Oxfam Thursday: Venus in Furs

I pulled a double shift at the shop today and was on the bottom deck throughout. Not much trade, but under the desk was the novel Venus in Furs, by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, from whose name the word masochism is derived. Whoever left it there was obviously very naughty and will be punished severely at some point, if he's very lucky. It does give me the excuse to show the track of the same name by the Velvet Underground:



Which is what Southend is like on a Saturday night. Venus in Furs depicts the sexual and emotional domination of a man by a woman. Sacher-Masoch was a utopian and an advocate of what we now call gender equality. The novel ends with the moral:

"That woman, as nature has created her and as man is at present educating her, is his enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can become only when she has the same rights as he, and is his equal in education and work."

In real life, Sacher-Masoch had a contract with his then mistress, Fanny Pistor (I'm not making this up; that was her name) which stipulated that she "promises to wear fur as often as practical and especially when being cruel". This contract was for six months, so he couldn't do much else as he was all tied up for that time.

Fun Fact: Sacher-Masoch is Marianne Faithful's great-great uncle on her mother's side.

I didn't get chance to play any music, but Lee on the upstairs till managed to dig out a sixties album which seemed to consist of Rolling Stones tracks, including this one:



If you want to pout, ladies, this is how you do it!

I also managed to get a pristine copy of the Penguin hardback publication of You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming. The Bond Girl in the novel is called Kissy Suzuki; I kid you not.

We've also had donated a lot of Folio Society books. These are re-prints of existing popular books in a distinctive, high quality format.