27. John Cleland:

 

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

written: 1748

(188 pages)

 

read in May 2014

verdict: DISLIKE

 

This time, our choice fell on the infamous Fanny Hill, mainly because of its reputation for being so indecent that it was banned immediately after being published, and the author himself, John Cleland (1709-1789), expressed the wish to "bury and forget" about it. Quite convinced that the book could by no means be as shocking for us modern readers as it had been for its 18th-century audience, we decided to give it a try, to see what all the fuss was about.

 

The memoirs are written in form of a letter from Fanny Hill to an unspecified Madam, in which Fanny confesses the years of her devious lifestyle. Her story is quite a common one back in those times: young, naive and poor, a country girl arrives in London and is being taken advantage of by all sorts of low-life people who force her into prostitution.

 

This setting gives the author ample opportunity to indulge in male sexual fantasies, which seems to have been his only goal, for he thrusts Fanny into all sorts of situations in which men or women try to have their way with her or with each other. And contrary to our expectations that people in the 18th century didn't need much to be shocked and therefore the book would turn out quite mellow by modern standards, the scenes described are actually very graphic. We've read and more or less enjoyed Marquis de Sade, so we're not easily shocked, and this was not the reason why the book was so off-putting. But unfortunately, Cleland seems to build the entire narrative solely on the principle "sexual encounter following yet another sexual encounter", which becomes tiresome after some time. The story itself is a bit thin and each character showing up in the book is merely the literary equivalent of a rubber doll.

 

But most annoying of all was the extreme innocence of the female protagonist. Granted, Fanny must be naive at the beginning of the book, when she arrives fresh from the countryside, but we were hoping that after some time she would adapt to her new position and become a character study with development and improvement. But no. She falls in love almost immediately and instead of trying to become independent, she leaves it all to her lover to care for her, so that, once he is out of her life again, she is just as destitute as at the beginning. Ready to be abused by yet another lecherous man. How boring.

 

We managed to read 66 pages and although there were only 20 more pages to go till the end of the first part, we called it quits. A quick look at Wikipedia told us that the book continues in this vein and that there will be a happy ending. We didn't feel the need to know more. And when we learnt that at one point Fanny sees two men engaging in a homosexual act and is not only revolted by it but actually denounces them, we stopped caring for her altogether. After what she had to suffer, one would have hoped she'd be more tolerant. Stupidity coupled with self-righteousness is not something we care to read about.

 

We really don't see how this book can be called a classic nowadays and Fanny is by no means a strong female protagonist. We didn't even finish the book, so it's a definite DISLIKE this time.