Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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59 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fine Memoir, If Read for the Right Reasons, July 18, 2002
It is always fun to have an erotic work presented in a serious way and have it become popular. This was the case with Nicholson Baker's fictional _Vox_ some years back, and of course the short stories of Anaïs Nin. Good old Grove Press has been seriously printing erotic books for decades, and now has produced _The Sexual Life of Catherine M._ (note the ironic homage to _The Story of O_) by Catherine Millet. Millet is the editor of the Paris magazine _Art Press_, and has written several serious books on contemporary art. When her memoir was published in France last year, there were many intellectuals who were nfuriated that she was somehow trying to purge her sexual demons by publishing such a frank memoir about some extraordinary sexual adventures. In the US, her book won't infuriate intellectuals as much as it will infuriate the prudish and those who are offended by a woman of broad sexual appetite satisfying that appetite; but it also may well offend those who buy it thinking that every page will have words to inflame the passion and excite the imagination. This isn't a book for them.Let us be clear: there is plenty of sex in the book. What Millet likes is men, lots of men, often in rapid sequence and simultaneously. Her lifelong hobby seems to have been orgies, swinging clubs, and being passed from one satisfied man to another. She describes plenty of episodes of men, more or less unknown to her, penetrating, licking, caressing; if this is disturbing, one only has to recall that she was enjoying it as were they, and that one has one's own sexual peccadilloes to nurture. The prose here is in translation (by Adriana Hunter), and so it is hard to tell how much to praise Millet for the words themselves, but in this edition they are vivid but also detached. She is not a seductress. She was simply available: "...this note that a friend put in a diary, which still gives me a glow of pride: 'Catherine, who deserves the highest praise for her calmness and availability in every situation.'" She writes often with sly wit; doing a particular stroke on a partner, "With my back bent and my frenetic arm movements, I must have looked very like a housewife desperately trying to stop a sauce from curdling, or someone proudly finishing up a home improvement." Her availability must have served her well: "I have never had to suffer any kind of clumsiness or brutality, and I have generally been lucky with the attentiveness of my partners." Only fleeting parts of this book could serve as sexual stimulants. Millet has obviously enjoyed her sexual life, and has reflected intelligently on it in a non-euphemistic and frank way. Many of the activities described are exhausting, some depressing, but some are as exhilarating as exploring uncharted lands. To have achieved her status in her career, she must have skills in communicating and getting along with people in other than sexual ways, but little of that is on display here. She has had relations with hundreds of men, and can count only 49 whose faces she would recognize. There is no feminist harangue here, no claim of victory. She does not have the way most women would want to conduct themselves, nor is hers a model to which to aspire. But unapologetic, and lucid, her book gives a fascinating look at woman fulfilling her life in a unique way.
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52 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
boring, repetitive, badly written, translated poorly, June 14, 2002
Do yourself a favor, skip this mess. It's boring, repetitive, badly written, and translated poorly. Often the ramblings are just incoherent. There are inexplicably long paragraphs that start with one subject, switch to something unrelated, and end with yet another story. If the eroticism is what interests you, skip this book: You will be disappointed. Amazon.com has a wide selection of much better erotica to select from or you can go to literotica.com to get stories from amateurs written a hundred times better than this mess.
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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Exceptionally Dull Sexual Life of Catherine M, December 6, 2003
I read this entire book over the course of a transatlantic airline flight. From cover to cover, with interuptions in order to choose between "chicken or beef" and watch The Hulk two times running. If I said I'd bought it to be titillated, I'd probably be missing the point. Which is a good job, really, because I found it about as erotic as an episode of Antiques Roadshow. If I said I'd bought it for it's literary merits, and the enthusiastic praise on the back of the book, I'd be closer to the mark. The promised sex was just a bonus. But, sadly, I was disappointed on both counts. This is a book detailing, in explicit, but not remotely arousing detail, the prodigious sexual exploits of Catherine Millet. From the first time she had group sex, not long after she lost her virginity, to anonymous orgies in carparks in Bois de Boulogne, all of the details are written down in cold, clinical detail which makes them about as erotic as a pathology report. Catherine M is thusly hailed as a pioneer, breaking apart gender stereotypes. She makes it very clear throughout the book that she's in the driving seat of her sexual life. Saying that, however, I really disagree with this idea. One of the most obvious things one notices reading the book is the cold, clinical nature of Catherine's adventures. She really doesn't seem to gain any pleasure from any of these adventures. The results of her promiscuity, such as an STD and, later, an abortion, are described in throwaway detail as if they were as mundane an event as brushing her teeth. I'm not sure if this is because of lacklustre translation (I wouldn't mind getting a copy of the original next time I'm in Paris)or simply because Catherine M is a cold, clinical woman. If that's the case, one has to ask why she'd go through all of these adventures if she appears to receive so little pleasure from them. She's not proud of her liberated sexuality, nor is she ashamed of it. Sex is described as something she submits herself to for no apparent reason. A real, liberated woman would surely be in charge of her sexuality for her own reasons of enjoyment and empowerment, instead of a sort of volontary submissive, as Catherine seems to be. Or, perhaps, I am simply not getting the whole idea of the book. If so, please let me know!
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