What do you think?
Rate this book
Catherine M
Jealousy: The Other Life of Catherine M.
Catherine Millet’s best-selling The Sexual Life of Catherine M. was a landmark book—a portrait of a sexual life lived without boundaries and without a safety net. Described as “eloquent, graphic—and sometimes even poignant” by Newsweek , and as “[perhaps] one of the most erotic books ever written” by Playboy , it drew international attention for its audacity and the apparently superhuman sangfroid of Millet and her partner, Jacques Henric, with whom she had an extremely public and active open relationship. Millet’s follow-up answers the first book’s implicit how do you avoid jealousy? “I had love at home,” Millet explains. “I sought only pleasure in the world outside.” But one day she discovers a letter in their apartment that makes clear Jacques is seriously involved with someone else. Jealousy details the crisis provoked by this discovery, and Millet’s attempts to reconcile her need for freedom and sexual liberation with the very real heartache that Jacques’s infidelity causes. If The Sexual Life of Catherine M. seemed to disregard emotion, Jealousy is its radical the paradoxical confession of a libertine who discovers that love, in any of its forms, can have a dark side.
185 pages, Hardcover
Published February 2, 2010
22 people are currently reading
329 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
February 19, 2011
Good lord is this book pretentious. File this one under French sluts who think they're Plato.
The nonchalant sexual libertinism that marked Millet's attitude in her previous book, The Sexual Life of Catherine M., has given way to jealousy in this sequel memoir, in the wake of her discovery of the side amours of her lover, Jacques, with whom she is having a relatively monogamous relationship. She realizes her reactions are hypocritical and complex, and her attempts to sort through and hash out these feelings and their sources make up the contents of the book. Millet is thoughtful and meticulous in the process, probably too much so, and the result becomes wearisome and exhausting very quickly.
The Sexual Life of Catherine M. had a little something for everyone: dirty sex interwoven with thoughtful musings about same. This time we get mostly the philosophy; her rambles are often so long-winded that it's no surprise that she had the stamina to give good blowjobs.
This is one of those books where words like "onanism" and "anodyne" are used repeatedly instead of words like "masturbation" and "soothing." In fact, there should be a drinking game for every time "anodyne" is used in this book; it would make for a welcome anodyne for the painful reading.
To her credit, Millet admits on page 77: "I am not always as acute as my eye is sharp -- as you can see from this book."
Millet continually goes off on analytic rambles and in the course of them I often wondered how she got from point A to point Z. Or, by the time I got to point Z I'd forgotten what the hell point A had been.
Several times she'll write something overanalytically, then repeat it more directly with the preface: "In other words," which makes you wonder why she just didn't go the more direct route to begin with.
I honestly don't think there's enough here for a whole book. Millet beats a dead horse so as to to see what a dead horse looks like at various stages of tenderizing and decay.
So, it's off to find a book better suited to my onanism and anodyne relief.
The nonchalant sexual libertinism that marked Millet's attitude in her previous book, The Sexual Life of Catherine M., has given way to jealousy in this sequel memoir, in the wake of her discovery of the side amours of her lover, Jacques, with whom she is having a relatively monogamous relationship. She realizes her reactions are hypocritical and complex, and her attempts to sort through and hash out these feelings and their sources make up the contents of the book. Millet is thoughtful and meticulous in the process, probably too much so, and the result becomes wearisome and exhausting very quickly.
The Sexual Life of Catherine M. had a little something for everyone: dirty sex interwoven with thoughtful musings about same. This time we get mostly the philosophy; her rambles are often so long-winded that it's no surprise that she had the stamina to give good blowjobs.
This is one of those books where words like "onanism" and "anodyne" are used repeatedly instead of words like "masturbation" and "soothing." In fact, there should be a drinking game for every time "anodyne" is used in this book; it would make for a welcome anodyne for the painful reading.
To her credit, Millet admits on page 77: "I am not always as acute as my eye is sharp -- as you can see from this book."
Millet continually goes off on analytic rambles and in the course of them I often wondered how she got from point A to point Z. Or, by the time I got to point Z I'd forgotten what the hell point A had been.
Several times she'll write something overanalytically, then repeat it more directly with the preface: "In other words," which makes you wonder why she just didn't go the more direct route to begin with.
I honestly don't think there's enough here for a whole book. Millet beats a dead horse so as to to see what a dead horse looks like at various stages of tenderizing and decay.
So, it's off to find a book better suited to my onanism and anodyne relief.
October 16, 2024
Daca viata libertina si amoroasa a scriitoarei Catherinei Miller a intrigat si uneori fascinat, dupa renuntarea la orgiile "normale", ce a ramas?
