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xterminal's review
3.0
Noe and Barreiro, Convent of Hell (Nantier Beall Minoustchine, 1998)
Messrs. Nantier, Beall, and Minoustchine, whoever they may be, are the oddest of ducks, and I love them for it. They picked up a selection of titles from obscure European imprint Eurotica for distribution on this side of the pond a while back, including the best-known, and most infamous, collaboration between Noe and Barreiro, Convent of Hell. NBM quickly found that despite its built-in audience, Convent of Hell lacked something it needed: retail outlets. No one would stock the thing except porn shops. Not a surprise, really, given that Convent of Hell is about the best fit for the definition of “pornography” I've ever seen. This isn't the highbrow prurience of Alan Moore or the hip, sexy erotics to be found in any number of Rachel Kramer Bussel-edited anthologies. No, this is not only sexually explicit (and, to follow the definition to the letter, with no redeeming social value whatever), but in the classical mode of porn—and by “classical” I'm talking “let's go back five hundred years” here—it also takes as many jabs at Mother Church as possible. Now that's porn, folks.
If you're a horror movie fan, you've seen this plot a hundred times before, though probably not with these players; nun stumbles upon hidden doorway in basement of convent, other nuns decide to open it, evil comes out and corrupts everyone, the Church must drive the evil back through the door. (Just when you thought you'd seen everything, wait till you get a load of the Church's secret weapon against evil!) Of course, the bulk of the book centers on what happens between the door opening and the Church cracking down, which means a good deal of sex. Sex with the devil, sex with other nuns, sex with visiting priests, sex with God's own emissaries, and (in one final, if extraneous, jab at religion), sex with a newly-married couple who'd gotten lost in a storm. (While the double-standard depicted in that bit is so old it's been gathering frost for decades, you're so caught up in the porn that you won't notice it until an hour or so after you've finished reading. Unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool media critic like me. I hate to say that my enjoyment of porn is not at all what it was twenty years ago.) In other words, like most porn, Convent of Hell is a tissue-thin plot that exists solely to hold together many lengthy sex scenes. Unlike most porn, however, Convent of Hell is quite liberal in its name-checking of the works of H. P. Lovecraft, which is always fun if it's done in a work of decent quality. Whether Convent of Hell defines “decent quality” I will leave to the individual reader to decide. But hey, it'll take you all of fifteen minutes to read, even if you're doing it with one hand, and it's much more easily found these days (for benefit of those not reading this on Amazon, I'll go into a coughing fit now: *cough*piratebay*cough*), so why not give it a go? Assuming, of course, you're of an age to do so. Never let it be said that I am encouraging the corruption of minors (at least, not when I'm not directly involved). ***
Messrs. Nantier, Beall, and Minoustchine, whoever they may be, are the oddest of ducks, and I love them for it. They picked up a selection of titles from obscure European imprint Eurotica for distribution on this side of the pond a while back, including the best-known, and most infamous, collaboration between Noe and Barreiro, Convent of Hell. NBM quickly found that despite its built-in audience, Convent of Hell lacked something it needed: retail outlets. No one would stock the thing except porn shops. Not a surprise, really, given that Convent of Hell is about the best fit for the definition of “pornography” I've ever seen. This isn't the highbrow prurience of Alan Moore or the hip, sexy erotics to be found in any number of Rachel Kramer Bussel-edited anthologies. No, this is not only sexually explicit (and, to follow the definition to the letter, with no redeeming social value whatever), but in the classical mode of porn—and by “classical” I'm talking “let's go back five hundred years” here—it also takes as many jabs at Mother Church as possible. Now that's porn, folks.
If you're a horror movie fan, you've seen this plot a hundred times before, though probably not with these players; nun stumbles upon hidden doorway in basement of convent, other nuns decide to open it, evil comes out and corrupts everyone, the Church must drive the evil back through the door. (Just when you thought you'd seen everything, wait till you get a load of the Church's secret weapon against evil!) Of course, the bulk of the book centers on what happens between the door opening and the Church cracking down, which means a good deal of sex. Sex with the devil, sex with other nuns, sex with visiting priests, sex with God's own emissaries, and (in one final, if extraneous, jab at religion), sex with a newly-married couple who'd gotten lost in a storm. (While the double-standard depicted in that bit is so old it's been gathering frost for decades, you're so caught up in the porn that you won't notice it until an hour or so after you've finished reading. Unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool media critic like me. I hate to say that my enjoyment of porn is not at all what it was twenty years ago.) In other words, like most porn, Convent of Hell is a tissue-thin plot that exists solely to hold together many lengthy sex scenes. Unlike most porn, however, Convent of Hell is quite liberal in its name-checking of the works of H. P. Lovecraft, which is always fun if it's done in a work of decent quality. Whether Convent of Hell defines “decent quality” I will leave to the individual reader to decide. But hey, it'll take you all of fifteen minutes to read, even if you're doing it with one hand, and it's much more easily found these days (for benefit of those not reading this on Amazon, I'll go into a coughing fit now: *cough*piratebay*cough*), so why not give it a go? Assuming, of course, you're of an age to do so. Never let it be said that I am encouraging the corruption of minors (at least, not when I'm not directly involved). ***
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