I wouldn't exactly call the actions that unfold here as sadomasochism, at least not as it is recognized today, and there is nothing more extreme than being tied up, whipped and licking ones feet throughout the story, I think the real pain here lies psychologically, with mental anguish and humiliation in front of others that changes Severin's pleasure to one of inner turmoil, as he constantly pleads his undying love for her.
His name would change to Gregor as her servant, they travel to Florence and take up residence in a villa close to the Arno river, and this luscious setting would see other gentleman catch the desirable eye of Wanda, a German painter who puts brush to canvas while in the middle of doing her portrait would suddenly declare "I want you to whip me, whip me to death!
The relationship would then arrive at somewhat of a dilemma, when Wanda herself meets a man to whom she would like to submit, a rich Greek aristocrat known as Alexis Papadopolis, and they congress in a sexual manner until one final act of degradation while in the presence of Wanda and Alexis, would see Severin mentally broken and feel like an inanimate object void of any feelings for his once loved dominator.
I can understand why this would have caused a bit of a ruckus back in the day, but reading now in the 21st century it's about as controversial as a litter of kittens playing around in a summer meadow, and I actually found it quite delightful with moments of humour regardless of whether it was intended this way.
Most men are very commonplace, without verve or poetry. In you there is a certain depth and capacity for enthusiasm and a deep seriousness, which delight me. I might learn to love you. And they'll be like yeah! I have a depth and capacity for enthusiasm! I was just waiting for someone to notice! I bet nerds really like this book, which was written by a nerd and then translated to English by a different nerd.
It was a collection of dating profiles from guys who were all "I'm so nice, why don't any women love me? I would treat a woman like a goddess but I guess they don't want to be treated like goddesses, they all want some asshole instead!
Women are such bitches, because they don't love me! Masoch can't stop quoting this one line from Goethe, "You must be hammer or anvil. That's fine, man, have your fun. The problem is that he extends it to some kind of conclusion about human nature that's not at all true.
Women do not by nature demand either to look up to a man or toy with them. Men aren't like that either. That's a dumb idea. Here's another thing that's not true: "Man even when he is selfish or evil always follows principles, woman never follows anything but impulses. God, for a book about whipping there is none too much whipping. Instead there's a whole lot of him begging to be her slave, and then her treating him vaguely slave-y, and then him getting all indignant, and then her all "Well see, you're being a dick about it," and then him being all "Oh, you're mad at me, treat me like a slave," and then we circle back around to the beginning like fifty times.
Wahhhhh, quit topping from the bottom, nerd. If you flip the characters' genders in your head while you're reading, the book goes an awful lot like that 50 Shades thing does. I know more or less how it goes from hearing a million readers and feminists get all pissy about it.
It's hard to tell who's more offended about that book - readers or feminists. But there's a funny twist at the end spoilers follow for this and I think 50 Shades too : you'd expect a female protagonist to win over the guy and be with him one way or another. But here, she just dumps him. She's all "I can easily imagine belonging to one man for my entire life, but he would have to be a whole man, a man who would dominate me, who would subjugate me by his innate strength" 23 and then she runs off with a dude who's just like that.
So Masoch's kink assumes that one who has it isn't enough to satisfy a woman. That's weird, and probably kindof a bummer for him.
So this is a book about a self-defeating fetish for being controlled, born out of a weird hatred and fear for women. It's unpleasant, and boring, and all too familiar because I still hear that shit today, from miserable nerds. Lame, dudes. In a nutshell, Severin likes women. Severin likes women who are filthy rich.
Severin likes women who are filthy rich and treat him like shit. Wanda is that woman. That is pretty much what Venus in Furs is about. He agreed to be her slave, and renounce all claim on his own life she could even kill him if she wished , and this is reflected in Venus in Furs. The "contract" gives Wanda or "Mistress" free reign to make Severin suffer in a variety of ways; whipping him regularly, kicking him around, starving him, torturing him emotionally, etc. And Severin seems to get off on it.
In fact, he begs her to punish him "I want to be your dog". As long as she wears her furs whilst doing it, he's happy. As you can imagine, the novel caused quite a stir in Austrian society. The idea of a woman being dominant having the whip-hand, so to speak was ludicrous to most people. We even see Wanda feeling hesitant at first. She is reluctant to defy social norms, and I can sort of understand this.
She is used to being dominated, not the other way around. She is understandably creeped out by Severin to begin with, but I think thats mainly because he keeps kissing her feet and telling her to stand on his neck. He is, to put it bluntly, a pussy.
