Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty & Venus in Furs

The book was incredibly affordable and came in better condition than I anticipated. It was also delivered very quickly. Would absolutely use this seller again!

Venus in Furs is undeniably a genuine literary masterpiece. It has been sadly neglected due to Krafft-Ebing's labeling of the author's name as a diagnosis for, well, masochism. It is definitely worth a read, or many, and is wonderful as both a novel-in-itself and as a description of how a fantasy which gets realized can be a terrible thing. To it, I'd give the full five stars.Deleuze's introductory essay, on the other hand, is a very low-quality piece of work. His argumentation is brilliant (as practically always - I admit that I love his works), but the essay itself is completely misleading. This is because it has been based on his ideology and some highly faulty reference material: Krafft-Ebing never bothered with empirics, just quoted mostly literary sources, and what empiric references (e.g. Freud) Deleuze does use were done on psychiatric patients, not what we'd nowadays consider "sado-masochists". Therefore, despite the excellent reasoning in the text, Deleuze arrives into completely ridiculous conclusions that contradict the reality of the phenomenon. As an example of Deleuzian philosophy, the essay is very good. As an analysis of masochism, it is not only worthless, but actually harmful. Read it for the former, but not the latter.

If for no other reason, buy this book to read Venus in Furs. Warning: Deleuze buys into a lot of Freud's notions about gendered family structure. I couldn't make it past chapter 2 as a result. :\ Then everyone told me to read Lacan.University does funny things to people's heads.

Difficult to absorb the concepts as it propels one into the subconsious. Takes time to reflect on one's behaviors and others which allows the reader to examine the duality of the experience.

This text, nearly seminal for its precedent and production, elucidates Masoch's formulations so thoroughly and so elegantly as to revivify the text and render its landscape more full!

Excellent. Thank you!

Didn't care so much for essay portion but they helped me to understand the "idea" of the text a little better.

A good guide in precluding misinterpretations of S/M

Is there a thing such as sadomasochism? How did that term came to be and is it really helpful in studying the symptomatology of various psychic phenomena? Gilles Deleuze, the acute French philosopher presents herein his claims to the contrary. Find out why.An excellent book.