Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Pocket Books, New York
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780671742492ISBN:0671742493
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. 1991 Pocket Books paperback. NOT EX LBI! Bright, clean pages with light reading wear, some tanning inside covers, gently creased spine, light edgewear. Glued binding. 302 p. read more
Description: Fair. 0671742493 Some shelf wear / edge wear cover / pages discoloration around edges//"Buy with Confidence-Satisfaction Guaranteed! Customer Service Makes All the Difference. " read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781579125745ISBN:1579125743
Description: Acceptable. A readable copy. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (the dust cover may be missing). Pages can include considerable notes-in pen or highlighter-but the notes cannot obscure the text. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Pocket Books
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780671742492ISBN:0671742493
Description: Grade: C. Catalog: Fiction General Synopsis: Editions vary. 302 pages. Erotica. From the contents: The Hungarian Adventurer; Mathilde; The Bording School; The Ring; Mallorca; Artists and Models; ... read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
"I absolutely loved this book. Nin gives such color and richness to her characters that I found myself so disappointed at the end of each story simply because it ended, and not for its erotica, but for its engaging and evolving plot. I was totally enamored with so many of the female characters she created - the honesty, the unmentionable thoughts we are a bit too uncomfortable to acknowledge.
This was an absolute pleasure to read, each story flowing and evolving easily with each word. I loved how each story was connected to the others by a degree, giving me solace at the end of a climactic tale."
"More psychoanalytical than sexy, especially in the first half of the stories, but there were a few hot parts. Nin and I often part ways on what is sexy; these stories often feel like they're trying too hard to be scandalous and seductive, when prosaic and direct would work better for me. In fact, my favorite story wasn't sexy (to me) at all -- I loved the one where the two flashers meet on the train and fall in love. It's very short, and efficient, and almost makes me feel like flashers deserve to indulge their fetishes too. Too bad flashers are in reality hilarious and pathetic."
"i enjoyed this book. it was typical of nin, and of the times, in the respect of the book being 'erotica.' more interesting to me, the the sexual vignettes themselves, where the diary entries preluding the story context explain how henry miller got her involved in writing these smutty stories for an unknown buyer. the writing at times often beautfil and highly poetic; this so-called book collecter who commisioned miller and nin was pleased with her writing but urged her, however, for less poetry in her writing.
at times, this book became tedious, as most of nin's works do for me. but somehow under the blanket of sex, the lacking of her page-long monologues on love and why we love and how it hurts to love, i found this much more tolerable and enjoyable than other works of her's that ive read."
"I was near ready to give up on Nin's erotica about halfway through, rife though it was with the sort of kink and taboo I can almost always get behind. Particularly expectation-shattering was the collection's opener, featuring the pedophiliac fantasies of a "Hungarian Adventurer." The story morphs into a sort of cautionary tale wherein the Hungarian is punished, but not before putting on its darker forms of titillation. Many of the stories are tongue-in-cheek, satirical, hot-but-not, and to her credit, Nin really does run the gamut of deviant sexuality: rape, incest, bondage, role playing, voyeurism, formicophilia... One story of the not-hot variety manages to incorporate both necrophilia and bestiality. Which is all well and good, except that Nin's lack of character and plot begins to strain at about the middle point, when you realize she's recycling her themes and heroines.
Of the stories meant to be actually poetic and sensual, most involve a central female character who opens up in her sexuality, trips through opium dens, experiments with lesbianism, etc. I'm not terribly convinced that Nin was a great writer of fiction; I think her legacy is her diaries, but she does manage to get some nice purple prose cushioning a trace of the feminist impulse. Still... not terribly compelling,
Except for the 40-page The Basque and Bijou, which is by far the best thing in Delta of Venus. It's a subtle masterclass in the origins and perpetuations, the eroticism and ultimate sadness of fetishism. It has a beginning, middle and end, it's sexy as hell, and it has a kicker of a punchline. It's better than the 70-page Elena (a muddle of characters and contrived set-pieces), despite reprising some of the same characters. It validated the collection for me."
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