I can think of no other word for him. He also has a habit of falling in love with statues, and treating them as though they were real. There are many gender issues in this book, and I'm deliberately avoiding that long and winding road known as "Interpretation" as I will end up making no sense whatsoever. For example: "He was a man like a woman. He knew he was beautiful and behaved accordingly; he would change his coquettish attire four or five times a day, like a vain courtesan.
In Paris he had appeared first in women's garb, and the men had stormed him with love letters. An Italian singer, famous equally for both his art and his passion, invaded the Greek's apartment, knelt down, and threatened to take his own life if his plea was not granted.
Even Severin has a bit of crush on him. I had to keep reminding myself that this book was written in With more than 1, titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Search books and authors. View all retailers. Related titles. Crime and Punishment. Pride and Prejudice. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Anna Karenina. The Count of Monte Cristo. The Jealousy Man. The Shadow. He looks as though his task were becoming burdensome enough.
The picture is painted flattery. Later an 'expert' in the Rococo period baptized the lady with the name of Venus. The furs of the despot in which Titian's fair model wrapped herself, probably more for fear of a cold than out of modesty, have become a symbol of the tyranny and cruelty that constitute woman's essence and her beauty. The picture, as it now exists, is a bitter satire on our love.
Venus in this abstract North, in this icy Christian world, has to creep into huge black furs so as not to catch cold—". Just then the door opened and an attractive, stoutish, blonde girl entered.
She had wise, kindly eyes, was dressed in black silk, and brought us cold meat and eggs with our tea. Severin took one of the latter, and decapitated it with his knife. Didn't Lady Venus in your dream prove that to you? Woman's power lies in man's passion, and she knows how to use it, if man doesn't understand himself. He has only one choice: to be the tyrant over or the slave of woman. As soon as he gives in, his neck is under the yoke, and the lash will soon fall upon him.
I am cured. Do you care to know how? Severin sat down by the chimney with his back toward me, and seemed to dream with open eyes.
Silence had fallen again, and again the fire sang in the chimney, and the samovar and the cricket in the old walls. I opened the manuscript and read:.
The margin of the manuscript bore as motto a variation of the well- known lines from Faust :. I turned the title-page and read: "What follows has been compiled from my diary of that period, because it is impossible ever frankly to write of one's past, but in this way everything retains its fresh colors, the colors of the present.
Gogol, the Russian Moliere, says—where? So I have a very curious feeling as I am writing all this down. The atmosphere seems filled with a stimulating fragrance of flowers, which overcomes me and gives me a headache. The smoke of the fireplace curls and condenses into figures, small gray-bearded kokolds that mockingly point their finger at me. Chubby-cheeked cupids ride on the arms of my chair and on my knees.
I have to smile involuntarily, even laugh aloud, as I am writing down my adventures. Yet I am not writing with ordinary ink, but with red blood that drips from my heart. All its wounds long scarred over have opened and it throbs and hurts, and now and then a tear falls on the paper.
The days creep along sluggishly in the little Carpathian health- resort. You see no one, and no one sees you. It is boring enough to write idyls.
I would have leisure here to supply a whole gallery of paintings, furnish a theater with new pieces for an entire season, a dozen virtuosos with concertos, trios, and duos, but—what am I saying—the upshot of it all is that I don't do much more than to stretch the canvas, smooth the bow, line the scores.
For I am—no false modesty, Friend Severin; you can lie to others, but you don't quite succeed any longer in lying to yourself—I am nothing but a dilettante, a dilettante in painting, in poetry, in music, and several other of the so-called unprofitable arts, which, however, at present secure for their masters the income of a cabinet minister, or even that of a minor potentate.
Above all else I am a dilettante in life. Up to the present I have lived as I have painted and written poetry. I never got far beyond the preparation, the plan, the first act, the first stanza. There are people like that who begin everything, and never finish anything. I am such a one. I lie in my window, and the miserable little town, which fills me with despondency, really seems infinitely full of poetry.
How wonderful the outlook upon the blue wall of high mountains interwoven with golden sunlight; mountain-torrents weave through them like ribbons of silver! How clear and blue the heavens into which snowcapped crags project; how green and fresh the forested slopes; the meadows on which small herds graze, down to the yellow billows of grain where reapers stand and bend over and rise up again. The house in which I live stands in a sort of park, or forest, or wilderness, whatever one wants to call it, and is very solitary.
Its sole inhabitants are myself, a widow from Lemberg, and Madame Tartakovska, who runs the house, a little old woman, who grows older and smaller each day. There are also an old dog that limps on one leg, and a young cat that continually plays with a ball of yarn. This ball of yarn, I believe, belongs to the widow.
She is said to be really beautiful, this widow, still very young, twenty-four at the most, and very rich.
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