Tag Archives: Justine

BOOKS: “The Romance of Lust” by Anonymous

Posted on by
Reply
The Romance of LustThe Romance of Lust by William Lazenby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Public Domain — Wikisource

This book is classed as a “Victorian Erotic Novel,” but I’d call it pornography rather than erotica. I don’t mean that as condemnation, but as an application of the criteria “without the sex scenes, is there anything left?” In this case, without the sex, there isn’t really a story. If one took the sex scenes out of any erotica it wouldn’t be erotic anymore (and would probably be much less interesting,) but it could still have character development, a discernable plot in non-sex events, or an overarching moral. This book doesn’t really have any of that beyond some expository mentions of life events outside the sack.

This novel tells the story of a well-hung fictional character named Charlie Roberts through his myriad sexual adventures, which stretch from schoolboy / adolescent sex acts with his governess and his sisters to his wife-swapping adult years. The approach reminded me of the Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom The book under review has none of the Sado-Masochism (beyond the odd spanking or consensual flagellation) of Sade’s work, but it is a series of episodes that try to gradually one up each other in terms of their perceived level of perversity. Unlike The 120 Days of Sodom’s dark cruelty, The Romance of Lust reaches its extremes by way of incest, bisexual [omni-sexual?] orgies, and sex involving youths of ages that are undefined but clearly under our current conception of age of consent — but consent / amicability is present throughout.

Not long ago, I reviewed Venus in India. This work has some things in common with that one. For example, both books are set in the same era defined by a highly repressive culture that spurred a covert highly perverse counterculture, and both books were anonymously published. [FYI: It is known that The Romance of Lust was published by William Lazenby, but the author is unknown — though William Simpson Potter and Edward Sellon are among subjects of speculation.] However, in other ways, I think the books were quite different. I would say that Venus in India is to The Romance of Lust as Justine is to The 120 Days of Sodom, which is to say that former titles had something going on besides the sex scenes, while the latter titles really didn’t.

If you’re looking for an erotic novel that would stand without detailed descriptions of one sex scene after the next, this probably isn’t for you. However, if you like porn pacing and the lack of intrusions by non-arousing happenings, you may find this book compelling.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: Justine by Marquis de Sade

Posted on by
3

Justine (Harper Perennial Forbidden Classics)Justine by Marquis de Sade
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon page

 

This is the story of a virtuous, and pretty, young woman who repeatedly falls prey to lecherous libertines. Over the course of the story, she is victimized by aristocrats, monks, and outlaws. The lead goes by the name Therese, though her given name was Justine. She is one of two sisters orphaned after their father ran afoul of a man by having an affair with said man’s wife. The story is set in France immediately before the Revolution, as it was written while de Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille in 1787.

As Therese is telling her tale of woe on the eve of her trial for murder and arson, one might question whether she is an unreliable narrator. In other words, was she as morally upright and steadfastly pious as she portrays, and were her sufferings truly through no fault of her own [beyond naïveté.] That level of complexity is beyond de Sade’s simple formulation. The lesson of his amorality tale is that Therese ends up in such a mess precisely because (by being so virtuous and pious) she fails to comply with what de Sade saw as the law of nature. His version of the law of nature is defined by the strong lording over the weak, and the ideal of “do unto others, before they can do unto you.”

What is the evidence for de Sade’s twisted amoral moral to the story? First, he includes a sister, Juliette, who follows the path of least resistance (accepting a life of vice) and ends up much better off. Second, all of the “villains” (though de Sade didn’t see them that way, I’m certain) are prone to Bond Villainesque exposition on this philosophy as justification for the vile acts they are perpetrating. This ham-handed approach can make for an annoying read. [However, if one is interested in the minutiae of the philosophy of libertinage, one may find some of the arguments interesting. While de Sade’s philosophy is rank and vile, it may have just been a wild pendulum swing from what was going on in the mainstream world at the time.]

While I certainly wouldn’t recommend the book as a treatise on ethics, morality, or philosophy, it’s an interesting story. I’ve only read one other book by this author (i.e. “120 Days of Sodom”) and can say that “Justine” is vastly better than that one.

I’d recommend it for those intrigued by the occasional amorality tale. It can’t be said to lack tension. Needless to say, it’s graphic in places, and not for readers of delicate sensibilities.

View all my reviews