Friday, January 27, 2023

Dangerous Liaisons


 I found out about this book through the fun but crappy movie Cruel Intentions. I probably should not admit that. I was surprised to find it was a book written through the correspondence of letters. That's not everyone's taste.For example I recommended Theodore Sturgeon's Some of your blood to my older sister only to have her tell me she refused to read a book of letters. But with Dangerous Liaisons it works. Marquise de Merteuil schemes to have a young teenager Cecile de Volanges deflowered by the dishonorable Vicotme de Valmont who used to be her lover. The girl is however in love with her tutor Danceny. Vicotme also wants to seduce the innocent married Madame de Tourvel. Eventually he gets both women but unexpectedly falls in love with de Tourvel. I hate to say it but the movie kind of runs out of steam by the end. Nevertheless it deserves to get the status of a classic. It's the only famous book by the author Pierre Choderlos de Laclos but then how many writers get a book that's remembered hundreds of years later.

Friday, January 20, 2023

The Harness Room

 

I really like the British novelist L.P. Hartley. This was his homosexual novel. It wasn't the first one to have a theme. My Sisters' Keeper had a gay character. It's a coming-of-age story about a chauffeur and his employer's son. The employer wants his sensitive son to man up, so he hires the chauffeur to teach him how to box. Eventually the two fall in love but the book ends in tragedy. This was a novella, so I finished it pretty quickly. It's not his best. I think The Go-Between is, but it was captivating.