Story of O Busy, busy, busy and falling behind on the reviewing. This pale, plain, slim and sexy little novel has been complete for, hmmm, nine days now or so yet is still unreviewed. I blame this partially on the holidays, partially on this strange seize-the-laziness-of-the-day, eat-the-chocolate-almond-toffee and gym-what-gym holiday funk of mine and partially on The Story of O itself. Ahem, (clearing of the throat), let’s get it on.

1954. The Story of O was first published in 1954. This is something I constantly had to remind myself of while reading this racy book involving love, sex, S & M, bondage, torture, orgy, homosexuality, femininity, attraction and ownership. Most things that were scandalous in the 1950s seem very tame in this millennium–the mop top hairdos of those musical English invaders the Beatles, for instance. But O, which Playboy ranks as the 4th sexiest novel of all time***, remains as red-hot scandalous as the day the words were first printed on page.

We open our scene with O and her lover strolling through an unfamiliar park. He leads her to a large car that looks like a taxi in a lane where taxis never stand and they drive off, her lover telling her to remove her panties, roll down her stockings and sit on the cold leather of the seat. He then slashes the straps of her bra with a pen knife and they drive off (O blindfolded) to an unknown chateau. This house of pleasure and pain is where her lover is delivering her–as a prize, a choice delicacy, as the thing he most loves in the world. But as he loves it, he wants to see if he owns it and so O becomes his property, property that he shares among his friends like a good little boy. And there are rules in this secluded and plushly sexual world: never cross you legs or close your lips for they must look available, do not meet a man’s eye, do not speak unless spoken to. And there is a uniform–leather wristbands and collar that easily attach to bind the wearer, very high heels, very high and exposed breasts, and a skirt that easily lifts in either the front or the back for the wearer to, ahem, be of service to whoever (and I do mean whoever) might desire her. Oh, and there is whipping. Quite a bit of whipping.

O’s first night in the chateau:

Then they made O get up and were on the verge of untying her, probably in order to attach her to some pole or wall, when someone protested that he wanted to take her first, right there on the spot. So they made her kneel down again, this time with her bust on an ottoman, her hands still tied behind her, with her hips higher than her torso. Then one of the men, holding her with both his 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.

The book then has three other sections that take place away from the chateau but with the same themes of torture, ownership and true devotion running beneath the frantic current of the words. And yes, there were scenes that shocked my modern sensibilities that I will not discuss here (have to leave something to the new reader, after all) and yes, my feminist sensibilities were also under assault–at least initially.

The truth is that this is a female-written book for a female audience and the author has amazing depth of insight despite the graphic sexuality, bringing up issues that intrigue me. Who exactly becomes a slave to whom? Isn’t it truly the man who cannot do without the woman, who he seeks to claim ownership over because he doesn’t believe he will keep the source of his addiction any other way? Do women actually crave some form of ownership as a token of esteem, of beauty, despite what they say? And is there really more freedom in forfeiting yourself to your basest self–does that stop the double-faced hypocrisy of how sexual desires and fantasies are hidden, but not expurgated, in the modern, civilized world?

I decided I had to read this book after seeing its author, Dominique Aury, revealed in the documentary The Writer of O. She was then 80 years old and still standing by her work, despite the fact that she hadn’t actually admitted to writing it until then. She supposed it would be more comforting coming from a post-menopausal grandma-type instead of a younger woman, still full of sexual threat and power, and explained that the book was in part a declaration of love to her long-time lover, Jean Paulhan. So this is what was wedged into my mind as I read of anal sex, mutilation and pain:

  1. 1954
  2. 80 year-old grandmother
  3. Declaration of love

I have no idea what will be wedged into someone else’s as they attempt the book. No matter what they think, I know that I enjoyed reading this book for both of its faces, the overtly sexual and the philosophical. Therefore I give it a:

4.5 out of 5 stars – A hardcover book club selection

*** You can see reviews of Playboy’s #2 sexiest book, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, here and #13, Fear of Flying, here. Sadly, I do not have a review of #11, Lolita, though I immensely enjoyed that one as well.