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    Venus in Furs
    Venus in Furs
    Venus in Furs
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Venus in Furs

    Written by Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

    Narrated by Michael Praed

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    This is the best known work of the Austrian writer and poet Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch who based this tale of love, humiliation and obsession largely on his own life and gave the English language the word masochism. A compelling well written story it has inspired and influenced many psychologists, artists, writers and musicians from Thomas Mann to the Velvet Underground and even Freud, since its first publication in 1870. The reader Michael Praed is an accomplished actor whose extensive experience confidently captures this fascinating story of torment and sexual female domination.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe Copyright Group
    Release dateJan 1, 2014
    ISBN9781780002576
    Author

    Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

    Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch was an Austrian writer of fiction and short stories, who inspired the clinical category of ‘Masochism’. His complex sexual fantasies, involving the love of pain and submission, ignited a once secretive pursuit into that of a recognised fetish. His masterpiece inspired a famous song of the same name by The Velvet Underground, and continues to be referred to as a defining work within the realm of erotic literature.

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    Reviews for Venus in Furs

    3.5/5

    336 ratings13 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Venus in Furs is a bad book.Like seemingly all of the underwhelming literature before 1900, it is a pointlessly nested story about a “supersensual” man throwing himself in the arms and the hands of a briefly reluctant mistress. Beginning with a sinister attempt at levity, it ends as a rather self-unaware farce including a lover hiding behind furniture. That awkward drollery is detrimental to the subject, and the inherent ridicule of the 19th century does not help ; I much prefer incidentally an other short story by the same author about a tragic voivod and his merciless queen in the Middle Ages, but I cannot remember the title and possibly it was not even by Sacher-Masoch ; anyway Venus in Furs's characters themselves express their longing for more primitive times, where lust and passion had more stark, unironic overtone.So if even the author could see that why did he put them in the 19th century ? It's like setting an action movie in the 21st one ! Is it a stupid satire or what ?Fornication, of course, is very much a laughing matter ! or at the very least a smirking matter. But Sacher-Masoch cannot manage a smirk, or even the deadpan which lends a goofy gravitas to most preposterous stories of throbbing flesh. No, he is too pygmalionically enamoured with his own subject, telling his story with love-struck eyes and dropping jaw, and both extremities of the tale suffer from it.There is room for moments of grace in a story with a bad beginning and a sloppy end ; but an eighty-page story that does not make much room, unfortunately. Such moments are there, though. Magically magnificent purple prose oozes from the page on occasion, such as the most magnificent sentence of all “ she even gave me a kiss, and her cold lips had the fresh frosty fragrance of a young autumnal rose, which blossoms alone amid bare stalks and yellow leaves and upon whose calyx the first frost has hung tiny diamonds of ice ” (by the way, the word of the week is whithersoever). Outrageous situations and the narrator's violent torments did echo somewhat in my jaded soul. And at least we are spared the triviality of explicit copulation, Gott sei dank ; it's all heaving bosom and such.Venus in Furs is a bad book. But for a while, it manages to be a good bad book.Also a funny thing is that Sacher Masoch fills his story to the brim with never-mentioned again Jews, without even portraying them negatively, which would have been more understandable given the context, or positively for that matter. He just sees them everywhere. Go figure.
    • 1/5
      Why does this version have a woman in handcuffs on the cover for Venus in Furs? Great job at not knowing the basics of this book and automatically assuming the woman is the submissive.
    • 2/5
      A Book By An Author You’ve Never Read BeforeIt's ironic that I chose this book to fulfill this category on my reading list. While I had not even heard of the author, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, I knew about the sexual disorder bearing his name. I just didn't make the connection until after reading the book.Venus in Furs begins with an unnamed narrator relating his dream of speaking to the goddess Venus while she is dressed in furs. The friend he shares his dream with, Severin, gives him a manuscript, Confessions of a Supersensual Man, in return. Consistent with masochistic behavior, the manuscript relates Severin's voluntary debasement as a slave to Wanda, the woman he wishes to marry. Had the book been published in modern times, rather than 1870, Severin's humiliation would have been described in much more graphic terms, but any reader with an imagination can picture what he went through.Venus in Furs was intended to be part of a larger narrative. Reading it as a stand-alone novel focuses all attention on its masochistic aspects, and I wonder whether only prurient curiosity keeps it in circulation today. It is neither a particularly well-written nor engaging book. Severin is an unsympathetic character; Wanda is cruel and ultimately detestable. Their relationship grows tiresome, especially the repetitious self-abasement, and the ending feels artificial, as though more concerned with social acceptance than artistic integrity.Yet the book was made into half-a-dozen movies and a couple plays. Two bands, including The Velvet Underground, wrote songs about it. So it has certainly made a cultural impact, however limited in scope.As a portrayal of the power dynamics between a certain type of man and woman, it's mildly thought-provoking and insightful. Were it a longer book or one that required closer reading, I would advise passing. Although I haven't read anything that deals with masochism, modern novels probably deal with it in a more sophisticated manner.
    • 5/5
      After reading Fanny Hill and Marquis de Sade, it only made sense to read this novella.

