Venus in Furs and Selected Letters

Sadly, I think high expectations spoiled the experience. And when you consider having already read the better part of Chuck Palahniuk's collected stories and experiencing the internet as a teenager, Venus in Furs tends to lose it shock value.

—-
“I now had the leisure to muse about the riddle of human existence, and about its greatest riddle of all-woman.”

This book reads more like a philosophical treatise on Sacher-Masoch's type of love than it does a novel. By today's standards, it is actually extremely chaste.

I found it very romantic and sweet, except for the fact that Sacher-Masoch puts his main character through horrible ordeals, usually involving whippings of some kind.

Also interesting is the fact that the story closely parallels incidents from his life with his wife, Wanda.

This was not only a very engaging classic, it was addicting. I could not stop reading it.
It's so interesting that such forms of submission was discussed so long ago, and it was so peculiar at the time that they had to come up with a new word for it - masochism.

Today it means someone who enjoys pain, and while there is a small mention about enjoying pain in this book, Sacher-Masoch mainly talks about submission, and how he enjoys giving up his freedom to a dominating woman.

I especially loved when he says this- 
“‘God did punish him and deliver him to a woman's hands' I repeated to myself. Well, what could I possibly do to make Him punish me?”

“If you love me, be cruel to me” 

If you're curious about the work that gave birth to masochism, it's definitely worth giving this a read. I was fascinated.