afraid it might be, the addition of violence to the mix just added to my incredulity. I would never recommend this book to anyone and I'm amazed it's on the 1001 list.
L'histoire d'O by Pauline Réage - 2 starsThis is one of those books where the rating is split between the writing stile, which I liked well enough (though I would have appreciated more breaks), and the story itself, which I didn't. Somehow this feels like fragment of a story, that leave me perplexed at the thought that someone willingly would submit to the atrocities described. It lacks a beginning that would make sense of the development and ends abruptly with no proper sense of an ending.
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Books mentioned in this topic
Histoire d'O | Story of O (other topics)Dirty Havana Trilogy (other topics)
Dirty Havana Trilogy (other topics)
Eurystheus, exasperated by Hercules’ successes, sought to give the hero a most menial, downgrading and humiliating task for his next labour. He suddenly remembered his good but slovenly mate Augeas from the countryside, who was heading the biggest cattle farm of the country.
This Augeas could also have run a lucrative side-line business in the manure industry, as he was looking after more than 3000 excessively healthy and dung-producing heads of cattle. Besides his lack of business nous, his slovenliness was his other trouble: his stables have not been cleaned for 30 years! There must be an Olympus-sized pile of poop over there, thought Eurystheus; let’s send Hercules to clean this mess up in less than one day, surely he can’t do that…
Hercules, with his bucket, shovel and mop, went to Augeas’ stables and explained the task given to him. Augeas, quite incredulous, promised to award him one-tenth of his herd if he managed to finish by the end of the day. Without further ado, Hercules went to fetch water from a nearby river (the Alpheus) and, seeing the torrential stream, suddenly thought it would be faster to divert the river’s flow towards the stables. He undertook to do so and, when completed, he saw another river nearby (the Peneus) and decided to redirect it too so that he can finish the job before the cows come home.
Augeas, coming back from the pastures with his herd, exploded in furious disbelief when he saw the stables sparkly clean and Hercules waiting for his due. He then decided to renege on the deal. Hercules, with mafioso efficiency, dispatched the dishonest Augeas from the world of the living and, since he had still some spare time, decided to create the Olympic Games on his way back to Eurystheus.
The latter, hearing Hercules’ report on the task, disregarded this as a success, as Hercules got “paid” by Augeas to complete the task. Therefore, our hero still had seven Labours to go through…
The Books
For your fifth “spring cleaning” Labour, which of these “filthy”, dirty, dirty novels will you choose to scrub up (with your eyes only; excessive use of water could damage the book or your e-reader)?
Dirty Havana Trilogy (Pedro Juan Gutierrez) 3 points
The Story of O (Pauline Réage) 2 points
Unlike the myth, I will not require you to complete the Labour in one day! To earn the points associated with either book, you can only read and review the chosen book between 2017-05-01, midnight EST (New York) and 2017-05-31, midnight EST (New York). You should post your reviews below, clearly identifying which book you are reviewing.