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Fanny Hill - Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure - John Cleland
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 360
This was inspiring. Written in epistolary form - 2 long letters to an unnamed recipient, it deals with case of an unfortunate young maid of 15 whose parents are carried off by Smallpox, and must find her way in London.
Naturally, she soon falls in with a bawd and bad company, and is found lodgings in a brothel.
Thus follow her adventures as a "Woman of Pleasure", and she is by and large by no means an unwilling or unhappy participant. The first bawd, to break her into the spirit of things, sends one of her more experienced ladies to tuck in with a few nights and stoke the fire....
Things continue, and while there is never an obscene word - or even phrase, verily you can't read a sentence or paragraph without getting the vulgar, though tenderly written, gist of what she's saying...
Now - this is amazing, for an "erotic novel", in that it describes the same act, on rare occasion of 2 positions, in a hundred different ways. The same act. There's no "French Style" or "Italian Style" or "Greek Style", and for the French, was it simply the hygiene of the era was so bad? But she describes frequent hot baths in oils, etc, etc, perfumes, so - maybe simply not to the authors taste. Although the speculation as to his homosexuality may have prejudiced any inside knowledges as to the practices thereof.
And an interesting point, our narrator has a couple of stories of homosexual men, of whom she accuses of being depraved and despicable beyond measure (despite finding them attractive) - and this - I found funny, she judges not her own initiations at the same weight.
You can read it here online: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25305/25305-h/25305-h.htm
Contrast this with Gilbert Gottfried's reading of "50 Shades of Grey".
Clearly - there's no blaming Gottfried given the source, but the difference in prose stylings shows a very clear winner and loser.
In the end, from her meagre triflings with vice she comes to a fuller appreciation of Virtue, which, in it's summary at the end, reads about as sincerely as De Sade's final lines in "Justine".
But - of the time, the genre, indeed a masterpiece.
Kootenay Co-op
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 45
This annoys me, especially as it's several months in and they've had plenty of time to rotate their stock.
Everything they sell, organic, free range, free of chemicals, pesticides, gluten, etc, etc.
But - 3, 4 months later and almost all of the produce (and a lot of their processed foods) are come here via the USA. Only they label it differently, Onions from Oregon (onions are also available from Alberta, I know, Save-On has them), Asparagus from California, soft drinks and bubbly waters, largely US, virtually 80% of the produce is US sourced, and all these-feel-good-hippy-dippy hippies are buying it without complaint.
You would think, them being so politically enlightened and left wing and all, but nope, as long as it's organic that trumps any international politics or border disputes...
Pisses me off...
1,500 Roman Coin Hoard uncovered in Romania
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 277
An amateur detectorist finds the haul of a lifetime outside of Bucharest, Romania.
Link: https://themunicheye.com/amateur-treasure-hunter-discovers-1500-roman-coins-20949
Warfare (2025, Alex Garland)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 310
Watched this last night. Meh, based on real life events in Iraq (I'm guessing) - it's set in real time over 90 minutes while soldiers deal with shit going down.
A slow start, and then it takes off and - for a war film, it's still pretty slow. Probably points for realism, but I'd still give this a miss, I'm pretty "warred" out.
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