A ramas o Catherine ce uneori mai calca stramb in amintirea a ce a fost sau poate din lipsa celor la care a renuntat. Insa, cel mai crud adevar a ramasa sa o tortureze, chinuita de gelozie, abia atunci cand a vazut cu adevarat realitatea.
.....
Gasiti recenzia completa pe pagina mea de instagram @reading_on_my_way
A ramas o Catherine ce uneori mai calca stramb in amintirea a ce a fost sau poate din lipsa celor la care a renuntat. Insa, cel mai crud adevar a ramasa sa o tortureze, chinuita de gelozie, abia atunci cand a vazut cu adevarat realitatea.
.....
Gasiti recenzia completa pe pagina mea de instagram @reading_on_my_way
February 25, 2014
http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/7776070...
It is said that the future narrows once we cease to believe it is eternal…___Catherine Millet
I am over fifty pages into my new read by Catherine Millet titled Jealousy and I have to say that this memoir is far more cerebral than The Sexual Life of Catherine M.. There is plenty of hard core sexual intelligence on the pages of her first graphic memoir, but this particular book hasn’t even offered a hint of decadent indulgences as yet. In her opening she is obviously leading up to why she wrote this book and she is taking her sweet time about it. Not that it isn’t worth reading. The book reminds me of a sort of text book as she drops the names of pertinent philosophers and film makers whose influences were made on what she is writing, and at some point it is hoped she begins to feel something besides her own thinking about it. She is analyzing everything.
I feel the letter she found regarding her husband’s romantic involvement with somebody other than herself, the letter that we were previously warned about in the commercial hype of blurbs and jacket notes, is beginning to be revealed, and the dealings to follow are why we are reading her again in the first place. That, and to get a few more erotic details regarding her sexual escapades, if truth be told. And why not? Why not tell the truth as she so boldly and bravely did in the first book, unsettling the nerves and relaxed muscles now poised in my chair and ready to do battle with distractions everywhere.
The travel that is still necessary to her business causes Catherine to delay her direct dealings with her husband over this matter. Far away she is left to her own devices, her mind dredging up old memories, crafting scenarios in which she sees her husband having sex in several positions in different rooms of special houses. All a fabrication in the mind of Catherine M., but there is no denying the trysts did take place without her knowledge of them. What was previously taboo in the couple’s relationship is now front and center on the stove, and the telephone blazes long distance with the truth and lies still to be told and believed in. The discovery of a new Catherine M. involves the old one as well as every man she ever put herself in intimate company with. Everything has changed for Catherine upon learning of her husband’s love for another woman than herself. What once was just in her mind a sexual act has become something more dangerous and frighteningly defenseless.
I see perhaps where this memoir is going. In her first book Catherine maintained she had sex with a thousand others simply to have sex and be willingly taken across taboos she would never choose by her own doing. She allowed herself to be led into these sexual adventures in order to feel freed and less prejudiced. There was never any emotional link to any of the strangers she let physically inside her. But her husband, Jacques, on the other hand, had developed emotional ties to a young pregnant woman, and Catherine discovered this secret relationship after viewing nude photographs her husband had taken of the girl with her legs splayed open and clearly pregnant, something Catherine could no longer become, I assume, after having already had three abortions during her active past. The other relationships she discovered in his journals and love letters were also obviously emotional attachments he had kept from her. It was their mutual taboo, their understanding and agreement as a couple, that the lovers they each would take for sex would be kept private from each other, and through the years Catherine had no problem with that arrangement. Jacques claimed he wanted no longer to hear any more of the stories she willingly would tell him when they had first met. But when she discovered the letters, photographs, and journals her husband kept and realized these women were more than just sex partners her imaginings became devastating to her. Left to her own fantastical world she habitually inhabited, even at work or play, Catherine M. was feeling herself crazy and completely out of sorts.
Her obsession with Jacques grew until not only was she climbing up the stairs to his studio almost every day to further her investigative work, but she was beginning to remove items and keep them in her own drawer for the purpose of dealing with her grief, at least for the moments she looked at them, more straight on. That did not prevent her thinking of vengeance, feeling like an extra in his new film, or fantasizing now about Jacques and his lovers having sex, instead of her own fantasies she had employed for many years that no longer worked for her. She was feeling her life becoming undone.
