Nothing brilliant to share; general rambling-on-the-spot and maybe opening up some more rambling; hopefully even something above that. I've read the book a while back and, unfortunately, found nothing at my university on the subject. Whether this is an issue of local lack of investment, or of there being very little to say on the subject - which I doubt? -, I don't know, but I'm looking for pointers for digging better into it.
More stuff on the author and the rest of his works, particularly as relating to this one, is welcome, but I don't have much to provide. General linkage at the end, though.
The basics? Sacher-Masoch's most modernly famous work; the basis, or one of?, for the concept of sado-masochism as drawn by psychoanalysis, and hinted at, first, by Krafft-Ebing in his Psychopatia Sexualis. A simple work, I guess, in style and structure; the main body of text is presented as a series of diary-like notes, spurts of thoughts that range from very short descriptions to more developed narration. No chapters. It makes for easy reading; the text flows well and you do with it, or I did.
Obviously, power as tied to love and sexuality is at its core, or at the very least the core of its non-literary importance. Devoted man, callous women / loving couple, and the tensions between the two ways of imagining and constructing their relationship; the blurring of lines between the two states, even, to the point of overwhelming doubt - which I think stretches out to the very ending, even if not explicitly so.
But particularly, there's this odd play on consent through the story's climax. Without giving too much away - though willing to if people think it's better to -, a third position, alien but oddly fitting in radically in the couple's power dynamics pops up. Gender comes into play, it seems; though there's this image of a "Byronic hero"?, as described on the (maybe unreliable) wiki page, that means that the book may be playing into a figure of broader use that I don't recognize and hence, don't fully understand. If someone has a deeper understanding of it, please, feel free to explain away. I think it's one of the more interesting elements in the book.
And gender, again, as a central point as brought up by the book's conclusion, in Severin's closing words; the obvious question of whether this sits as an emancipatory or restrictive speech on and towards women. Or even, of whether these are categories that can here be neatly applied at all.
How does Deleuze work the text? I understand his work on Masoch and Sade is important, but I'm trying to get into that later, after some contact with Sade, maybe some more contact with Masoch as well. Vague explanations are welcome before (possible) heavy immersal.
+ On Sacher-Masoch. At Wikipedia, as well.
+ On the work.
+ The full text, online. |
