Venus In Furs

I had read de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, and I loved it. It gave me a true sense of why the word sadism had its roots in his name.

I'd heard of Venus in Furs, and I knew that Sader-Masoch's name gave way to the word masochism. I came into the book with preconceived notions of what it was supposed to be, what it was supposed to do. I've just now left the book with higher hopes and spirits than I thought I would.

 If you've come to this book looking for hardcore pornography, you should just go to Kink.com's Divine Bitches.

I have to start off: the book, novella actually, moves at what I thought was a slow pace. Being the crass individual that I am, I thought Severin was a whiny bitch, and Wanda and flip-floppity fluffer Dominant. There is lots of crying from the former, and lots of wishy-washy love/hate from the latter.

There are many references to historical people at times, and even though I'm reading it for my own edification, I have to say I'd like to read it again and take notes. One of the biggest misconceptions about the book, is masochism. I'm not sure how to better phrase it... what modern day people see as a masochist, might only be seen as a facet of true masochism based on this book. Most of the masochism isn't physical, but emotional, which I found fascinating.

Depending on who you are, there could be some downsides to this book. If you're picking up a paperback version, I'd suggest being familiar with archaic words, or have the internet close by for quick googles of different things. I still haven't seen an effective image for the styles of furs that he finds so fascinating. Also, the way I've seen some of these movie posters and all that such... it looks a lot different from what was written.

I don't think that Wanda was a cougar, if I'm not mistaken, she was twenty-four at the start of the story, and even back then, that wasn't super old. And well, I don't want to give anything else away, so I'll try to steer clear of any further information.

There's just one curious thing I've noticed since just finishing the story... it hasn't technically loosened the bonds of my fingers. That's very curious indeed. I'll just continue to read some more fantastic literature and see where I'm led to next time.