Catherine still had not confronted Jacques about these lovers, he had no knowledge of her spying on him, and I am certain all this will have to be dealt with by book’s end. But so far I am half way through and there is still much ground to cover. The writing is so good. The book reads like a novel almost. I find similarities to my favorite philosopher Gilles Deleuze as she lets the writing discover for itself where she is going. There is no hurry and the rhythm is so enjoyable. I am not wanting this book to end. I feel in matters of intimate relationships, sexual experimentation, and the subsequent discovery that nothing really does ever end, that each answer creates a new question if one is willing to go deeper and deeper into the object of their personal desire. I feel this is an important book and somehow it has been discounted because it came on the heels of a somewhat pornographic sex memoir. This is an important academic textbook in many ways. It is most definitely a serious social study of our human condition.
Another page torn from one of Jacques’ journal and stuffed into the pocket of a robe he wore on vacation finally offers the tipping point for Catherine and Jacques after one year enmeshed in their crisis together. Whereas previous arguments, discussions, and graphic emotional upheavals between the two allowed nothing sympathetic or even empathetic to issue from Jacques, arriving home to see the torn journal page and a note from Catherine finally makes its mark on him. Suddenly he is remorseful and wanting to make things right with her as she is shivering, frightfully coiled in the fetus position in the back bedroom. Jacques becomes everything she was hoping for each time she had pressed him for details throughout the running year of her suffering. But it is almost too late as Catherine is finally pushed over the line of her grief, feeling as she did when she learned her mother had committed suicide. Her memory holding what remained of that day when she identified the body and witnessed the open window her mother had jumped from and the stool in front of it she used to climb in order to fling herself out. I am gratefully prescient to the fact that Catherine must eventually recover somewhat enough from her demented crisis in order to write this intelligent book, but at this point in the memoir she is suffering in savage proportions.
I have only four more pages to go in my reading of Catherine Millet’s Jealousy. I am deeply saddened and seemingly feeling adrift in a new tumbling and vacant sea she has made for me. My despair at not having another book of Millet’s to read is tempting me to look for her book on Salvador Dali who she mentions briefly twice in Jealousy. Dali is one iconic art figure who said he could live without anyone, and now she has perked my curiosity for what she may have discovered for herself while writing her book on Dali. I am aware of Dali’s rather rich existence in his personal world of fantasy. I know about Millet’s. I am being honest about my own in light of what I know now. I prefer my virtual world over a reality that hurts too much, that is so lacking in meeting my needs. I understand why these fantasizers do it, why they embrace a world of their own making. I have done it often enough in my poetry. It is not as easy as it looks. Millet’s fantasies were well-developed, but still not strong enough to take on the reality of her relationship with Jacques. But she found a way to incorporate the real lovers in his life into her own masturbatory imaginations. She embraced her pain with feelings of ecstasy.
People like Catherine Millet are easily tossed to the side, discounted for their perverted and deviant ideas, especially if they are of a sexual nature and extremely promiscuous as hers are. But a writer like Millet cannot be discounted. She is too good, too fine, to operative in her compositions of excellence to be denied. There is truth in every thing she says. I cannot believe I found her. What a lucky fortune I have made by delving into my own obsessions and fantasies. It can only be hoped we still hear more from Catherine Millet and I, for one, will be looking for her.
A most important sentence I found within the last few pages of this fine book is revealed within the light of herself as she was writing this memoir. The sentence could not be more true or better written. It is worth studying completely as if understanding it potentially becomes a part of your final grade:
The distance we set between ourselves and the events of our past life, which reduces their scale, the backlog of things we failed to notice at the time, the logic which connects them, which back then was invisible, the light shed on them by the epoch they belong to, which mankind already considers a moribund piece of history, their ultimate strangeness, which makes us look back on the person we were as though they were a different being, all these things conspire to turn our past into a dream.
It is said that the future narrows once we cease to believe it is eternal…___Catherine Millet
I am over fifty pages into my new read by Catherine Millet titled Jealousy and I have to say that this memoir is far more cerebral than The Sexual Life of Catherine M.. There is plenty of hard core sexual intelligence on the pages of her first graphic memoir, but this particular book hasn’t even offered a hint of decadent indulgences as yet. In her opening she is obviously leading up to why she wrote this book and she is taking her sweet time about it. Not that it isn’t worth reading. The book reminds me of a sort of text book as she drops the names of pertinent philosophers and film makers whose influences were made on what she is writing, and at some point it is hoped she begins to feel something besides her own thinking about it. She is analyzing everything.
I feel the letter she found regarding her husband’s romantic involvement with somebody other than herself, the letter that we were previously warned about in the commercial hype of blurbs and jacket notes, is beginning to be revealed, and the dealings to follow are why we are reading her again in the first place. That, and to get a few more erotic details regarding her sexual escapades, if truth be told. And why not? Why not tell the truth as she so boldly and bravely did in the first book, unsettling the nerves and relaxed muscles now poised in my chair and ready to do battle with distractions everywhere.
