msgtdameron 's review for:

Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

4.0

challenging fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This work describes the relationship between dominate and submissive.  Sevrin our hero and our submissive falls in love with his Venus, both the marble statue, and the widow who lives above him that looks like the statue.  Wanda, the widow, will only hear him if he swears to be her slave.  He begs her to make him her slave and she does.  He is whipped repeatedly, disgraced, fed poorly, looses sleep, etc all to worship at her feat.   But, Wanda wants to be loved by Sevrin and the only way he will love her as she wishes to be loved is if he is her slave.  Sevrin has many psychosexual issues that Wanda cures him of through him being her slave and humiliated.  Fascinating work and in the forward it is suggested that one reads it through the eyes of a man who had a very abusive childhood and explored these same ideas of dominance and submissive in his early adulthood.  Read that way the whole work makes sense.