Customer Reviews

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

5 star:		(116)
4 star:		(62)
3 star:		(36)
2 star:		(37)
1 star:		(75)

 

 

As you have no doubt noticed, the reviews of this book vary widely. I just got it and wasn't really sure what to expect, but I can't put it down. Heed the bad reviews; it is certainly not for everyone. However, I am a big snob concerning erotica, and I have never liked Ann Rice before, and I was very pleasantly surprised by this book.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is not at all realistic, though why anyone would be looking for realism in a fairy tale/erotica combination that begins with the Prince breaking a spell of a 100-year sleep is beyond me. Everyone is impossibly beautiful, but so are all the princesses in Grimms' fairy tales and the principals in most erotica. I, for one, enjoy reading about a bunch of beautiful, exquisitely dressed people within impossibly opulent settings.

There certainly are a lot of spankings, nearly in every chapter. If you like that kind of thing, you won't be bored. If it's not your cup of tea, it might get old. I don't find it monotonous; maybe repetitive, but that's not necessarily bad. The Marquis de Sade is repetitive too; spanking is repetitive by nature. There's a lot going on in The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty besides spanking as well. Many of the principals are what would be considered underage in the present-day United States, and consent is questionable at best. Again, you're the judge of whether that would turn you on or off.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is at heart a Nouveau-Décadent work. I just reread Beardsley's Under the Hill and Rice's book is very reminiscent of that style. (By the way, most Décadent works are unrealistic and light on plot.) If you like Sade or Mirbeau, or certain passages in Petronius or Suetonius, you'll probably like this. If you don't like eroticized violence or overwrought language, or you want erotica with consensual, loving, adult partners of clearly defined sexual orientation, this is not for you.

Being a submissive female myself, I was really excited when I first started reading this book, thinking it was going to be a bdsm love story between the Prince and Beauty. Boy was I wrong. Now the first three chapters didn't dissapoint in this respect; the early scenes with the Prince and Beauty were sexy and romantic. But as soon as they arrived at the castle, the Prince just sort of left the picture. And that was pretty much the end of any semblance of a male dom/female sub focus.

I kept waiting for him to reappear in the book, but he never did. Also, his character seemed changed after he arrived at the castle...much weaker and very pathetic...no guts to stand up to his mother and protect Beauty. All the characters seemed really shallow too, with no real concept of what love is.

The rest of the book was basically just just about spankings, and punishment, and humiliation...which really isn't erotic at all to me without the context of a loving relationship between the participants. Needless to say, I was very disappointed with the way this book turned out. If the focus had stayed on Beauty and the Prince, I think it would have been great. But as it is, it was a major disappointment. So if you're looking for some romantic, sexy, male dom/female sub bdsm, you'd be much better off reading [...] than this one.

I spent a good deal of tonight reading through reviews for this book and I am astonished at how many people expected the novel to be anything more than a sexy, erotic tale which was a twisted version of the old Sleeping Beauty story. I was also a bit disappointed in the way that many of the reviews came across as being rather closed-minded to some of the core concepts and those who seemed to expect more than what is reasonable from an erotic story.

Don't walk into the book thinking that you are getting some deep insight into the past or that there's any magic information that will tell you what the medieval socio-economic situation was, that's just ludicrous seeing as how it's fiction. Furthermore, why would you want to have some sort of deeper meaning when reading a fiction erotic novel?

If you enjoy Domination/submission with a BDSM twist that dances along the edges of punishment, torture, humiliation and raw sexuality then you will most likely be pleasantly surprised. This tale takes the basic story of Sleeping Beauty being woken by her prince charming and twists it into a whole new realm of (im)possibility, but it's the kind of situation that many people who lean towards non-vanilla tastes will find quite tantalizing.

Keep in mind that this book will put off anyone who does not see romance and sensuality in a power exchange. If you can't tolerate the idea that a woman, or man, may actually wish to submit to another person because they wish to please the Dominant then the concepts will probably seem too far fetched to keep your attention. Also, if you are put off by homo-erotic concepts then you'd best keep a distance. It's not for everyone, but for those open to the above mentioned "flavors" then the book will probably be entertaining at the very least.

As for the writing itself, I can't say that I had any major complaints. There were a few places where I felt things could have been either shortened or expounded upon, but ultimately I know I could not write a better book myself so I just let my mind follow the story and delight in the images that were conjured in my imagination. Many times there were shivers up and down my spine as I got lost in the imagery.

