Story of O

Maybe I should say waiting for that Aha Moment; I like my books like I like my women, full of ideas but sometimes just say what you need to say or as the song goes “more than words”. Story of O is missing quite a few including an important two “The End” that’s the biggest spoiler than you’ll get form me, that there isn’t one.On one hand you learn this up front but you just don’t expect to be taken somewhere and just be left to fend for yourself. This is exactly what happens to O, the author takes her hand and says here, you’ll find exactly what you seek. Isn’t this the promise of every book, from author to reader and from reader to book but what exactly is O seeking…(Begins crooning Backstreet Boys “As Long as You Love Me”) Love, now if I were to try and define this well, I’ve already wasted a sizable portion of my life. I wasted plenty trying to love this book and fall in love with O but despite it all, while I don’t hate her it just wasn’t enough for me. Constantly teasing, constantly waiting, it keeps you going page after page but like any porn sometimes you just want to get there.In the Story of O she never does, not physically from what I read but she gets the general idea but you want to feel it, you want to know it, where’s that O face? She never shows it to you, especially at the ending when you feel like you just been caught doing something and honestly if you’re going to get caught you might as well finish but the story doesn’t, it leaves you waiting. Skipping ahead of the yeah I suck at French portion, and should have been my first warning pages, a nice essay on slavery, and the introduction the story begins making you want it. O’s time at “Roissy” I found quite thrilling but that’s more or less left to the imagination, men are quite visual creatures as I see highlighting every detail of O’s beauty. The depictions of sex leave much to be desired but as I said, quite the imagination and the ideas in general of what O becomes all in the name of love.The Marquis de Sade might be proud of the ideas instilled in O and I think both men and women might jump at the chance to become René, Sir Stephen, even O herself or just to become one the lovers of Roissy. Men are so often taught what they must do to attain the “favors” of women and women often mention the sacrifice of being themselves but this is not the typical love story when it comes to O. How O changes from one experience to the next, from one master to the next begs the question of why, when she learns the true nature of her servitude.You are actually left feeling smarter as you follow along since the book is translated and you’re encouraged to stretch your mind from what is happening to O, how would someone get away with being her, and the fact that people in general have no clue what they want in regards to love and what they are willing to do to keep it. I find the concepts somewhat reminiscence of a softcore porn called “The Passion Network” whoever directed that must have read the Story of O. As for my favorite part personally, it’s the fact that O never says no despite her circumstances and I’m sure women aren’t reading this saying to themselves “O should be stronger” she was as strong as they come, but she didn’t and neither did I which is a pity.The language is quite beautiful though somebody is probably saying it sounded better before it was translated. I would have quit reading if the opening ideas hadn’t been engaging but for all of this they still left out any real ending.That’s the thing with a good book, you shouldn’t want it to end or maybe you just want to be satisfied, even O herself was looking for the end since she apparently wasn’t being satisfied with her lot in life, I can’t blame her. Remember the book does make you feel smarter but eventually you get a headache and when you finally want to “Marvin Gaye” and get it on your lover is just gone.That’s exactly how it felt, you’re not saying love me, love me, more like well that happened *zips up pants* moving on and the thing is you don’t even get off. The book has a few passages explaining but why bother explaining just give me this rest of the book, it worked for Gary Paulsen; he wrote a full follow up just because he liked one ending better than another, in the Story of O they just gave up. We’re all adults here, after everything O went through you’re telling me this ending or that ending would be too disturbing, maybe for that day and time but then how has a book like this survived so long and helped usher in several others.Honestly I only read the Story of O because I was inspired by another book that gave mention to it “No Safeword” Claire Thompson. If it hadn’t been the absence of an ending I could have rated Story of O higher and anyone looking for a vocabulary lesson, how to enhance their fashion sense, or is looking for the classiest porn they’ll ever hope to read, Story of O will get you there. Still it might be my own fault I just didn’t expect it to leave me so abruptly; they tell you at the start there are several endings but I’m still looking for just one.I wanted to love her, I did, I really did, there was such potential, such promise but maybe I’m just like René. If I learned anything from this story, it’s what is beauty if you have no sense of it, I wanted to see it, hear it, touch it honestly.

