Rating: 
Summary: Thank you Madam, may I have another?
Review: This is an extraordinary work of sexual deviation. It goes without say that Sacher-Masoch supplied the M in S & M. This novel which mirrors a relationship in Sacher-Masochs real life is a disarmingly sensual tale. While I have no desire to be tied up and whipped, I found myself deeply engrossed in Severins plight into abuse and humiliation. This philosophy of the hammer or the anvil is interesting to me. Obviously, Severin prefers to be the anvil to Wandas hammer. This confuses me as I believe in human dignity but to each his own. I can not agree with the hammer or anvil theory but I suppose that it is a formula that works for many people. It apparently was quite thrilling to Sacher-Masoch. This is an amazingly frank work. It is sensual and poignant simultaneously. Reccommended.
Rating:
Summary: Thank you Madam, may I have another?
Review: This is an extraordinary work of sexual deviation. It goes without say that Sacher-Masoch supplied the M in S & M. This novel which mirrors a relationship in Sacher-Masochs real life is a disarmingly sensual tale. While I have no desire to be tied up and whipped, I found myself deeply engrossed in Severins plight into abuse and humiliation. This philosophy of the hammer or the anvil is interesting to me. Obviously, Severin prefers to be the anvil to Wandas hammer. This confuses me as I believe in human dignity but to each his own. I can not agree with the hammer or anvil theory but I suppose that it is a formula that works for many people. It apparently was quite thrilling to Sacher-Masoch. This is an amazingly frank work. It is sensual and poignant simultaneously. Reccommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A Deeply Spiritual Book
Review: Venus in Furs is one of the most spritual works of erotica I've ever read. Much has been made of its "perversity", to the extent that the name of its author is also the name of a psycho-sexual disfunction. However, I feel that this is a grossly unfair way to treat a book that deals so beautifully with the descent and return of a man through his psyche. Sevrin's tale is one of submission, slavery, and redemption. It is through the experience of being a woman's slave that he realizes his own worth. To treat this as an epic of laciviousness is puritanism of the lowest kind. Venus in Furs also reminds us that the difference between hammer and anvil may not be so clear cut. It is Severin who brings out the whip in his lover. He then reaps the whirlwind, and can only ride it out. This book is recommended for people who can see though the drivel that has been dripped upon it since its creation.
Rating:
Summary: A Deeply Spiritual Book
Review: Venus in Furs is one of the most spritual works of erotica I've ever read. Much has been made of its "perversity", to the extent that the name of its author is also the name of a psycho-sexual disfunction. However, I feel that this is a grossly unfair way to treat a book that deals so beautifully with the descent and return of a man through his psyche. Sevrin's tale is one of submission, slavery, and redemption. It is through the experience of being a woman's slave that he realizes his own worth. To treat this as an epic of laciviousness is puritanism of the lowest kind. Venus in Furs also reminds us that the difference between hammer and anvil may not be so clear cut. It is Severin who brings out the whip in his lover. He then reaps the whirlwind, and can only ride it out. This book is recommended for people who can see though the drivel that has been dripped upon it since its creation.
Rating: 
Summary: Becomes boring, monotonous, ultimately bourgeois fantasy
Review: When i first started reading this book, i was thrilled to find one so literary, beautiful, and exciting. The characters were entertaining, intelligent, and the story was beautifully described, especially the scenes with the statue and the garden. Yet, after 40 pages, the masochism and sadism became frankly boring, and repetative. As Wanda invented new ways to torture Severin, she really wasn't inventing anything new, just more of the same old. Ironically, what at first seems like a progressive, amoral book, reveals itself as really a naughty fantasy of a very conservative mind, and all Wanda and Severin want to do is get married. Can anything be more boring than that? This is true perversion, and not really thinking outside of the box.
Rating:
Summary: derivation of the term "masochism"
Review: _Venus in Furs, a Novel: Letters of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Emilie Mataja_ by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch contains the both the story "Venus in Furs" and a selection of letters between Sacher-Masoch and budding writer, Emilie Mataja.
"Venus in Furs" is about a man who is obsessed with having his new mistress treat him like a slave. In particular, he wants her to become his ideal "venus in furs" and begs her to don furs and wield a whip against him. His desire to be treated as such is tested when she convinces him to sign an agreement to be her slave. The story is well-written, and one becomes drawn into the misery experienced by the man as his mistress becomes progressively more cruel.
The letters between Sacher- Masoch and Mataja show Sacher-Masoch's inability at times to separate his fiction from his real life. Sacher-Masoch speaks of his married life and encourages Mataja in her writing, but his
professional encouragement is shot through with requests to meet Mataja so that he can be whipped by her while she is wearing fur.
Although there are certainly more graphically erotic examples present in current fiction, this book is a must read for those wanting to know why Sacher-Masoch's writings inspired Krafft-Ebing to create the term "masochism."
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