As a side note, I would write the same general review for the following two books in the series, though I do feel that the first was the best of the three in most regards. However, the third did sum up the whole story quite nicely and had a nice ending.

Let me make clear at the outset, I am no kinkophobe. I can certainly enjoy a bit of ... let's call it "consensual rope"; I've read some blindfolded-and-tied-to-the-bed scenarios that I enjoyed a lot. But I have a very peculiar kink of my own: I like the fiction I read, even the erotica, to make some kind of sense. I like my readings to hang together, to be based at least on some frail thread of real-world logic.

And these don't and aren't. Rice's "Beauty" trilogy is almost comically implausible. I think it was Shirley Jackson who offered a bit of advice to writers of fiction: the reader, she said, may accept for the purposes of a given story that there exists a Land of Oz, but he will not accept that he can see the Land of Oz from his kitchen window. Similarly, I can accept that there exists such a phenomenon as sexual slavery; but I cannot, for this or any other story, accept the notion that sexual slavery was the linchpin for the entire socioeconomic structure of Medieval Europe.

And yet this is the notion on which the entire series is based. "Beauty" and her "Prince" are unusual only in that he has *taken* her after awakening her from her hundred-year sleep. The rest of the slaves in his mother's palace -- dozens or hundreds of them, princes and princesses all, and every one not merely attractive but exquisitely beautiful -- are "tribute", sent by their royal parents from the surrounding kingdoms. (I valiantly resist the temptation to render that as "kinkdoms".) In this palace, they spend several years learning to be completely obedient and submissive sexual property (being spanked, being publicly displayed, being spanked, crawling around on their hands and knees, being spanked, being forced into various forms of pony-play, being spanked, picking up rosebuds from the floor with their teeth, being spanked, calling grooms and pages and kitchen help "my lord," being spanked); then they return to their own lands. And this situation has obtained long enough that Beauty's own parents, over a century before, served in this way themselves. Apparently every kingdom and principality in Europe participates in this one-sided "tribute" arrangement.

Oh ... did I mention that Rice *really* likes to describe her princes and princesses being spanked?

Also, Rice seems to have included any notion that struck her as "erotic" at the time, without stopping to consider the real-world implications. "Dear god, who knew that Ms. Rice had such a disgustingly vast knowledge of sexual torture", one review asked: well, she DOESN'T. She has no idea what she's writing about: Anne Rice is completely ignorant, irresponsibly so, about her subject matter. What we see in the "Hall of Punishments", to give one specific example, would cripple or kill a human being within a very few hours, although we're told that "punishments" are not to cause injury, only pain.

There were things in this book that bothered poor squeamish little me in other ways. I believe I've made clear that I thought Rice's obsession with spanking -- and spanking, and spanking, and spanking, and spanking -- her characters grew monotonous, excruciatingly so. And I REALLY didn't need the specific information that the fifteen-year-old heroine's "groom" arranges her hair in such a way as to make her look even younger than she is. (Nor is this the most offensive item. In the grotesquely racist third volume, Rice crosses the line into obvious pedophilia, mentioning the specific presence of "little boys" .)

And it goes on, and on, and on. Spanking. Tying up. Spanking. Lovingly detailed descriptions of how humiliated the heroine feels. More spanking. Leather straps. Suspension. Spanking. Pony-play (apparently this fantasy version of Medieval Europe has no draft animals at all, only "princes"). More humiliation. Spanking.

I can only apply to this astoundingly tedious book, and to its sequels, that single worst word that can be applied to any piece of erotica:

They are BORING.

This book was painfully repetitive. The spankings held my interest for a few pages, but the whole novel? Perhaps the plot and character development are in the next two books. I like the idea of discovering hidden sexual layers in Sleeping Beauty, but the descriptions are trite and cliched. I find it difficult to believe a woman wrote a novel with so much humiliation, punishment and borderline rape yet no insight or character growth. I threw it across the room to prevent my IQ from dropping any lower. If you like page after page of raw backsides, read this, if you want intelligent erotica, try Anais Nin.

I'm a huge fan of Anne Rice and all, and I am really into erotica, so I thought that this would be a great book. Boy, was I really disappointed. Oh, the book had its moments, but there were so many spankings and it just got redundant. The first couple of punishments were kind of exciting and that got me thinking, "cool, now we're going to get to the actual sex!" But it wasn't to be. No, instead it was just spanking after spanking after spanking after . . .

