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THERESA AND ISABELLE by Violette Leduc

THERESA AND ISABELLE

By

Pub Date: July 10th, 1967
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

This incident, scarcely more than a hundred pages, was originally intended as part of La Batarde, was published separately in France, and was hugely successful. It is hard to think of it in terms other than its explicit, exploitative erotic content. Such youth. Such passion. Such lyricism. Limpid, liquid. Never have jeunes filles been more en fleur: ""Two pink flowers melted one into the other""; ""kisses like rosettes."" All day, upstairs in the music room of a strict girls' school, in the lavatory, in the room they rent in the village, and two nights in the cubicle of their dormitory--""quivering,"" ""moaning,"" ""swooning,"" ""panting with hunger and longing,"" satisfying it. The little girls who separate each other from their clothes and probe--palp--plunge--are of am indeterminate age (""my lips of a little girl of eight""? the other seems a little older) but have an inexhaustible enthusiasm. Fantastic. ""It's too much. Tell me it's too much."" It's too much.