      For erotica, Venus in Furs is actually well thought out and written. Yes, this about whips and things that are kinky, but it’s also about the human psyche and mythology. There’s some great character development and conflict in this novella.

      Each of the main characters represent something either dealing with the human mind or mythology. You have Wanda (the title character) that represents power and Venus and Severin (the narrator) who is represents obedience and Dionysus. Later on, there is a Greek man that joins the party, but I won’t explain his part because of spoilers.

      The main plot of the story is Severin is obsessed with finding his Venus in Furs. He finds Wanda who looks like the goddess, but she is a dominatrix. She wants Severin as a sexual slave than a lover. He starts obeying his mistress until a Greek named Alexis (they call him Apollo) joins in on the fun. Then the conflict and the real drama of the book starts.

      I love the use of mythology. It’s not that hard to turn gods into sex allegories. In many ways, Severin is Faust trying to bring Helen back from the dead to have sex with her, except Severin is trying to make his dream of Venus in Furs a reality. There’s a bit of Fraud and Jung going on in this novella. Maybe you can see some of Wonder Woman in this book as well. If you don’t mind sexual domination mixed with mythology this book’s a great read.
    • 3/5
      Such a notorious book. . . but it turned out to be not at all what I expected.

      Severin is a romantic, intellectual, and -- to use his own word -- suprasensual young man who yearns to be owned and abused by a beautiful and cruel woman. However the woman who becomes his partner in passion, Wanda, isn't interested in cruelty. She simply wants to love him, and would prefer that he be the one with the power. But he keeps insisting that she become a "cruel despot," whip him, and humiliate him. He describes in detail the torments he wants to endure -- but when she finally agrees and gives him exactly what he has begged for, he gets angry and rails and weeps about how horrible she is. But when she threatens to stop being cruel, or to end the relationship, he drops to his knees and begs her to forgive him and continue to treat him as her slave. (Eventually I wanted to slap him myself!) Wanda herself, although motivated initially by a desire to please Severin, ends up enjoying her tyranny, but that pleasure always seems secondary to her desire to please.

      By the standards of today's erotica, this is a very tame book. There are no explicitly sexual scenes. The whippings have enough detail to make it easy to visualize, but are more about the psychological impact than the physical.

      To me, the most objectionable aspect of the book was its dismissal of women as non-rational, utterly "natural" and animalistic beings who can't be relied on because they are creatures of whim. But that was so obviously a product of the time, and the beliefs of a man whose own rationality is suspect (however intelligent he might be) that I ended up simply laughing at those passages.

      This was a book club read, and we had an interesting discussion about consent, manipulation, and what it means to pursue a fantasy to its fullest extent. Sometimes we get more than we bargained for, but that doesn't mean it wasn't worth the experience. I ended up quoting a lyric from Rent: "Might as well dance a tango to hell. At least you'll have tango'd at all."
    • 3/5
      In between Westerns, and awaiting my used copy of McCarthy's "The Crossing" from Alibris, I decided to read something completely different to keep my senses sharp. And, boy, did I pick a pink-welted doozy. However, I was unprepared for how funny "Venus in Furs" actually is:“Whip me,” I begged, “whip me without mercy.”Wanda swung the whip, and hit me twice. “Are you satisfied now?”“No.”“Seriously, no?”And how well written:"Stay among your northern fogs and Christian incense; let us pagans remain under the debris, beneath the lava; do not disinter us."Or just whip-crackingly quotable:"I have a vague feeling now that such a thing as beauty without thorn and love of the senses without torment does exist."Much like George Bataille's "Story of the Eye" (though less extreme), I am pleasantly surprised that its contribution to literature isn't just a new term in a lexicon of perversion. Now, you'll excuse me while I play ottoman to my mistress's stilettos.
    • 4/5
      From a certain literary perspective, "Venus in Furs" is a failure of a novel. Two rich, excessively cultured Europeans go on and on in a stiff, maddeningly formal tone, discecting their relationship and their complexes while neglecting to take their clothes off. It doesn't sound like a good time, does it?. But "Venus in Furs" is an accomplishment of sorts: while it can't be said to be a complete description of human sexuality, it provides a pretty good analysis of one very particular corner of it. Maybe you need to live there already to get it, but it's all there: the curious, paradoxical mixture of self-abnegation and egoism that drives most masochists, the combination of fear and intense desire that drives men who prefer a certain kind of strong-willed woman, and a general preference for extremes and drama. Modern readers may quibble with the author's take on the female character (inconstant, flighty) or race relations (decidedly exoticist), but it's hard to argue that he didn't know the terrain of his own desire. And desire's what this one's all about, really. The novel's by turns sumptous and shockingly physical, but its focus never strays much from the topic of beauty, even if it's a sort of beauty that's, ahem, somewhat unconventional. It's clear that the author, precious has he might be, doesn't just get a sexual thrill from seeing Wanda, the domme herself, bedecked in fur, but also real aesthetic pleasure: his references to European master painters seem fitting. Wanda herself is also a more comoplex character than one might expect. She's often very conscious of her own pleasure, the book asks whether Severin created her -- like a sexual version of Frankenstein's monster -- or if the games that they play merely brought out some dormant facet of her personality. Anyway, she never hesitates to call Severin's bluff, challenging him in ways that he finds both unconfortable and less than sexy. There's no "topping from below" from Wanda. The translation of my version seemd a good one, too: its lush and suitably ornate while maintaining a trace of what I'd like to imagine is a little Teutonic rigor. In a few scenes, the novel hits a perfect balance between sexy and cold-bloodedly terrifying. "Memorable" doesn't even begin to describe them. Finally, I got the sense that "Venus in Furs" is a better novel than it strictly has to be. The author probably deserves our praise for taking a subject that's ripe for cheap exploitation and writing a quality novel about it instead. It's recommended to a certain audience, and you know who you are. Perverts, suprasensualits, and raincoat-wearing sex creeps: this one's for you.
    • 1/5
      "You interest me. Most men are very commonplace, without verve or poetry. In you there is a certain depth and capacity for enthusiasm and a deep seriousness, which delight me. I might learn to love you." (20)