Ms. Rice has given us a good bit of writing here. I have to agree with several other reviewers in that it really has nothing to do with the tale of Sleeping Beauty, other than the title. Now as to the erotica. I suppose that should be decided by the individual reader. I like a good erotic book and good erotic writing. I am a big Anais Nin fan. This work though, the sleeping beauty work, is only erotic if you are very much into hard core S&M, which is not my particular cup of tea. Ms. Rice is rather repetiive at times. Some of this stuff is rather scary, as a matter of fact. As an example, raping a unconscious fifteen year old girl, from my point of view, is sort of stomach turning and disgusting - way over the top. That being said, I must admit that the authors discriptive powers are quite acute and if you are into such things as complete total humiliation, which some are I suppose, then this is good. I read somewhere that the author set out to write a book of pure pornography. I do feel she was sucessful with this one (and the two that followed). All in all, I think the book is well done. I am glad I read it. I doubt if I would seek out it's ilk again though, but then that is just me.

This book had all the literary charm of Hustler magazine or an internet porno site. Only some internet porn sites actually bother to portray S&M properly. This entire story was pretty much a waste of paper and I really mourn the trees that had to die to print this out. Anne did wonderfully with the vampires and she should just ~stick~ to them. The fact is that S&M is about the giving and sharing of power, not the forcible taking of power from someone without their input. And that was pretty much the entire scope of the tale. This was not erotica, this was a sixteen year old males perverted fantasy of having and doing to a woman anything that he wished with little or no consideration for her. The entire thing is borderline rape and glorified denegration of people for the sake of a power trip. I have read many books, but this is the ~first~ that I actually threw in the fireplace to remove from my house. I just wish I'd known ahead of time to save my time and money. There are far better novels for Erotica and S&M out there, I'd suggest people forget this one and go looking for them instead.

I looked forward to a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fable for adults. The premise I read was that, in this version, she awakens not just with a kiss but through sexual desire. However, "rape" is a more accurate depiction: her so-called prince cuts her dress off with his sword, fondles her, and mounts her while she is still in her coma-like sleep. Upon her awakening, he repeatedly degrades her, forcing her to sit at the dinner table naked in front of her father, eat only if it pleases him, allow him to do whatever he wishes. All the while, the author describes the tears in her eyes and the shame in her face. Rather than pure desire, the prince's actions seem born of a domineering arrogance. When he forced her to ride naked before everyone on the way to his kingdom, I put the book down. It's disturbing to see a dynamic like this portrayed as erotic. If you want to read an account in which a young woman overcomes her inhibitions (with a male protagonist who, as in Roquelaure's novel, takes great pleasure in gazing at her body), try William Kotzwinkle's Jewel of the Moon.

After reading "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty" I had to ask myself "What was that all about?" I at first thought it would be erotica embedded in fairy-tale fantasy. I am a very sex positive and open person and yet I found this book disturbing. Let me give a short plot summary, then my theory of Ann Rice's message, and then the 3 major weeknesses of this book.

First, the story is pure fantasy. Beauty is awakened from 100 years of sleep by a Prince having intercourse with her. She is sent by her parents to be a sexual slave in the palace of the Prince's mother. Here she undergoes a broad range of sexual experiences but spanking was far more frequent that vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse. There are so many spankings that the book borders on being boring and dull.

Second, Ann Rice seems to implicitly imply that only through complete obedience and submission can an individual fully experience sexual pleasure. What in the writings of the great sexual theorists Freud, Kinsey,, Money, Pomeroy, Masters, and Johonson would support this? The research literature would support that masochistic submissive sexual pleasure is but one of a braod range of sexual behaviors by which human beings can experience sexual pleasure. Unfortunately Rice focuses so much on spankings that she is really writing more about the sexual pleasure of a spanking than she is about masochism and submission.

There are three fatal flaws to this novel. First, Rice developed cardboard,one dimensional, dull characters and despite all the butt tanning they do not develop personally or interpersonally. There is no personal growth or intraspection. Beauty gains experience but no insight. That is tragic and pitiful.

Second, there is no real plot. There is no historic chain of events that interact with the characters to challenge or support their character development. In Tolstoy's great War and Peace, the characters grow, change, develop while being tossed and displaced by Napoleon's march to Moscow. History and character interact in real life and in good fiction. This does not happen in this book. Characters fall into silly situations in which they become passive sex objects rather than creatively adapt to the force of history.

Third, there is no justice. The book left me perplexed as to why anyone with an IQ of 10 and half a brain would allow themselves to be humilitated and physically harmed without giving somebody a black eye.