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2.95 AVERAGE
2.95 AVERAGE
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual content
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Miscarriage
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I really enjoyed it, but like all books written before like the 1950s, it took a long time to read. It was never boring or really dry, it's just the word choices and sentence structure in classic books needs a bit more care and attention than a book written and published today.
This is one of those books whose fascination lies in the fact that this is a predecessor to other works. This is the formulaic porn novel: poor country girl flees to the city looking for work after the death of her parents' deaths and she lands herself in a brothel. "You want me to have sex with people...? Ohh, okay." There is some plot regarding Fanny's morality, but for the most part, this is very episodic with Fanny having all kinds of sex with all kinds of people. You like two women? Here's a scene for you. You like orgies? Here's a scene for you, etc. etc.
Be prepared for the purplest of prose. Balls are once described as "the globular appendage, that wondrous treasure bag of nature's sweets, which revelled round, and pursed up in the only wrinkles that are known to please." This is occasionally arousing, plus it's interesting to see the descriptions through Fanny's eyes, but generally, it makes this a hard book to get through.
The end and the beginning are really where the interesting plot lies, and I won't ruin it for you, but I'll tell you that there's a weird sort of closure to it--maybe worth reading for the implications there, if you have anyone willing to discuss the politics of porn writing with you.
Be prepared for the purplest of prose. Balls are once described as "the globular appendage, that wondrous treasure bag of nature's sweets, which revelled round, and pursed up in the only wrinkles that are known to please." This is occasionally arousing, plus it's interesting to see the descriptions through Fanny's eyes, but generally, it makes this a hard book to get through.
The end and the beginning are really where the interesting plot lies, and I won't ruin it for you, but I'll tell you that there's a weird sort of closure to it--maybe worth reading for the implications there, if you have anyone willing to discuss the politics of porn writing with you.
While I understand that this book was revolutionary for it’s time, it is preposterous for it to be listed as a “classic” on any list. This by men and for men. Well, men of a certain type. Multiple times, a woman is raped and then falls in love with her rapist because of his perfect looking “machine” (read: dick). Page after page of misogynistic, rape-culture bullshit.
Yeah... I feel that I need to read more classics, and to take something completely different for a break in my current Bronte binge, I picked up this book. It's basically porn from the 1700s. As they write in the introduction, you'll be disappointed if you're looking for four lettered words, but otherwise it is very graphic in the flowery detailed sense. It hops from sex scene to sex scene with such descriptions it gets to the point of phallus worship, and just gets a bit repetitive and dull at times. On the one hand, to read about women actively taking part in and enjoying sex is something I hadn't quite expected from the attitudes of the time. But it's pleasure from a man's point of view, that these girls are insaisable nymphomaniacs, never are not-in-the-mood, always want it whenever and with whoever and some aspects of real life don't seem to happen. This is the merry-go-land where STDs don't happen, women don't have periods to get in the way, despite all the sex there's only one pregnancy mentioned, prostitutes never get beaten up or have to take several clients a night or walk the street looking for them... and however liberating you may think this seems, they are merely sex objects and playthings, and they are being paid for this. It's how they put food on their table. Although in Cleland's world they're so sex mad the money is incidental.
Yes, yes, yes, it's a farce and I'm taking it all too seriously.
So Fanny shags her way through a variety of men and is a kept woman. Initially turning up to London as a naive teenager and recently orphaned, she is taken on as a 'maid' by Mrs Brown, at her house of trade, where Phoebe breaks Fanny in the first night. She eventually sneaks out to be the live in lover of Charles, before his father sends him off to the South Seas or whereever it is he went. She then hops through some other men who keep her; one throwing her out when she is unfaithful, another dying after a drinking binge in Bath, then finds her way to Mrs Coles, another madam who is actually nice. There she hangs out with three other working girls, has a lot of mad sex before eventually being reuinted with her one true love, Charles.
Now, I know it's a child of its time, and the law and attitudes were different things to what they are today but somethings make for uncomfortable reading. Thirteen year olds having sex which is near to rape (but told in a jolly way because they want it really) (and I think back then you had to be 14 to get married); Fanny's disgust at homosexuals; or the particularly disturbing seduction of a village idiot by Fanny and one of the other girls at Mrs Coles' house.
I'm just left a bit... well, partly bored, partly eyebrows raised, and goodness, the illustrations. If the writing gets a bit flowery and makes you wonder, 'did he really mean that...', then the illustrations leave you in no doubt.
Yes, yes, yes, it's a farce and I'm taking it all too seriously.
So Fanny shags her way through a variety of men and is a kept woman. Initially turning up to London as a naive teenager and recently orphaned, she is taken on as a 'maid' by Mrs Brown, at her house of trade, where Phoebe breaks Fanny in the first night. She eventually sneaks out to be the live in lover of Charles, before his father sends him off to the South Seas or whereever it is he went. She then hops through some other men who keep her; one throwing her out when she is unfaithful, another dying after a drinking binge in Bath, then finds her way to Mrs Coles, another madam who is actually nice. There she hangs out with three other working girls, has a lot of mad sex before eventually being reuinted with her one true love, Charles.
Now, I know it's a child of its time, and the law and attitudes were different things to what they are today but somethings make for uncomfortable reading. Thirteen year olds having sex which is near to rape (but told in a jolly way because they want it really) (and I think back then you had to be 14 to get married); Fanny's disgust at homosexuals; or the particularly disturbing seduction of a village idiot by Fanny and one of the other girls at Mrs Coles' house.
I'm just left a bit... well, partly bored, partly eyebrows raised, and goodness, the illustrations. If the writing gets a bit flowery and makes you wonder, 'did he really mean that...', then the illustrations leave you in no doubt.
Actually I red a 1996 edition from Hertfordshire, Great Britain, Wordsworth but could not find it in the long list of published editions. "Expressed in the language of the period, Fanny Hill is a light-hearted book of considerable literary merit." p. 5
There's nothing like a good dirty book to clear the mind. This book is a classic for a great reason, which is that it is as dirty as they get without curse words. Don't go looking too deeply into the plot or try to figure out what's going on in anyone's mind - just go with the flow.
Other readers have tried to spin this book into social satire, but don't go there either. If Cleland had meant it to be a commentary on anything related to reality, why doesn't any character fear pregnancy? Why are every character's morals so flexible? Some people just can't take a book for what it is.
Other readers have tried to spin this book into social satire, but don't go there either. If Cleland had meant it to be a commentary on anything related to reality, why doesn't any character fear pregnancy? Why are every character's morals so flexible? Some people just can't take a book for what it is.