Two Books

Just a word of warning: If you’re here for a weight loss update, you won’t get one today.

One of the books that I’m commenting on (since I can’t properly call it a review, I don’t think) is sexually explicit.  My commentary may or may not be safe for work.

Read at your own risk.

Each book certainly deserves its own entry, but something’s bubbling around in that brain of mine. The last two books I’ve read, just to get them out of the way, are The Story of O by Pauline Reage, A Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. I’m still in the thick of A Course in Miracles, which is, oddly enough what prompted this post.

I’ve rearranged my day to allow for reading most days: 15 minutes or 30 minutes before bed. Not too long, but long enough that I can say “I’m reading again!” which makes all the difference for someone who loves to read and yet let so many other things just kind of force reading off the map of my daily routine.

I guess I’m re-prioritizing.

The Story of O was abysmally disappointing.To those not in the know:  The Story of O is the story of a woman who is handed over to a chateau full of men to be used at their pleasure by her lover, Rene.

Yes, I know of its controversy, yes I know of its significance.  No, I haven’t done any particular study of it because, frankly, it’s not interesting enough to.  I had high hopes for this book: to inflame my senses and strike that veritable O note (much like the blues), to pique my interest and stoke my curiosity, it did nothing of the sort.

Why?

Two main reasons:  Repetition and, most importantly, because O never changes.

From the very first command, she is compliant and silent.  There is no real struggle except by the author in her  weak beginning and end, and no, being indecisive is NOT a post-modern technique, in my humble opinion.  She breaks rules, but safely–she never ventures out of her role. She is brought into the story as a mindless, empty sexual vessel, and so she leaves it.

Staticity is dull in people–unforgivable in characters.  The acts of sexual debasement became tedious when I realized that she wasn’t being beaten into submission–she was there from the very beginning.

Perhaps it’s a translation issue–there were certainly a few things that stuck me as oddly beautiful (such as the euphemism of her belly). Perhaps it’s a reading that requires a closeness that I wasn’t willing to afford it.

Perhaps it simply caters to an audience outside of my ken that prefers empty, brainless vessels.

I certainly wasn’t shocked by O’s escapades; I was simply unengaged and apathetic.

Stranger in a Strange Land, on the other hand, seemed to me the near perfect unfolding of a character. Stranger is about a human, Valentine Michael Smith,  who was born and raised on Mars and is brought to Earth, and his becoming both more and less human in the process.

Again, I know that Heinlein is political, argumentative, and sexually against-the-grain.  He didn’t make me want to join a church, marry five hundred people, or live in a commune.

But he certainly did make it plausible.

There is a lot of beauty in this book–the ceremony of the “water sharing” and the intimacy and love that enfolds the water brothers and enfolds them because of it.  There is a celebration of service and something–something that I can’t quite put my finger on, that draws me in.

I’ll definitely afford it a close reading when I finish my current book, Animal Farm.

There’s something I’m chewing on, though, something that struck me from A Course in Miracles this morning

“Teach only love, because that is what you are.”

Maybe that’s my biggest trigger point with both books. O thought of love, even spoke it, but nothing she did convinced me she actually loved Rene. Sure she let herself be used by him and several of his friends, and, if the ring bore true, anyone of that secret society.

And I’m not saying that flogging is wrong, even sharing is wrong.  Not my cup of tea, most certainly, but there was that one critical element that kept the abasement from being lovely and forced it into something ugly and abusive, and that was my lack of belief that he loved her, and she him.  Love didn’t change her–in fact, she didn’t change at all.

My personal bias is that love DOES change people;  it’s inevitable.

On the other hand, Valentine Michael Smith simply bloomed under its effect.  He grew, he developed, he changed the world. He eradicated jealousy in his little corner of the world.  He created unity and, even while I found myself wondering, “What the hell is he doing, forming a cult?” I discovered that a little bit of me, despite the disturbing ceremonies and possible brain-washing, wanted to be a part of something as beautiful as that.

Maybe he tapped into the idealistic side of me–the part, deep down, that I haven’t lost despite my fear of it: that love can really change the world.

I’ll have to chew on it a bit more, I think.