Venus in Furs cover art

Venus in Furs

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Venus in Furs

By: Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Narrated by: Zachary Johnson, Verla Bond
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A must-listen for every classic erotica fan! Performed as a duet by Zachary Johnson and Verla Bond.

The term “Masochist” comes from Austrian author Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch, whose fantasies inspired him to write Venus in Furs in 1870. The story is an account of a man named Severin, who is obsessed with being enslaved by a despotic woman in furs. He finds his ideal in a young widow named Wanda: a reluctant domme who discovers her sadistic tendencies through their twisted love affair.

Venus in Furs was translated into English by Fernanda Savage in 1921.

Public Domain (P)2021 Verla Bond Action & Adventure Classics BDSM Solar System
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Verla Bond gives a fine performance as Wanda here, and Zachary Johnson handles the absurd character of Severin competently enough but one always feels they are struggling to bring out what might pass as quality from a flawed text. There are faint forerunners here of what Freud was to formalise and bring to wider public consciousness in the decades ahead, but the book can hardly be said to be a legitimate foundation of psychoanalytical theory. It is for the most part an absurd fantasy.

This book has been on my list of reads for some time now, and I’m glad to have ticked it off as a curiosity, but I won’t be re-reading it, I think. However, I will look with interest at other performances by these two talented performers.

Strong performances of a weak work of art

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