Customer Reviews

Aphrodizzia

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

While Aphrodizzia has an erotic moment, the book is marred by the near total objectification of the teenaged girl characters, who are subjected to all sorts of non-consensual and perverse treatment. Their objectification is carried to such a high degree that Natasha, the youngest girl, never actually says anything beyond squeals, whines, whimpers and moans. Furthermore, the book requires a degree of suspension of disbelief that would make make most fantasy authors shake their heads in amazement. The very least of these is fourteen year old(!) Natasha's wardrobe being totally limited to her schoolgirl uniform, even on summer holidays. Not that you can call her summer a 'holiday', she and others are subjected to bizarre abuse which makes 'Aphrodizzia' more outrageous than erotic. Indeed, one is moved to pity and anger at the fate of the hapless and helpless Natasha. Strangely, Natasha herself supplies the only erotic scene in the book, but this is a solitary moment in the brief first chapter before she is left in the 'care' of the sociopathic perverts who become her 'guardians'. After this, it's all a downward spiral of abuse and violation. As a bizarre catalogue of sexual barbarity towards teenaged girls, Aphrodizzia succeeds magnificently. However, I hope that none but the most perverse readers will take this as an endorsement.

Is there such a thing as writing too much for oneself? Absolutely, and the works of Richard Manton, including APHRODIZZIA, are typeset proof that getting heavily into one's own head when writing sexual fantasy can leave the reader on the outside wondering what all the fuss is about.

APHRODIZZIA, like all of Manton's other Blue Moon titles, is a parade of deviant (and I do mean deviant) sex acts with only the bare bones of plot to justify them. And while Manton's writing is actually quite literate, much of the eroticism of his work is missing, thanks largely to the fact that he seems merely to be giving a summary of the images he has formed in his mind. This book, again like Manton's others, features minimal dialogue, even less in the way of characterization and a dreamlike quality derived from the almost nonsensical fashion with which the story proceeds.

Having already alienated the reader with his style, Manton proceeds to demolish every last bit of appeal by prominently featuring his fetish for excretory functions. Urine and feces play a part in far too many of the scenes, and Manton's predilection for extremely young girls can sometimes be disturbing.

and that is why the reviews are ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC providing the reader an opportunity to get a better flavour of the writings, rather than the usually vague and enticing book jacket mini editorials.

Aphrodizzia is just such a book by master writer Richard Manton. The book is geared to Edwardian rather than Victorian erotic writing and as such has the tendency to take a third party view of the 'action' so to say, relishes both punishment, and invariably bondage, as part of the sex act. The fact that usually the females are unwilling participants seems to add to the spice and flavour of the Edwardian mentality.

The book is a series of letters between 'Jack' in Britain and 'Dolly' in Germany and their very private schools for young ladies of society. Both decide to send girls to each other for education and 'training' while Jack and Dolly correspond of the progress of the pupils. Suffice it to say that the girls are subjected to more than the cane on their bare bottoms.....

After having read and reviewed 'Deep South' and 'Bombay Bound' by Richard Manton, and having rated them as as 5 star books, I can't really say that I liked 'Aphrodizza' very much, BUT, then again this book wasn't written for me.

So, read the reviews of this book and you certainly should get a good idea of its content, style of writing, and if you would rate it as a 5 or 1 star special for your particular likes and dislikes.

Aphrodizzia is up there with The Blue Train, Elaine Cox, Deep South, and The Captive series. In other words, it is vintage Richard Manton.

It is skilfully told through a series of letters exchanged between aristocratic cousins, Jack and Dolly, who each have a bevvy of teenage girls to oversee. The emphasis in Aphrodizzia is on girls from northern Europe: Germany and Scandinavia, and how their special European self-possession and nonchalence is restructured with a good dose of English discipline and hypocrisy. There is little dialogue in Aphrodizzia, but there is much drama. The girls endure a series of awakenings, both sexual and disciplinary, and finish up on a slave island in the tropics.

OK, this is obsessional writing, but of what quality! It is smooth, poetic and repetitious. It produces a semi-hypnotic state that takes you deep into a dark fantasy world. But be warned! If female buttocks and bamboo canes are not at the centre of your universe, don't read any Manton. You won't get it. In Aphrodizzia Manton explores the complex and ambiguous relationship innocent girls have with their behinds. His writing circles around the moment when girls first realise their bottoms - the place where they are punished and where a certain rudeness takes place - is also a place of much sexual facination for men.

Richard Manton has penned three erotic epistolary novels. In respect of how good each is I would rate them in this order: APHRODIZZIA (our book on review), the hard-to-find THE CAPTIVE III and BEAUTY IN THE BIRCH (sometimes attributed to authors other than Manton, i.e. Bill Adler in a recent Blue Moon edition). These Manton novels told solely through the device of an 'exchange of letters' are so salaciously devilish I'm surprised one of the correspondents isn't named Pervis.

Each chapter is a long letter detailing the misadventures of some hapless wench in painfully obvious need of a smacked bottom; and the leering chap who saves the day wielding a cane, birch switch, buggy whip, lash, strap, curtain sash, belt or, my personal favorite, a thin quivering rod of gleaming black leather. In this book a female occasionally mans a cane to do the honors.

Reader/buyer beware! APHRODIZZIA (Olympia Press, Grove Press, et al) is also published under the title THAT WICKED SUMMER over at Blue Moon.

This book, like all of Manton's writing, is a powerful antidote to contemporary feminism. Don't we all know teenage girls similar to the characters in this book? Would the world not be better off if these girls were properly instructed in pleasing men, instead of wasting their time in academic classrooms? This work is one of Manton's best.

This book, like all of Manton's writing, is a powerful antidote to contemporary feminism. Don't we all know teenage girls similar to the characters in this book? Would the world not be better off if these girls were properly instructed in pleasing men, instead of wasting their time in academic classrooms? This work is one of Manton's best.