495. The Story of O

The Story of O
Pauline Reage
1954
Around 200 pages

Reage's lover/employer was an admirer of Marquis de Sade (eek), and told her that no woman was capable of penning an erotic novel. So to prove him wrong, she wrote this story in a series of letters to him and hopefully dumped him for being such a wang. A surprising number of books on this List have been completed in the name of dares. 

O's lover Rene, brings her to a chateau in Roissy to be trained to service members of an elite club, in all three of the ways. Her body is humiliated and modified to make submission easier (eek x 2), but O is a willing participant. 

Well, I'm all for being a Petty Betty and writing to spite a man. But damn, that is not the usual story I like to read. I guess if we are going to assign a larger meaning to it, we could say that the ultimate ecstasy comes from surrender, which is why people have been so obsessed with this god fella over the years.

I still think Sade was grosser, so she didn't quite succeed if that's what this contest was measuring. But personally, I was grateful that she refrained from getting scatological. I guess people still doubted that a woman wrote this, but everything seemed to be consensual, so that should have tipped them off.

RATING: **---

Interesting Facts:

Shortly before her death, Anne Desclos revealed she wrote the novel under a pen name.

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