-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0201/05/spectrum/spectrum3.html
>>>Interesting. I saw the original in 1975, something just now
released in Britland, in 2000? This sounds like the kind of stuff
Annie should be really writing!!! Or does she? A<>E<>R <<<
}}}>Begin
More stories of O
The infamous French novel has spawned a thriving S&M lifestyle,
writes John Baxter.
When the editor and writer Jean Paulhan died in 1968, his family and
friends, in traditional French fashion, followed the coffin on foot
to the grave.
In the last decade of his life, Paulhan championed the sensational
1954 sado-masochistic novel Histoire d'O by the pseudonymous "Pauline
Reage". His prefatory essay, The Happiness of Slavery, called it "the
wildest love letter any man ever received". That Paulhan was the man
for whom Reage wrote this love letter was an open secret, but who was
Reage herself?
Walking directly behind the coffin were Jacqueline, his daughter-in-law, and Dominique
Aury, Paulha
n's long-time mistress and for years his deputy at the literary magazine Nouvelle
Revue FranÇaise.
Seeing a huge wreath of flowers on top of the coffin, with no card attached,
Jacqueline drew an obv
ious conclusion. "You know," she said, leaning towards Aury, "I bet those flowers are
from Pauline
Reage."
Aury, then 60, softly spoken and discreet, best known for her translations of English
novels like E
velyn Waugh's The Loved One, and for editing a major anthology of religious verse,
looked oddly at
the other woman.
"But Jacqueline," she said, "I'm Pauline Reage."
Few literary secrets had been so well kept. From the moment it was published in 1954,
Histoire d'O
was front-page news. By the time Aury died in 1998, she had seen it endorsed by
writers as prestigi
ous as Graham Greene, J
.G. Ballard and Susan Sontag. It had sold millions of copies in numerous languages,
been the subjec
t of some mediocre but commercially successful movies, and inspired scores of related
novels.
It had also, single-handed, created a worldwide middle-class enthusiasm for masochism.
Merchants of
"marital aids" watched in astonishment as whips and manacles outsold vibrators and
edible undies.
Stars like Madonna play
ed with the wardrobe of bondage, and the discovery of handcuffs in Kylie Minogue's
luggage at Heath
row airport (whether or not they were, as she claimed, just the "fun" handles of a
handbag), confer
red a showbiz gloss.
Until the late '80s, only a few people knew that Aury wrote Histoire d'O. All that
time, she sat de
murely at dinner parties and listened to other writers hint broadly that they were
actually Reage.
The beautiful and promiscuous painter Leonor Fini was confidently named as the "real"
O because one
of her bird masks inspired an episode in the final chapters. Never one to shrink from
publicity, F
ini had herself photogr
aphed in the mask and produced a series of erotic lithographs for a special edition of
the book.
Another candidate, the novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, even faked a Reage introduction
to L'Image, a
sado-masochistic novel by his fiancée Catherine, written as "Jean de Berg". When the
book came out,
"de Berg" agreed to be
interviewed on TV but only if she could wear a half-veil. Her incognito just
bolstered the general
belief that she was also Reage.
Paulhan decided to scotch these rumours. He and Jerome Lindon, the boss of Editions de
Minuit, whic
h published L'Image, were old friends and played boules every Sunday. Over their next
game, Paulhan
said he doubted the au
thenticity of the Reage introduction. A German expert in the newfangled science of
computers claime
d he could identify literary fakes. Why didn't they let him settle the argument?
Lindon agreed, and a few weeks later asked Paulhan for the result.
"Well, I'm puzzled," Paulhan said. "He tested the introduction, and the text of both
L'Image and Hi
stoire d'O."
"And?"
"He says all three were written by the same person."
Even when the literary historian John de St Yorre revealed the identity of Reage in
1994, Aury's mo
tives in writing Histoire d'O remained obscure. She discussed these only once, in an
interview with
the French journalist
Marie-Dominique Montel filmed in the last months of her life.
Paulhan inspired the book, she explained, when he remarked that no woman could ever
write a truly e
rotic novel. She decided to try her hand, both as a literary challenge and in the hope
that it woul
d rekindle their long-s
tanding affair. Since Paulhan couldn't drive, Aury chauffeured him around Paris and as
she finished
each episode read it aloud to him, usually in the car, parked in some discreet layby
or in the sec
luded Bois de Boulogne.
Montel asked the most obvious question of all. Had she ever experimented with any of
the rituals de
scribed in the book - the whippings, brandings, multiple sex with anonymous partners?
"I would have quite liked to have tried sex with many lovers," Aury said wistfully.
"But Jean was t
oo jealous. And he, I think, would have enjoyed submitting me to the whips and chains.
But I didn't
care for that. And so
we never did."
Aury's acolytes have spent half a century making up for her self-denial. Roissy, the
village where
she placed the cult's secluded chateau, has become a place of pilgrimage, though most
of her locati
ons have long since dis
appeared under France's largest air terminal.
There are Roissy societies across the United States. "Our events are structured as a
social event,"
says their Web site, "with the highlight being a dungeon party on Saturday night."
You can even ta
ke a Roissy cruise: thr
ee days in the Caribbean, including a party in a private villa on Paradise Island
("limited equipme
nt will be available").
British associations such as Sisters of O try to go beyond holiday high-jinks. "We are
female slave
s owned in totality by The Cloister," proclaim its anonymous creators. "We are slaves
in all aspect
s of our lives; its pro
perty to do with as it will, our lives lived out in the shadow of its Control, under
the watchful e
yes of our sisters." Its Web site offers a list of British S&M service providers which
ranges from
An Old English 9 ("Scen
e and dungeon furniture") and Aristocuffs ( "A one-stop perv shop specialising in
BDSM, Leather, Fe
tishwear, toys etc") to Zipper ("Gay sex shop with leather, rubber, books, bondage
gear").
The more fixated fans of Histoire d'O often baffle those artists and readers who
simply enjoy its e
legance of style or find inspiration in fetishist imagery. The British painter Stefan
Prince has de
voted some years to a s
eries of large canvases inspired by the book. However, his Web site, StoryofO.com,
also attracts cr
anks. "I just received a book called Carnal Knowledge as a gift from two obviously New
Age fetish/o
ccultists in Texas," he
told me. "They claim Story of O is based on truth and that Roissy refers to the
Orders of the Rose
- Croix, the Rosicrucians."
In 2000 the 1974 French film of Histoire d'O won general release in British cinemas
for the first t
ime, and was issued uncut on DVD. A recently completed American film, Story of O:
Untold Pleasures
starring Danielle Ciard
i as O and Neil Dickson as her aristocratic master Sir Stephen, is caught up in
wrangling over copy
right. The French are supposed to be preparing a new movie, too. And everybody wonders
if we will e
ver see the fragments o
f an O film shot decades ago by the famed underground director Kenneth Anger.
The beating, it seems, goes on.
[go to top]
In this section
The age of small talk
Parlez-vous le netspeak?
More stories of O
The mother of all book clubs
An overdose of sweetness
Portrait of power
Stopovers on the way to peace
Traitor in the ranks
Alice through the camera lens
The mating game takes a terminal twist
Riches from an ancient land
Cool view from afar
Getting personal
Action man
In hot pursuit of greatness
The Queen and us
Big questions
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