The travel that is still necessary to her business causes Catherine to delay her direct dealings with her husband over this matter. Far away she is left to her own devices, her mind dredging up old memories, crafting scenarios in which she sees her husband having sex in several positions in different rooms of special houses. All a fabrication in the mind of Catherine M., but there is no denying the trysts did take place without her knowledge of them. What was previously taboo in the couple’s relationship is now front and center on the stove, and the telephone blazes long distance with the truth and lies still to be told and believed in. The discovery of a new Catherine M. involves the old one as well as every man she ever put herself in intimate company with. Everything has changed for Catherine upon learning of her husband’s love for another woman than herself. What once was just in her mind a sexual act has become something more dangerous and frighteningly defenseless.
I see perhaps where this memoir is going. In her first book Catherine maintained she had sex with a thousand others simply to have sex and be willingly taken across taboos she would never choose by her own doing. She allowed herself to be led into these sexual adventures in order to feel freed and less prejudiced. There was never any emotional link to any of the strangers she let physically inside her. But her husband, Jacques, on the other hand, had developed emotional ties to a young pregnant woman, and Catherine discovered this secret relationship after viewing nude photographs her husband had taken of the girl with her legs splayed open and clearly pregnant, something Catherine could no longer become, I assume, after having already had three abortions during her active past. The other relationships she discovered in his journals and love letters were also obviously emotional attachments he had kept from her. It was their mutual taboo, their understanding and agreement as a couple, that the lovers they each would take for sex would be kept private from each other, and through the years Catherine had no problem with that arrangement. Jacques claimed he wanted no longer to hear any more of the stories she willingly would tell him when they had first met. But when she discovered the letters, photographs, and journals her husband kept and realized these women were more than just sex partners her imaginings became devastating to her. Left to her own fantastical world she habitually inhabited, even at work or play, Catherine M. was feeling herself crazy and completely out of sorts.
Her obsession with Jacques grew until not only was she climbing up the stairs to his studio almost every day to further her investigative work, but she was beginning to remove items and keep them in her own drawer for the purpose of dealing with her grief, at least for the moments she looked at them, more straight on. That did not prevent her thinking of vengeance, feeling like an extra in his new film, or fantasizing now about Jacques and his lovers having sex, instead of her own fantasies she had employed for many years that no longer worked for her. She was feeling her life becoming undone.
Catherine still had not confronted Jacques about these lovers, he had no knowledge of her spying on him, and I am certain all this will have to be dealt with by book’s end. But so far I am half way through and there is still much ground to cover. The writing is so good. The book reads like a novel almost. I find similarities to my favorite philosopher Gilles Deleuze as she lets the writing discover for itself where she is going. There is no hurry and the rhythm is so enjoyable. I am not wanting this book to end. I feel in matters of intimate relationships, sexual experimentation, and the subsequent discovery that nothing really does ever end, that each answer creates a new question if one is willing to go deeper and deeper into the object of their personal desire. I feel this is an important book and somehow it has been discounted because it came on the heels of a somewhat pornographic sex memoir. This is an important academic textbook in many ways. It is most definitely a serious social study of our human condition.
Another page torn from one of Jacques’ journal and stuffed into the pocket of a robe he wore on vacation finally offers the tipping point for Catherine and Jacques after one year enmeshed in their crisis together. Whereas previous arguments, discussions, and graphic emotional upheavals between the two allowed nothing sympathetic or even empathetic to issue from Jacques, arriving home to see the torn journal page and a note from Catherine finally makes its mark on him. Suddenly he is remorseful and wanting to make things right with her as she is shivering, frightfully coiled in the fetus position in the back bedroom. Jacques becomes everything she was hoping for each time she had pressed him for details throughout the running year of her suffering. But it is almost too late as Catherine is finally pushed over the line of her grief, feeling as she did when she learned her mother had committed suicide. Her memory holding what remained of that day when she identified the body and witnessed the open window her mother had jumped from and the stool in front of it she used to climb in order to fling herself out. I am gratefully prescient to the fact that Catherine must eventually recover somewhat enough from her demented crisis in order to write this intelligent book, but at this point in the memoir she is suffering in savage proportions.
