It’s surprising that a work of erotica that was written in the 18th century has now become a classic (a Penguin Classic even). Though I’d hate to admit, it is a refreshing read as it is not a type of book that I regularly come across. Then again, I’m not a forty year old woman who’d spend my spare time at night reading books with prime shirtless Fabio swooning a woman on the cover. So perhaps, if I read enough of this, there wouldn’t have been much of a surprise here, and the classic label is contentious.
It is also surprising that the book was written by a man from the perspective of a woman. I have reservations on this, and reading the book as a man, aloof about what’s going through a woman’s mind while she’s doing it, I really can’t judge its authenticity. Has Cleland broken through the female psychology (as I obviously don’t know any better)? Based on reading through female Goodreads reviewers, no not particularly. Some would say that he missed the mark by a healthy mile. It is equivalent to writing a book from a black perspective while wearing a white skin — It’s just not going to be the same.
It seems that quite a few of women Goodreads reviewers wanted to go back in time and slap the fuck out of John Cleland. Some, though generous in their ratings, were only too keen to point out that Cleland was not accurate, that a woman would choose the path of prostitution more from the necessity of their libido more than their economic situation. Most of the reviewers were men, but I’m not entirely curious about their opinion.
Fanny Hill scores pretty low in Goodreads, though we always, always should take the Goodreads rating with a grain of salt. But regardless of the rating, the controversy and whatnot, I don’t get why this book should be a classic. The prose and language is fine, yes. It came out at around about the same time Richardson’s Pamela was published and Sterne’s Tristam Shandy came about, the latter of which Cleland criticised for being “bawdy”. To which I would ask Cleland: Have you smelled your own ass bro?
In fact, the circumstances surrounding the creation of the book and its publication carry more interest than the book itself. But maybe, this is me mansplaining as a modern reader where pornography is readily available to suit anybody’s tastes. It is an interesting time in the context of the novel itself. Pride and Prejudice won’t have been published for another sixty odd years. The novel was still, well, novel.
And as new innovation always advances for sexuality (think deepfake, the distribution of VHS and streaming platforms for this type of stuff), so it was true for the novel. It is a profitable venture and serves as such. Yet it had smeared the name of the author, who wrote the novel as a side project while he was in the debtor’s prison. Perhaps the isolation and the lack of human contact spurred the author to unleash his fantasies in the novel.
The publication of the novel put Cleland back to prison, along with the publishers. I suppose in a Victorian England with its superficial decencies, a work like this is scandalous. Cleland was forced to renounce his work to clear his name and will never in his life write another published work. Yet, it is difficult to untie the author’s reputation to this chapter in his life, whereupon he had an interesting though unhappy life.
I honestly cannot place this work as anything else but pornography despite the author’s meditations on the last pages on vice and virtue, and as such I won’t spend too much time to rant about it. It is no different than looking at a vintage Parisian postcard depicting sexual acts, and if you’re in for some vintage porn you’re sure in for a treat.
But I can compare this with another book that I read recently of the same vein: Henry Miller’s Under the Roofs of Paris. Miller’s depiction of sexuality was more extreme, almost comical to the point that it became too much, too debauched. Cleland’s work is more sensible as a result of it. Did it work for me as erotic lit? No, I prefer the real thing. It took me a while to finish the book not because of its difficulty, but let’s say during the time I was reading Fanny Hill, I met my own Fanny Hill. I prefer living my own adventures as opposed to be immersed in other’s fictional adventures.
Books can only go so far.
