Customer Reviews

The Velvet Underground

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

 

 

This book is snoresville! I was expecting all sorts of juicy bizzare perverted junk but what I got was Mr. Michael "The whole world will by judged by my moral standards" Leigh's version of bizzare perverted junk. The intro has some bad bits in it about what the ancient Romans used to do at their orgies and the end of the book about the wild things teenagers did on spring break was funny. For the most part it's pretty bland and boring even compared to Barbara Cartland and Catherine Coulter drama romance cheeseball books. You can watch the sleazy movie Unholy Matrimony and get the same basic idea that this book gives you. It was probably shocking at the time it came out. Most of the book is about letters Leigh got back from answering ads in Swinger papers. The worst one was the woman who sent in pictures of herself fornicating with a Mastiff dog. Her husband took the pictures and she wrote in the letter that the dog enjoyed himself as much as she did (somehow I doubt it.) If you want the book just to see why Moe Tucker and crew named themselves after it, you may as well get it out of the library from inter-library loan or something unless you're a collector. Then maybe it's worth the ten bucks.

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The majority of reviews on this book are by disappointed Lou Reed fans. Having read the book first, I was a little disappointed when the band came along. Thus, I'm compelled to register this dissenting opinion:

This book winkingly presents itself as a documentary on the pre-hippie sexual revolution and "swinger" movement of the 1950's and -60's. I bought this book because the cover illustration suggested it was mostly about BDSM (sado-masochism, bondage, sexual domination, leather, related fetishes).

I was a little disappointed, not because the book covers --in remarkably salacious detail for a supposéd research piece-- a panoply of sexually variant practices: personal ads for wife-swapping, nudism, mailorder sex paraphernalia, clothing fetishes, prostitution, homosexuality, bestiality, etc., but because only a small part of it is about BDSM.

Still, I found several pages containing interesting and graphic passages from letters and interviews from hardcore sado-masochists and devotees of both male and female domination. One memorable account deals with the practices of a circle of dominant midwestern wives, known as "Wanda's Club."

Those looking for titillation will find it; Since the book was written in an era when sexually explicit material needed to have "redeeming social value," the author adopted an attitude of shock and disapproval, couched in a mock, case-history research style. Nevertheless, there is a little something to tickle every sexual palate, except, thankfully, pedophilia.

As an enlightening sociological and historical work, it does have value. For myself, it was enough to discover that I was not alone in my unspoken yearnings and fantasies. It's an unusual book, but I've treasured it for four decades.

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This plotline in this book could have been worked out a little better. It seemed to swerve all over the place, and information tended to be repeated more than once.

The author claimed objectivity, and in most cases did not criticize the people he was writing about. However, I sensed an underlying tone of disrespect for homosexuals.

There was alot of information presented, and it was obvious that a great deal of research had been conducted.

Had Lou Reed and John Cale not seen a copy of this book in a New York City gutter (fittingly) and decided to use its name for their group, this little volume would have been justly forgotten.

Written in a style which titilates while decrying the scene it describes, it's a piece of blue-nosed junk.

Listen to Velvet Underground music and forget this silliness.

No doubt the association with the seminal art-rock band that borrowed the name is keeping this in print. In the category of Books that Became Band Names, this must rank somewhere beneath Sinclair Lewis' Arrowsmith.

I am so excited. This is fabulous. I love the velvet and the velvet love me. fantastic music, lou reed is hot.