      This line really jumped out at me, because it's just what I imagine a lot of nerds imagine some lady will say to them some day. And they'll be like yeah! I have a depth and capacity for enthusiasm! I was just waiting for someone to notice! I bet nerds really like this book, which was written by a nerd and then translated to English by a different nerd.

      You know that old defunct Tumblr, "Nice Guys Of OK Cupid"? It was a collection of dating profiles from guys who were all "I'm so nice, why don't any women love me? I would treat a woman like a goddess but I guess they don't want to be treated like goddesses, they all want some asshole instead! Women are such bitches, because they don't love me!"

      Masoch can't stop quoting this one line from Goethe, "You must be hammer or anvil." He thinks that "Woman demands that she can look up to a man, but one like [our dorktagonist Severin] who voluntarily places his neck under foot, she uses as a welcome plaything, only to toss it aside when she is tired of it." (105)

      The problem here isn't with Severin's (or Masoch's) particular fetish, which is to have ladies whip them. That's fine, man, have your fun. The problem is that he extends it to some kind of conclusion about human nature that's not at all true. Women do not by nature demand either to look up to a man or toy with them. (Men aren't like that either.) That's a dumb idea. Here's another thing that's not true: "Man even when he is selfish or evil always follows principles, woman never follows anything but impulses." (43)

      And it's boring! God, for a book about whipping there is none too much whipping. Instead there's a whole lot of him begging to be her slave, and then her treating him vaguely slave-y, and then him getting all indignant, and then her all "Well see, you're being a dick about it," and then him being all "Oh, you're mad at me, treat me like a slave," and then we circle back around to the beginning like fifty times. Wahhhhh.

      If you flip the characters' genders in your head while you're reading, the book goes an awful lot like that 50 Shades thing does. (I know more or less how it goes from hearing a million readers and feminists get all pissy about it. It's hard to tell who's more offended about that book - readers or feminists.) But there's a funny twist at the end (spoilers follow for this and I think 50 Shades too): you'd expect a female protagonist to win over the guy and be with him (one way or another). But here, she just dumps him. She's all "I can easily imagine belonging to one man for my entire life, but he would have to be a whole man, a man who would dominate me, who would subjugate me by his innate strength" (23) and then she runs off with a dude who's just like that. So Masoch's kink assumes that one who has it isn't enough to satisfy a woman. That's weird, and probably kindof a bummer for him.

      So this is a book about a self-defeating fetish for being controlled, born out of a weird hatred and fear for women. It's unpleasant, and boring, and all too familiar because I still hear that shit today, from miserable nerds.

