Gamiani, or, Two nights of excess [Paperback]

Alfred de Musset (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2008

Modeled after George Sand, this work gives us a young man observing Gamiani and a young girl, obligingly named Fanny, engaged in their lesbian bed.

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About the Author

Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) was a French poet, playwright, and novelist. He was born in Paris to a well-to-do family and turned to writing after first studying to be a doctor. Influenced by Lord Byron and Shakespeare, he fraternized with many great French writers such as Victor Hugo. He died in 1857 of a heart malfunction.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 60 pages
• Publisher: Olympia Press (June 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596542217
• ISBN-13: 978-1596542211
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 8 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,465,238 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars dedoxical empiricism, October 6, 2008

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Luca Graziuso (NYC) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Gamiani, or Two Nights of Excess (Naughty French Novel) (Paperback)

Les Caprices de Marianne was written by Alfred de Musset in 1833 and followed by "Rolla", authorially subtitled "a symptom of the maladie du siècle". The poem, a grotesque, pathetic languorous sentient Wertherian whirl was written at the beginning of Musset's liaison with George Sand.
In 1833 there appeared in Paris a "blisteringly erotic and sacrilegious novelette" called Gamiani, or the two nights of excess.
The rights were pseudonymously, if by a feeble veil of anonymity, accorded to a Baron Alcide de Mxxx, but the erotic tale went unnoticed by the upper circles of Parisian salon society or it would have been but an easy effort to devise the genius behind the devilry.
The narrative is all the more lush in character and flush of interest because it explicitly fictionalizes the psychological corruption that besotted the last great French Romantic. George Sand, a glamorous Sapphic literary heroine renowned for both her gender-bending transgressions and for her seductive ways rendered myth by her contemporary social circle and the jurisdiction of Historical reprises. Sand has been the subject of a couple of Hollywood dramas, particularly respecting her relationship with Frederic Chopin, wherein she is blithely imputed to having acted as the spurring whip that defined Chopin's break from Liszt's serenading style, the experience however was at the expense of his health, stability and innocence.
Likewise, undeniably, the rupture of the liaison that is foreshadowed in Gamiani, both passionate and lascivious, resulted to affect the playwright of Fantasio in a most destructive way. Arguably even his art was changed for the worst, but the hereon demise of his health and his moral character's depression does not allow for much debate.
The story of the Italian journey and its results are told under the guise of fiction from two points of view in the two volumes called respectively Elle et lui by George Sand, and Lui et elle by Paul de Musset. As to the permanent effect on Alfred de Musset, whose irresponsible gaiety was killed by the breaking off of the connection, there can be no doubt.

But what about this erotic masterpiece. It is genuinely breathtaking. A novella that entertains and surmises the sublime mawkish dandyism of a voyeuristic slant as it evolves and culminates in a fashionably irreverent and fascinating sensual exploitation. The beauty however transpires irrespective of the lewd character of the sensationalism because of the language and the depictions that vacillate between excesses of despair and effusions of ecstasy. With in between but the expression of the most intimate and poetic diction erotic literature has ever encountered. It will seduce you from the first few pages. The psychology of sex is here seen to animate a desire that throttles and tantalizes as it suffers the ardor of a sexual initiation.

Here is a sample of the lyrical precision of the tale:
A hidden door opened and a monk , clad in a costume like ours, approached me mumbling some words, Then drawing aside my dress, separating the skirt so that a piece fell on either side, he brought to light the full posterior of my body.
A slight quivering ran through the reverend brother. Doubtless roused to ecstasy from the sight of my flesh, his hands roved everywhere, halted for a moment upon my arse, finally found a resting place a little below them.
"Tis by means of this place that a woman sins, intoned a sepulchral voice. - It is here she must suffer."
and again with more inflammation:
"Gripped, as I had hoped, by the frenzy of the moment, and without a moment's hesitation, the lsutful countess toppled forward on her hands, creating an arch over the bodies of myself and Fanny - who as my supplicating tongue probed the most fiery crevices of Gamiani's body, reached up and - insensate, lost - caressed the breasts that swung ripely above her. The double stimulation aroused Gamiani to unendurable ecstasy. Her entire body shook in a spasm so intense I feared for her life. Letting her body fall heavily onto the bed, she lay on her back, panting, sweating, arms outstretched, utterly spent into a depthless abyss of infernal joy."
Granted I am not a connoisseur of such a genre, but it excites enough to warrant reading with your mate, and it is soulful enough to seem innocent as to compared the Sadian literature that was ripe during and about the same years. Edwardian and Victorian erotica has received a stirring of interest and a belated revival during the last two decades, but allow me to make the assumption that the terrifying tenderness that sparks this quick arousing read should be given due time, for its brilliance, its fire and its psychological coils of eros-thanatos writhing amongst a lyricism that by way of debauchery teaches the senses the gripping hold the imagination favours in times of desire.