Plaisir D'Amour: An Erotic Memoir of Paris in the 1920s

by Anne-Marie Villefranche

An erotic memoir that recalls Parisian society in the twenties and the sensuous life of amorous adventure

Genres: Erotica, France

247 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[TriCedratops · Rating 2 out of 5]

The setting of 1920s Paris is what drew me to this book along with the premise of it being one woman's penned memoirs of the racy and illicit confidences shared with her by friends and family.
The book is a series of short erotic tales that seem as though the author actually had a hobby and talent for writing erotica as opposed to relaying the racy dalliances of her cohorts.

I'm about half way through and after procrastinating my way through the last few tales, I find myself growing annoyed with the characters and the dialogues between them; it is only some of the slightly bizarre situations the author has created for them that has kept me reading on. I have reached the point that I am not even enjoying the book, but rather have been sticking with it to try and finish it and see what odd scenario the author comes up with next. Alas, I am opting to pack it in - off to the thrift store it goes.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Supposedly an erotic memoir, according to the introduction, the recollections of the Pseudonymous author, it is in actuality a series of fictional erotic vignettes, loosely tied together by the familial relationships of the viewpoint characters. The prose is well done, and I found the vignettes to be enjoyable and surprisingly well written. If you read too many in a row there is a sense of sameness in the encounters, though there is some inventive variety sprinkled in here and there. Not my usual fare, but I found this engaging and pleasant, I enjoyed reading a couple of these per day before bed. If you enjoy erotic fiction with well written prose, this would fit the bill.

[Christopher · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a ridiculous book of soft pornography, but a somewhat intriguing literary mystery. It purports to be the manuscript left behind by the grandmother, Anne-Marie Villefranche, of the “translator” Jane Purcell. These memoirs describe various erotic episodes that supposedly took place among high society in the Paris of the 1920s. One feels immediately that something is off: a web search for Anne-Marie Villefranche and her claimed husbands returns no results, in spite of the fact that people described as these are would have left a documentary trace now picked up by the internet. Moreover, several names (and even the foreword author Jane Purcell) seem to have been lifted from various English books of the sixteenth through eighteenth century.

The cover blurb gives an idea of what was going on: in the late 1970s the collections of Anaïs Nin’s erotica of the Forties, published posthumously, proved an unexpected commercial success and, oddly, in that era conducive to the mainstreaming of smut, they were not considered shameful to their publisher, the respectable Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. This book here was published as an attempt to cash in and was surely written out of whole cloth at this time. Even around its publication some saw through the ruse; Kirkus Reviews, for example, doubted that any of this went back to the 1920s.

The book is very poorly written and of no literary value whatever. The author was fond of successive euphemisms for body parts in an attempt to lend some variety to what is a very repetitive succession of ostensibly titillating moments; the exchange between Maude and The Dude in The Big Lebowski about “johnson” came to mind. After rolling my eyes and reshelving the book, however, I was left with a burning curiosity about who produced this hack-work, whether he/she is still alive today, and how much embarrassment involvement with this production might still cause. However, this book presumably went over like a lead balloon and was quickly forgotten, hence there has apparently been no interest by internet sleuths.

(This was found in the village library of Zitsa, Greece, famous among a small crowd for its motley mix of books from all over the world. It was shelved between a collection of Kim Il Sung speeches in Russian, and a Serbian translation of Camus’ L’Étranger.)

[Nadine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I particularly liked 4 stories in this volume, made me realize how much I enjoy vintage erotica! Did not care for the rest. Even as a lesbian it just hits the way that a woman’s body can be described. Reddit erotica threads do better! Points for the cover being sexy.

[Alan Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, well-written - a classic. Will work my way through the others in the series. 4 stars!