‘…for as a matter of principle he was participating in whatever might be demanded of or inflicted on her, and that it was he who possessed and enjoyed her through those into whose hands she had been given, by the simple fact he had given her to them.
‘She must greet them and submit to them with the same respect with which she greeted him, as though they were so many reflections of him. Thus he would possess her as a god possesses his creatures, who he lays hold of in the guise of a monster or a bird, of an invisible spirit or a state of ecstasy.
‘He gave her only to… reclaim her enriched in his eyes, like some common object which had been used for some divine purpose and has thus been consecrated.’
Story of O, P.31.
There is a special category of books I love into which Story of O falls, along with Hubert Selby Junior’s Last Exit to Brooklyn. These are books I HATED the first time I read them, went away and thought about, re-read and then discovered they had completely rewrought the way I thought. As books, they actually pushed me out of one phase of psychological maturity and into another. Continue reading
Theme Park at its Darkest 