Synopsis:This novel, sexually explicit without being crude, is indeed the story of O, a woman whose love for a man leads her to increasingly submissive behavior - allowing herself to be sexually used, violently beaten, and physically mutilated, which releases her independence of thought, and eventually causes her to abandon her individual identity. As O's submission deepens and becomes more extreme, the novel simultaneously deepens its thematic explorations of the relationship between surrender and freedom, the nature and demands of love, and the spiritual aspects of sexual desire.The Story of O begins as O is taken by Rene, referred to repeatedly as "her lover", to an isolated chateau in the French countryside, where she is ritualistically and repeatedly subjected to the constant, at times violent, sexual desires of the men there. She is, she is told, being trained in the way of submission, learning how to dress, behave, and react in total sexual obedience as a manifestation of her love for her lover, her trust in him, and her faith that he loves her in return. Over the painful course of several weeks, O is trained physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually, and spiritually in the ways of surrender. Rene eventually returns, tells O that she is to be taken back to their home, and prepares to leave with her. As they go, O is presented with a ring made of iron lined with gold, which she is to wear constantly as a signal to her, to her lover, and to anyone (male or female) who understands the life and teachings of the chateau, that she is sexually available.Upon returning to her life in Paris, O finds herself transformed. Not only does she dress differently (in a much more sexually available fashion), her colleagues at the fashion magazine where she works as a photographer comment on the change in her attitude and presence - she seems, to them, to be calmer and more peaceful. At the same time, however, O is thrown into a sexually charged turmoil over Jacqueline, a beautiful model who, in O's eyes, may or may not be flirting with her. One day, O is surprised and shocked to discover that Rene intends to share her with a man who is, in many ways, an older brother to him - Sir Stephen, a British businessman and aristocrat. Sir Stephen, O soon realizes, is to be her sole master - Rene, out of respect for him, cedes more and more sexual and physical control of O. For her part, O is at first determined to remain as emotionally faithful as she can to Rene. As time goes on, however, O becomes more and more deeply devoted to Sir Stephen, coming to think of the brutal way he treats her as a sign of her worthiness to be cared for. Eventually, Sir Stephen takes O to meet Anne-Marie, the woman who, O learns, will arrange for Sir Stephen to mark her with the ultimate sign of that worth: branding with a hot iron.Following her acceptance of Sir Stephen's brand, O returns to her life in Paris where she is told by Sir Stephen to do whatever it takes to bring Jacqueline under his control; the goal of which, he says, is to get Jacqueline to the chateau. At first, O refuses, having fallen in love with Jacqueline herself. Later, however, when she sees the merciless way Jacqueline treats Rene (who has fallen in love with her) and when she (O) also realizes that her devotion to Sir Stephen is now so complete that she will do anything in order to please him, O manipulates Jacqueline into at least considering a trip to the chateau. O also becomes involved with Jacqueline's half-sister Natalie, who seems much more eager than her sister to follow O's path. Just what that path involves is made clear to Natalie when O, following the directions of Sir Stephen, is put on as a nude, silent, sexually titillating display at a party. The action of the novel concludes here, but an epilogue reveals that upon returning to the chateau, O was abandoned by Sir Stephen. The epilogue also suggests that there is an alternate ending to this story - that upon learning that Sir Stephen was to leave her, she begged to be allowed to die rather than left alone. Sir Stephen, narration reveals, gave his permission.Opinion: The author gets a little tedious with over attention to detail so some pages pass slowly but the plot moves along quickly. Some readers may be repulsed by the subject material so please know before buying that this is the story of a "vanilla" being converted into a slave.

This review is for the Kindle edition. Hopefully, the printed versions available are different!This is a great book. Reading it as a young man changed my life. I purchased the Kindle edition for a friend.The story is as good as it ever was and any positive reviews of the text can be confirmed, enthusiastically by me and my friend.Sadly, the Kindle edition is very bad. There are no page breaks making it impossible to flick pages. The paragraphs run together giving a wall of text that is hard to read. This also destroys the pacing and structure of the book.There are many missing pages. I have not extensively checked the story itself to see if it has been bowdlerised, but the preface and non-story related essays are not present. That may not bother the new or casual reader who'd not even know of their absence, but they take away from the value of the book as a whole.The text appears to be the version I read some 35 years ago, not a new translation. I hope that all the original story elements are still present but finding them is not easy given the difficulty of reading this Kindle edition.So, five stars for the story and writing, and zero stars for the presentation.If this brief review was helpful to you, please click the 'Helpful' button. Your click helps other shoppers to make good choices! Thanks!

A friend recommended the book to me and on his recommendation gave it a try.It became very clear, early in the book, that this was definitely not a book I would ever have chosen myself.It's best described as erotica but it has something about the way the story is told which shows it is something more.I did read it from start to finish and have to say that if you ignore the regular eroticisms there is a well scripted story to be told.It is unlikely that I will delve into another novel of this ilk but I am also pleased that I did read this book.I have since found out there is also a film though I think I will give that a miss.

I found this book fascinating as well as titillating. Fascinating because of the insight into the protagonist, named simply "O", and titillating because the sex scenes were, well, titillating; graphic without being gross.The narrator completely drew me in to mind and emotion of "O", as she teIls the story from "O"s point of view. It starts with O being introduced to a BDSM world in 1950's Paris by her lover, Remy. At first it is hard to accept that any woman would consent to such abuse and subjugation, and I was waiting for the turning point where O comes to her senses and realises she is being used like a whore by a pimp. But as the story unfolds we learn that however she was led into this life of depravity, O really does want to be subjugated and abused, and it gives her physical and emotional pleasure. And she wants to see others taught obedience, particularly her friend and lover Jacqueline. Where others judge and are disgusted by her actions, O is proud of her condition as a sex slave.The story is authored by a woman, reputedly to titillate her own lover, and I was left wondering whether she might have first hand knowledge of the Paris BDSM scene, or whether it was all the product of imagination; at the conclusion I was still wondering, because O's story does border on incredible, particularly one scene where she consents to being branded with a hot iron.The story ends (spoiler coming), where we see that O has become the ultimate sex object, in a literal sense. The author also offers an alternate ending, which some readers may prefer.

Brilliantly written, stunning in it's graphic descriptions without being crude gets the point across. Brutal and intensely psychologically captivating. A profoundly disturbing read.

If ever a book deserved the label 'pornography', in its proper sense, of corrupting the reader, then this is it. I read this book many many years ago, when it was very hard to find and considered very shocking, the whole concept, the detailed descriptions, the culture, the blatant sexuality of it. Be warned..it will probably change you for ever.What really shocks you, reading it for the first time, as a young man, is knowing that this was conceived and written by a woman.. as the introduction says.. 'No man had a hand in this'..Now I know a great deal more about life this doesn't surprise me at all.. women are not at all as they seem on the surface :-)I think this is probably the source, the original idea, the first detailed descriptions, for many of the themes and practices we find in our world now.. such as leather collars, rings of all sorts, and many others. Highly recommended..explosive.. handle with care.