THE PENGUIN BOOK OF EROTIC STORIES BY WOMEN

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THE PENGUIN BOOK OF EROTIC STORIES BY WOMEN

Name: THE PENGUIN BOOK OF EROTIC STORIES BY WOMEN
Author: Richard Glyn Jones
ISBN: 0-670-86620-2

edited by Richard Glyn Jones & A. Susan Williams ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1996

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The poet Adrienne Rich's definition of the erotic, cited in the Introduction to this remarkably diverse anthology, sums up the thread that ties these works together. In female terms, Rich argues, the erotic is ``an energy not only diffuse but. . . omnipresent.'' The stories here, ranging from work by well-known writers (Katherine Mansfield, Colette) to those little known in this country (Siv Holm, Nicole Jouve), and dealing with such matters as obsessive love (Claire Rabe's ``Sicily Enough''), the intersection of fantasy and desire (Angela Carter's ``Flesh and the Mirror''), or the struggle for equality (Simone de Beauvoir's ``Marcelle''), all demonstrate the extent to which the erotic has as much to do with emotional honesty and the imagination as it does with physical intimacy. A nicely balanced collection of provocative versions of desire.

Pub Date: May 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-670-86620-2

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE STORY OF HONG GILDONG

translated by Minsoo Kang ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 2016

If you read only one book about Korean heroic outlaws this season, this should be the one.

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The famed saga of Korea’s bandit prince comes in for a new translation, if one that’s not quite idiomatic.

“Kick me with full force, so that I may know your strength.” Not exactly the sort of thing that one would cry out in the midst of some emotional moment, not exactly the most memorable of challenges. Yet, the statement and its rejoinder—“But after you kicked me I could feel my organs vibrate and my body shiver, so I know that you are a man of tremendous power”—alert us that we are in the Land of Translation, a place lots of readers associate with mustiness, fustiness, and all-around yawns. The most exciting of Hong Gildong’s adventures come to us in a chrome of not-quite-English. In fairness, he has many of them.The anonymous early modern epic celebrates the deeds of a lowborn lad, the son of a concubine, whose abilities—“He needed to hear only one thing to understand ten, and learning ten things allowed him to master a hundred”—did not go unremarked in court but naturally excited intrigue and jealousy. What’s a good prince to do? Go off and battle for truth, justice, and the Korean way, of course, taking up cause with the merry bandits of the Taebaek Mountains, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, and doing suchlike things that would meet with the approval of a checklist-wielding Joseph Campbell: liminality, check. Near-death experience, check. Students of comparative mythology will be interested to see how bits of other literatures (especially Arthurian) turn up in Hong Gildong’s story. The introduction might have made more of this lineage and discussed in more detail how modern Korean writers make use of the story in their work, but it does a competent job overall of placing the book in the context of Korean literature.

If you read only one book about Korean heroic outlaws this season, this should be the one.

Pub Date: March 15, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-14-310769-9

Page Count: 128

Publisher: Penguin

Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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YESTERDAY

by Fern Michaels ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999

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Paralyzingly prolific romancer Michaels has her ups and downs, from the total nonsense of Finders Keepers (1998) to the exemplary plotting of Celebration (p. 103), in which a wealthy woman’s husband flees with her bank account after a 20-year marriage, only to return years later with a sob story but minus the eight million he ran off with. This latest finds the author working in her wildly unlikely mode, with a big mix of mind-bending plot turns. Callie Parker has been raised on a South Carolina plantation by her wealthy father, Clemson. During her childhood and adolescence, Dad and Mama Pearl helped Callie gather three close friends to bond with: the illegitimate orphan Bode Jessup, a kind of brother and idol for Callie; Brie Canfield, whose heart leaps when Clemson takes her in as Callie’s playmate; and Sela Bronson, a poor girl famished for love and grateful for every attention from the Parker family. Comes the day of Callie’s wedding to supremely wealthy Wyn Archer, promising a future afloat on every possible luxury. But the night before the ceremony, an auto accident caused by Wyn’s careless driving puts Callie into a coma—and from the vortex of the coma will rise many “family” secrets of parentage involving the bride-to-be and her friends. Bubble upon breaking bubble as the suds pop. Strictly for the fans.