Thoughts on Story of O??

[bootyqueen]

I've read it several times, but never really discussed it with anyone..
It's one of my absolute favorites. Let me know what you thought!

[Kiwi Shelf]

Never read it, what's it about?

[bootyqueen]

It's an erotic french novel.... (translated to English)
Two lovers, O and Renee, go to stay at a chateau,.. Because she loves Renee so much she is happy to do it. The underlying theme is happiness in slavery.. "

"VERY contoversial book to say the least.... If you happen to come across a copy, I highly recommend reading it. The content is quite explicit, but it really get the wheels of thought turning.
(By the way, I'm totally not into S&M) Most bookstoes, especially used ones, have it in the 'Erotic' section.

*Post edited by Logos to remove explicit sexual content

[Logos]

These forums are for people of all ages, yes 13 and _under_ so it's appreciated if posts and topics are appropriate for all ages :)

[subterranean]

If you like the theme, maybe you would want to try reading Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller.

[Kiwi Shelf]

Oh, that sounds... interesting. If what was edited is important you can pm me it.

Oh, author please?

[bootyqueen]

The author is Pauline Reage, but that is apparently a nom du plume.
I believe it's still a mystery who the real author is, whether it's a man or a woman....

[Kiwi Shelf]

Ah. There are too many books in the world for me to keep all the "classics" straight.

[DrBill]

Several literate women I know rate "The Story of O" on the cusp between the erotic and pornographic--depending, it seems, on what occasions their opinion: the text as artifice or as artifact. Recollection has dimmed; it may be time to revisit "O" and compare the initial with a mature response. Reading it aloud with a significant other was not, I concede, an endeavor of judicial criticism.

[manuscript]

bump.

read this after having read Bataille's Story Of The Eye, because the modern penguin classics edition i read that in included an essay by Susan Sontag which talked both about Bataille and Réage. Bataille's work was humorous at times, i could not help laughing while i was reading it, because some of the ideas of the narrator and the other principle character are so insanely irrational, all human empathy is missing in them and all that is left is irrationality, which is quite an interesting idea really. and the brutalities perpetrated by the characters were ridiculous in some sense just because i could not believe them.

(how did i find myself reading Story Of The Eye in the first place? for the simple reason that it was marked down to $2 and the cover looked interesting. not that i ever had anything in particular against erotic or pornographic fiction, but just that i guess i did not enjoy American Psycho or Crash in the slightest, and did not really intend to read anything more.)

however, this book, Story of O, i could not believe in the reality of its contents either, (hardly a consideration in evaluating most literature i admit, but i am just saying by comparison,) but i found it a great deal more disturbing than Bataille. it is about a sensitive woman whose emotions are manipulated in order that she might be made an object of extreme sexual abuse. in addition, her possessions are taken from her, such as her flat, she no longer has any possessions or any ability to refuse or lock anyone out of her life, those who gain the disposal of her are permitted all forms of access to her at all times. O grants these permissions, but arguably only after she has been so far taken advantage of, that her mind has been entirely twisted. a couple of the brief critical responses i read to the novel, by such and such a luminary or whoever, respond to it in the sense that O's personality is obliterated, and in this sense she gains access to a sort of mystical or sacred state. i contest that O is not in fact absolved of her personality, but that her personality is monstrous. she is cold and callous and hard, she is ready to manipulate and destroy anyone in the way that she was destroyed, and she takes pride in doing this. this is not the removal of personality, it is a different kind of personality.

O is a fashion photographer, but during the course of her indoctrination into extreme BDSM culture, is made to destroy her art and abandon practicing as an artist. as i was reading the book, for some reason i could not help repeatedly feeling and thinking to myself, "what is being described in this book is intended as a depiction of a diametric opposite to art", or "art would never do this to its acolytes". i then began to question whether giving things up for art does result in the same monstrous transformation of personality, rather than as i previously believed, something more positive and transcendent.

it was accompanied in the volume i read with a totally idiotic and unreadable essay by a Jean Paulhan, supposedly a lover of the author, and the unapologetic misogyny of this essay, as well as its blunt and literal reading of the novel as being more or less a tract in support of slavery, made me think that i had gone too far in my own less literal reading.

does anyone else currently on the forum have any thoughts on Story of O? i would be interested to read your thoughts.

[JBI]

I've heard of the text though never seen a copy. My understanding was O basically transitions into a sex slave, O being a pictorial metaphor, the nameless orifice if you will whose existence is there to be screwed, if you will. Still, Like Sade's work, I never had any interest in this one. Erotic fiction seems something so perversely French, though arguably it is popular everywhere. It generally never interested me, in terms of a text which the main focus is on sexual dynamics, or sexual power dynamics. If I want to see pornography, I'll just find pornography, and don't need to "read" it.

That being said, this book does have a sort of cult status, so I am told, amongst those who study and read Erotic fiction. I would not be surprised if the book is meant to be read on a literal level, and not on a metaphorical level. Take the original poster for instance, who seems gone now for 7 years, it seems to be his/her pleasure to lust along with the twisted O. (Am I being presumptuous, or can we make these claims of a poster who is years gone?, if not, I will edit the remark).