      Lame, dudes. Lame.
    • 5/5
      Much more relevant than I expected.As a Domme who deals with all kinds of sexual masochist I found this 137 year old novel a much more useful insight into the mind of male masochists then Stephen Elliott's "My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats me Up." Leopold is more aware of his own inner emotional state. I'm am amused to see how many reviewers think this book is not "erotic" because it does not contain graphic descriptions of sex. I think what those reviews fail to realize is that, for some people, descriptions of humiliation and abuse *are* sexual.For some people this is a very hot scene: "To be the slave of a woman, a beautiful woman, whom I love, whom I worship.""And who on that account maltreats you," interrupted Wanda, laughing."Yes, who fetters me and whips me, treads me underfoot, the while she gives herself to another.""And who in her wantonness will go so far as to make a present of you to your successful rival when driven insane by jealousy you must meet him face to face, who will turn you over to his absolute mercy. Why not? This final tableau doesn't please you so well?"I looked at Wanda frightened. "You surpass my dreams.""Yes, we women are inventive," she said, "take heed, when you find your ideal, it might easily happen, that she will treat you more cruelly than you anticipate.""I am afraid that I have already found my ideal!" I exclaimed, burying my burning face in her lap.
    • 4/5
      I'm not a fan of the style of most 19th Century writing, and this book is no exception. However, as the origin of the word Masochism, it can't really be passed up and it's mercifully short if, like me, you don't like the style.It's an odd mix of the perverse and the coquettish, it's not erotica, not by any modern standard anyway, but it contains so many elements that permeate BDSM as we know it now that it's a fascinating read.
    • 4/5
      I wonder if perhaps I should be worried: reading this philosophical-sexual novel, I began to identify strongly with Severin, and understood a lot of the logic behind his supposedly illogical actions.The book itself is finely written, although I had tried this one before and struggled, not realising that the first few pages formed an artistic dream that Severin would be woken from; I'm not good with books that begin this way, and last time I put the book down, not to take it up again. That was something like three years ago. Now that I've read it again, I can say that Sacher-Masoch's work is of the upmost importance for all of us who have a tendency to put ourselves down and belittle our characters, especially around women. I don't think that I've learnt enough from Severin's folly to help myself in the future, but at least I can be reassured with the knowledge that I am not alone. Though I have no intention of ever allowing myself to be whipped!
    • 4/5
      I think I may have pinpointed the reason this novel didn’t impress me so much: In the end of the novel, a moral to the story is introduced—that women and men, at the time of Sacher-Masoch’s writing, were not able to live as equal companions, but that one must inherently dominate the other because of the inequalities made for them in their society. But I don’t think that moral applies quite so well in the present time, and I have to agree that, in the end, the novel probably is a product of its times. You kind of read the novel with certain expectations, knowing (and perhaps misbelieving) what people do today about masochism through psychology and mainstream or underground media. I think this novel may be a bit different than our usual perceptions, because, after all, it was only the basis for the definition of a word taken from the author’s name over a century ago.I thought the characters were kind of comic throughout the novel; the book is actually funny at times. As such, I didn’t really “connect” with any of the characters. Severin seems to dabble in a lot of the arts, all the while seemingly obsessed with powerful women in history and mythology—the Roman Goddess Venus in particular. He seeks to realize his interpretation of a cruel Venus in Wanda, a tenant in the same house as he. Wanda decides to play along with his fantasies, on the pretense that she’ll get this "weird" fantasy out of the way so they can marry and live normally. As the novel progresses, she unexpectedly becomes crueler and crueler, and the scenes, perhaps, become more and more off the wall. The novel does get a bit repetitive at this point, but I didn’t find it boringly so. However, only in the end did I actually “connect” and feel sad and sorry for poor Severin. And then, of course, Severin’s change of mind shocked me out of that! :)Don’t be fooled if this book is described as “erotica”—it is very well written (probably unlike most of the books that would surround it on an “erotica” shelf at the bookstore!), and it grabs your senses and may change your perception of things. Most of all, there are absolutely no crude terms, nor even any descriptions of sex at all in this book. It mainly plays with your senses and your imagination.
    • 2/5
      Didn't realise when I bought this, but the word masochism is derived from the author's name, and this was one of the first pieces of erotic fiction to deal with dominance and submission.The hero, Severin has a fetish for women dressed in fur, and dreams of being the abject slave of the woman he loves. He isn't prepared though for how far she decides to take his fantasy ...(Some things are better kept in your head, mate!)If sexual power-play is your thing (and it isn't my cup of latte) you will probably be fascinated by this. But don't expect a racy read, as we don't get much further than kisses and a heaving bosom and poor old Severin slapped about and abused every way the lady can devise.The novel is based on Sacher-Masoch's real-life exploits and the drama is entirely in the head-games. Kathryn Gross in her excellent essay Venus in Furs: The Story of a Real-life Masochist says: You have to decide for yourself if it is sex, pathology, mind games or to some degree an exaggerated reflection of life at that time and place.I felt the writing, or at least the translation by Joachim Neugroschel, seemed at times clunky and I thought this reader's quote on Amazon was pretty apt: To regard this as a "classic" in literary terms is a mistake. It is a historical oddity and one best read in a period translation rather than one which - however inadvertently - smooths and modernises it. If all this has grabbed your attention and you'd like to read the book, you can actually download it for free from Project Guttenburg.Now then, where did I leave my whip?