Reading note (rather than book review)

These two volumes – La Maison de la Vicomtesse, and Le Château du Comte – are published by Black Scat books, more precisely their imprint New Urge Editions, marketed by Amazon, that also printed the books, and, supposedly, translated from the French. This, as well their mysterious author Hélène Lavelle, and no less mysterious translator, Valéry Soers, presents the discerning reader with several challenges. The blurb reads:

“In the tradition of Decadent literature, spiced with Gothic, this provocative novel takes the reader on a voyage through dream, reverie, fantasy, memory and imagination – recounting the raptures and tortures in the initiation of a young woman, Gabrielle, by the Vicomtesse, the Comte and their entourage in The Domain.”

While Dawn Avril Fitzroy, MA,PhD., who wrote the Foreword, claims that “this modern classic… deserves to be ranked alongside the great French erotic masterpieces of the 1950s, Histoire d’O, and L’Image, and a few others…”

We will come back to these comparisons. There is a Goodreads entry for The Rites of Ecstasy, and Hélène Lavelle, the latter referring back to Amazon. The Internet otherwise knows no author called Hélène Lavelle, nor does it know anything about Valéry Soers. We should mention, however, a WordPress review by R J Dent.

What about the books? Let us say that, whether translated or not, both volumes are an easy and pleasant read. There is really no strong, seriously provocative stuff, but plenty of gushing of feminine juices, a little blood, some hunting and pursuing, and, in the Château, more that plenty of ladies buggering, usually hoped for. There are some “longueurs”, and repetitions, particularly in the Château, which may suggest lose editing, or perhaps the overuse of some AI writing tool. At the beginning of Rites (vol 1) Gabrielle, a young and attractive (we can assume), bored office worker, in a city not unlike London, meets a would be colleague, Claudine, supposedly by chance, as they are both shopping. Claudine appears to gain quickly some influence on Gabrielle, who drops her helpless boyfriend, moves to a new apartment, and sees a lot of Claudine, for a while, from then on. Gabrielle is “prone to vivid dreams”, and the book starts with one of Gabrielle’s dream, in Prelude, which sets the pace for much of what follows. With Absinthe, the story really starts with another supposed, chance encounter of Gabrielle with The Vicomtesse and the Comte, in fact, as we will learn later, arranged by Claudine. It is not the purpose of this note to spoil future readers’ pleasure, so we will not say much more about the story. From this encounter, Gabrielle appears only to live for meeting the Vicomtesse again, this being arranged by one of the many comparses from the Domain, and serving the Comte. In due course her wishes are exhausted to the “derniers outrages”. From her “flirtation intimacy” with Claudine, through her first meeting with Viviane, Gabrielle becomes the willing sacrifice (victim?) of the manipulations, as we learn at the conclusion of the Château, in the hands the Domain’s hosts.

When Gabrielle is at last, invited to the Domain, the plot develops as Gabrielle’s initiation to the will and wishes of the Vicomtesse, the rules of the Maison, and her preparation for le Château. We are also introduced to Isabella, superficially the antithesis of la Comtesse, and the obvious persecutor to be of innocent Gabrielle. Is Gabrielle, from a reading of this first part, an “ingénue”? Certainly not. She fantasises most of what happens, which may, in fact not happen at all, or not in the same way, and may just be her, or someone’s, awake dreams. This pattern, at the start of Le Château, is exemplified by “A Story of Elle”, supposedly written by Gabrielle, in some way the kernel of the plot.

Le Château is then Gabrielle’s expected voyage through the rumbling, dream-like castle, full of long corridors, vistas over the grounds, hidden doorways, secret rooms, deep dungeons, and gore. This is fun, though at time, a little wearisome, as much of it is expected. But fun nonetheless.

What about the style? The writing is not literary, in the sense of classic libertine writing. Comparisons with Histoire d’O are, in our reading, well off the mark. Firstly because the austere story of O’s tortures, in 1954, in a France hardly recovered from the horrors of the Occupation, is lightyears away from the opulence and plenty of the Rites. The guests of the Domain, in Lavelle’s books, revel in luxury, eat delicious food and drink expensive wines. Le Comte’s whips and blades are sweet dreams compared with O’s irons, hanging from her vulva, and Gabrielle’s suffering in the hands of Isabella, compared with O’s final destruction. Aury’s story had its deep origin in a young writer’s hope to please her man, in a background of shortages of everything, and deprivations of essentials. Gabrielle’s life is embedded in the plentiful “fin de siècle” of western supremacy. We won’t comment on L’Image as we have not read the novel.

In her second foreword, Dawn Avril Fitzroy (?), announces that her research “on the provenance of these novels” would be published in an article of the Black Scat Review. So be it. Incidentally, we have failed to locate any original French version of the books.

Picture source