Literal readings of porn make it porn, French readings of porn elevate it. I once was made to read a story from a book called Mean B[i]i[/]tches called "The Surprise Party" for a class on sexuality studies. Lets just say there was nothing in there at all except weird perversions (woman is gang raped by 3 men, and then they start having anal sex with each other, then it turns out this was her fantasy arranged for her by her lesbian lover, hence, surprise party). Such text is just not worth anybody's time, and is merely porn of a specific fetish.

That being said, BDSM has its defenders in those who practice it mostly, and insist it is a way of overcoming power dynamics brought on by sexual history and abuse, or other such arguments. They align all forms of sexuality with power struggles, and make sex merely a power game. BDSM is supposed to be the balance act of the mix, which returns a sort of controlled power to a relationship, or some other such nonsense. My quibble is undoubtedly such needs for power dynamics arise from already twisted sexual and personal histories that themselves are perpetuated through weird power dynamics. This, in turn, does not make good art.

In another sense, I remember reading that the fantasy author Michael Moorcock once campaigned to have these books called Gar or something moved to the top shelf, as they were merely pornographic works degrading to women. To an extent I feel something similar with George R. R. Martin's work, but I seem to be in the minority on that one. The level of misogyny in a text that we deem acceptable seems to be a fluctuating standard, the same way man-hating (misandry) seems to be acceptable by some crowds.

[Gladys]

I saw the 1975 movie, and well remember its oppressive psychological violence.

[manuscript]

thanks JBI.

O is initially forced into a position of sexual slavery, with which she becomes compliant. i agree that O can be seen to stand for orifice, and i have also read that it can be seen as nullification.

i dont know anything about the preferences of the OP and unfortunately that person is not here to discuss responses to the book intellectual or otherwise. but i believe it is possible that it can be read for the purposes of self arousal. Sontag believes that the book can be arousing. i think, as you say, pornography is by its nature intended to be arousing. i personally did not find this book arousing at all, and on the contrary, i identify myself as being a person who is very intolerant of that sort of interpersonal power dynamic in real world interactions. but i was interested by reading the book.

is a french reading of porn a poststructuralist type of reading, for example one particular critical perspective, or a range of general approaches derived from schools of thought original to that nation?

there are some differences between forms of pornography. for example, film uses real actors, where in a book no actual living bodies are involved, and so there is a possible ethical concern with whether "porn is just a job" that could be raised in response to the production of photographic pornography; while other perspectives, in relation to what you mentioned about the critic, might see books as being more inherently dangerous, as they are considered the medium of ideas, of in some sense abstract truth. viewers of video porn may discriminate between amateur or studio pornography in terms of production values (however meaningful these distinctions may really be). or viewers of films like "shortbus" although it is undeniably pornographic might discriminate between that film in terms of quality of plot or meaningful ideas and say internet porn which tends to feature only the flimsiest of narratives.

im not sure i can subscribe to the perspective that written porn is all of one single identical value simply by virtue of being pornographic. say that something by E L James is the same quality as the texts mentioned in this thread. or i cant believe that the short story that you mention has the same quality of content as Story of O. there seem to be other ideas at stake at least for me in this book than in a piece of wish fulfillment fantasy. there is more going on. for example, within the text there are multiple alternatives provided, so that the reader is actually presented with different "versions" of the story; "Another version of the same beginning..." appears on page 3. so from the start there is this textual concern interfering in the straightforwardness of the narrative. then there is a character, Jacqueline, who is resistant to the culture that seeks to capture her, and contemptuous of it, in a way that more or less interrogates O's devotion to it. Jacqueline does not come to a bad end - she is successful in life, moving towards a lucrative mainstream film career and a respectful love relationship founded on equality, while O becomes an object or piece of property to be mutilated or distorted or thrown away like rubbish. and so i am just not sure that it is meaningful to flatten this text down to a piece of pornography that is identical to every other piece of pornography just because it can be given the status of pornography. although it is indeed pornography, it may also contain other ideas. the quality of composition is certainly far more sophisticated than say, for example, the works of J K Rowling - it is in another class entirely in that sense.

you know i think Lady Chatterley is kind of a little bit pornographic. and interestingly it utilises more obscene language than Story of O.

im uncertain what i think about the idea that giving pornography critical attention elevates it; it is surely possible that any publicity is good publicity. but part of my own concern about fictions that are pornographic or perhaps any other genre fictions at all really is that they are dismissed by critical establishments as pure faff or harmless entertainment rather than active cultural products and that the outcome of this is that when a phenomenon comes along which is truly toxic rather than just pornographic or whatever else it is, there is no popularly established critical structure in which to quickly evaluate and respond to it before the values of the phenomenon have been culturally assimilated. perhaps this is a petty or not very meaningful concern, but if critics dont understand the genres they are writing about, what is their usefulness to society?

i am not familiar with the works of George R R Martin although i did see an episode of the television adaptation and the level of violence that was depicted in it blew me away! i had no idea that kind of violence is on mainstream television now.

thanks

of course French as in Sade! that was silly of me.