The Ages of Lulu [Anglais] [Broché]

Set in Madrid, this luridly inventive first novel strives to shock but instead proves that a woman's quasi-pornographic erotic fiction can be as mechanical, repetitive, graphic and cerebral as men's contribution to the genre. The story follows the sexual awakening of narrator Lulu, seduced at age 15 by an old family friend, Pablo, who poses as her guardian and then as her father, and who ultimately marries her. Echoes of Sade and The Story of O abound as Lulu has sex with her schoolmistress; enjoys a threesome with Pablo and a transvestite; obsessively beds homosexual men; is blindfolded, tied down and gang-raped; and then is raped by her brother Marcelo. Lulu's struggle to free herself of brutal, alcoholic Pablo's smothering grip, and her fitful concern for her small daughter, Ines, who seems utterly lost and insignificant amid the assorted sexual frenzies, are perfunctory plot elements in an overly busy narrative that reveals an almost fetishistic obsession with sadomasochism, bondage, oral sex, sodomy, depilation, masturbation, voyeurism and so forth.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

This first-person narrative follows the modern sexual exploits of Lulu, beginning with her teenage sexual initiation with her brother's older friend Pablo and continuing up to her mid-thirties. Lulu, whose experiences seem to come from the pen of the Marquis de Sade, is totally obsessed and dominated by Pablo. Despite Pablo's compulsive involvement with young girls, they marry and have a daughter named Ines. Lulu seeks her own sexual gratification, which involves transvestites, prostitution, sodomy, and sadomasochism. A nightmarish party, orchestrated by Pablo, accompanied by a variety of violent and sadistic episodes concludes this debut work of erotica that comes from a world of fantasy where our present-day fear of AIDS and other diseases doesn't exist. Although Grandes's writing is serviceable, the plot is not very compelling, and the characterizations are shallow even by erotica standards. The pornographic descriptions may offend many readers. Not essential for most collections.
David A. Berona, Westbrook Coll. Lib., Portland, Me.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

This intensely erotic novel consists of the sexual awakening and subsequent adventures of Maria Luisa Ruiz-Poveda y Garcia de la Casa, a young woman from Madrid whose middle-class family calls her Lulu. Lulu's erotic tastes are always on the cutting edge: When just a schoolgirl, she is seduced by the much older Pablo, a friend of her older brother with a thing for adolescent girls. Later, while in the university, she is initiated into various nonmainstream sexual practices by Pablo, now a professor. Lulu develops an avid taste for Madrid's seamier sexual subcultures, ranging from bisexual group sex to a graphically depicted, nearly fatal bout with rough trade. Powerfully written and imparting a disturbing, immediate impact, Grandes' novel, like those of such other Grove authors as De Sade and R{‚}eage, might rouse the ire of censorious citizens in many libraries' communities, yet on purely literary grounds, it is a powerful essay into the darker side of female sexuality. John Shreffler --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

A self-consciously erotic novel set in Madrid by a first-time Spanish author, published in the UK last year and translated (noticeably, irritatingly) for a British readership. Like The Story of O and other Grove shockers from the heyday of the publisher's battles against censorship, The Ages of Lulu seems designed to titillate American readers with its vaguely elegant (read: European), louche sexual hedonism sanctified by the aura of the artistic. But with so much good dirty stuff available now, with all the battles fought and won for Burroughs and Rechy, with Sade receiving a major figure's classy biography last year, do we need this? Readers may be inclined to say no just a few pages into the preposterous opening: a description of the entranced Lulu watching a fabulous porn video, ``a thick thread of transparent saliva [hanging] from [her] bottom lip.'' We then see Lulu as a teen lose her virginity to her brother's pal, Pablo; later, after becoming a classics scholar (her specialty is translations of the saucy Roman poet Martial), she marries him but still has sexual hungers that compel her to cruise gay bars and do threesomes. (No condom makes an appearance at any time.) Later still, she leaves Pablo and has such a good time in some S&M play that she experiences a brush with death. Lulu is poked with scissor points, blindfolded, and roughly sodomized by anonymous strangers--but she always ends up loving it, and there's no enlightenment, even of the cheapest kind. The novel is written as if we live in repressed times, as if the act of reading it should be liberating. But it's not: It's a deadpan-dumb flesh book with Spanish characters who sound like Londoners. There are some semidangerous frissons to be had, but even so, plodding through this series of sex friezes is as engaging as reading a book of carpet samples. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

A classic erotic novel that has sold over 1 million copies worldwide and been translated into 21 languages --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.