Tanos's weblog

Posts tagged "books"

6 Apr 07 Review of "Master Nage's Guide to Training"

I've been away this week and took the opportunity to read Nage's book. It's one of a sudden flurry of M/s books which have appeared in the last couple of years. I think it's clear that it's the weakest of the current crop but I'm going to try to highlight the good points as well as the rest. [more...]

24 Jan 07 "The Ties that Bind" by Vanessa Duries

"Le Lien" ("The Bond" or "The Link") is an autobiographical account of a BDSM relationship by Frenchwoman Vanessa Duries. Following it's publication in 1993, she shot to fame and notoriety, and even appeared on French television, before dying in a car crash in the December of the same year, at the age of 21. I had high hopes based on reviews of the French original, but I'm quite disappointed. [more...]

6 Jan 07 "The Story of O" revisited

I first read Story of O in 1993 and at the time I didn't really like it - certainly not its BDSM themes. I could see it was capital-L Literature, and I'd read enough modern fairy tales and fables to read between the lines, but to be honest, I was indifferent to it. I reread it twice over the years with no change in how I felt, although I did start to notice some astute observations and quotable passages. [more...]

5 Nov 05 "The Image" by Jean de Berg

I only came across "The Image" a couple of weeks ago: it's only 67-pages in English translation, and was published in Paris in 1955, the year after "The Story of O". There are a lot of similarities between the two: they both feature female submissives in contempary Paris, were written by wives of French authors but published under pseudonyms ("The Image" was probably written by Catherine Robbe-Grillet), and are classed at capital-L Literature rather than smut

"The Image" also features a preface "signed" by Pauline Reage, the author of "O", but probably written by Alain Robbe-Grillet. [more...]

11 May 03 "The Reunion" by Laura Antoniou

Well after 250 pages I've decided to put aside "The Reunion". I very rarely leave books unfinished - and this time I've stopped at one of the day boundaries just in case - but I really can't take any more of it. [more...]