Fanny Redux (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

It is not only its antiquity which makes Fanny Hill a classic of erotica, for it is well told and a truly arousing tale. Yet it was written many years ago and language has changed considerably in the interim. Also its emphasis on virginity and men’s desire to take it; the fainting at first being penetrated; the obsession with penis size, do not resonate as much with a modern audience, yet its depiction of a different and perhaps more innocent view of sexuality is alluring.It had originally been my intention to update Fanny’s story and bring it into the modern era, but on reflection I decided that this would be impossible. A character such as Fanny and the situations she finds herself in would be implausible if not laughable in today’s world. No modern girl could be so naïve. My second thought was to change the language so that the story was more readable, but again this posed problems. Many readers felt that the archaic 18th century language Cleland uses is what give the Memoirs their flavour. Yet others thought this older tongue stood in the way of the eroticism of the tale and that it would be easier to read if the prose was updated. What I have attempted to do, therefore, is to merge these two, thinking that the original will survive in any case and this version might introduce the material to a fresh audience. Though every word might not have been changed, much has been tinkered with in some way to make it more readable. Entire passages, which did not add to the story but were merely over-descriptive baggage, have been discarded, though I have left the plot and characters well alone. But the writing of that era was prone to what we would now regard as purple prose and I have excised, hopefully, with the skill of a surgeon rather than a butcher. Where Cleland might have taken a paragraph I have reduced his essence to a sentence. Excessive adjectives and adverbs have been excised and lengthy sentences chopped to make them more readable. Other sections, especially the erotically descriptive I have left alone as their power lies in the wonderful use of language. This blending of styles will, hopefully, make the text more accessible to the modern reader, but retain the piquancy of the original. I hope you enjoy Fanny as she appears to us through a different lens.