von Sacher-Masoch’s work

Sacher-Masoch was an

incredibly prolific writer, in part because he was a professional that lived from his writing. He wrote journalism, novels and historical works, many of them on the Austro-Hungarian minority ethnical groups, which he knew as nobody.

He imagined his work as a series of cycles, the main being “the Cain legacy”, in which he planned to write on all areas of contemporary life and its interrelations. It is this “cycle” that made him famous in France. It was supposed to be a series of books on six themes: Love, Property, The State, War, Work, and Death, with six books on each. It was never completed, but his most famous book, “Venus in furs” was the fifth on the theme of love, and it was published for the first time in 1870. He only completed Love and Property, while the others remained fragmentary.

He was a good narrator, with a special gift in graphical character descriptions and a touch of humor, which made his stories about his native Galitzia very colorful local stories.

But at a difference with de Sade, whose work was mainly on the same theme, “Venus in Furs” is the only of Masoch’s writings that interest us (it could probably be of interest also “The divorced woman”, but I couldn’t find it, or at least a comment on it anywhere)

First, the title is a real BDSM one, because Venus is the goddess of love, and furs were viewed for a long time as the clothing of power, associated throughout history with dominant women, so the meaning, in a possible modern (BDSM) translation, would be “Goddess in leather”. And even with all the hyperbole and exaggeration of the romantics, most of us could still relate with it. It is about the love story of Severin and his romance with Wanda, in which Severin manages to manipulate her into dominating and enslaving him, and even incites her to infidelity and gets her lover to whip him.

Even if the novel is erotic, it has no explicit sex scenes, and Severin punishments are not too detailed, the author preferring to explain instead his feelings at being punished and dominated. It is a good story, and the fact that it is closely related to him, his fantasies and his real life adventures make it a fascinating reading that gives good insight at the feelings of a submissive.

Published: 11/02/05