I have only four more pages to go in my reading of Catherine Millet’s Jealousy. I am deeply saddened and seemingly feeling adrift in a new tumbling and vacant sea she has made for me. My despair at not having another book of Millet’s to read is tempting me to look for her book on Salvador Dali who she mentions briefly twice in Jealousy. Dali is one iconic art figure who said he could live without anyone, and now she has perked my curiosity for what she may have discovered for herself while writing her book on Dali. I am aware of Dali’s rather rich existence in his personal world of fantasy. I know about Millet’s. I am being honest about my own in light of what I know now. I prefer my virtual world over a reality that hurts too much, that is so lacking in meeting my needs. I understand why these fantasizers do it, why they embrace a world of their own making. I have done it often enough in my poetry. It is not as easy as it looks. Millet’s fantasies were well-developed, but still not strong enough to take on the reality of her relationship with Jacques. But she found a way to incorporate the real lovers in his life into her own masturbatory imaginations. She embraced her pain with feelings of ecstasy.
People like Catherine Millet are easily tossed to the side, discounted for their perverted and deviant ideas, especially if they are of a sexual nature and extremely promiscuous as hers are. But a writer like Millet cannot be discounted. She is too good, too fine, to operative in her compositions of excellence to be denied. There is truth in every thing she says. I cannot believe I found her. What a lucky fortune I have made by delving into my own obsessions and fantasies. It can only be hoped we still hear more from Catherine Millet and I, for one, will be looking for her.
A most important sentence I found within the last few pages of this fine book is revealed within the light of herself as she was writing this memoir. The sentence could not be more true or better written. It is worth studying completely as if understanding it potentially becomes a part of your final grade:
The distance we set between ourselves and the events of our past life, which reduces their scale, the backlog of things we failed to notice at the time, the logic which connects them, which back then was invisible, the light shed on them by the epoch they belong to, which mankind already considers a moribund piece of history, their ultimate strangeness, which makes us look back on the person we were as though they were a different being, all these things conspire to turn our past into a dream.
May 9, 2010
So, it’s Mother’s Day here and I just don’t understand any of it. Like this….
A friend warned me yesterday that it was going to be Mother’s Day today and had I forgotten? Well, not so much forgotten as not noticed, but I’m not a mother, Stephen, so? There are advantages, you see, to not being one. But you have one, he replied. That’s easy. My mother would kill me if I so much as mentioned such a piece of marketing crap designed to make mothers feel even worse than they did before.
Lined up at the Post Office a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t help wondering about the movies you could buy for your mother leading up to the big day. Lots of Audrey Hepburn, for example. Why? Why a bunch of movies about other women looking better and managing better and having better husbands and – is that really what mothers want? Wouldn’t they want sex videos of men with useful attributes and a chance to say to hubby why can’t you do that?
As it happened, last night, I was at a dinner party the point of which was to induce a baby. This was mostly done with basil and chilli, though as far as I know it didn’t work. Picture, if you please, Kate and Michael. Michael pours himself a drop or two of wine. Kate snarls what are you doing. Um, Michael tentatively replies, having some wine? Kate snarls back how come I’m not allowed to have wine and you are?
Huh? I mean, really. HUH!!!! What the fuck’s going on here? Well, I knew, and I was a bit surprised Kate hadn’t noticed, but anyway, I thought I’d point it out. Helllooo, Kate. You are about to have a baby? And your husband isn’t? It doesn’t matter, though, what I think. The woman went and had some wine because it’s all about being equal and that’s what makes them equal. If he has wine then she will too even if she shouldn’t. Honestly. Where do people get this puerile idea that this is what equality is? I wonder if the guy’s expected to have a crap while her baby’s coming out because that’s as close as he’s going to get to the experience. Is she going to be squatting on her bed (or whatever it is they do) saying ‘Well I’m ready, are you ready, Michael?’ and a bit later ‘Michael. What the fuck? It’s just a crap, get on with it.’ ‘That’s all very well for you to say, dear, but you know very well this is a very special crap and I have to get it just right. You know what they said at the clinic about this.’ I wish men didn’t have to be girls these days.
I felt like saying to Michael dump her. Right now. You’re a nice looking chap and you can come with me. But. I no longer have sex with Michaels. I lived with one for quite a while, greatly regretted it and really I just don’t want to get that close to one again. Which is a pity since one of the better offers of sex I’ve had lately has been from a Michael and the whole situation isn’t readily explicable. In fact, I’m thinking I might have to back down on my principles here. The last few nights I’ve been to a couple of dinner parties, I’ve met four very nice men, and….they are all called Michael. Every one of them.
I’m dying to have sex, I mean, really, dying. So if you are reading this and keen and your name’s Michael, do me a favour. Tell me the truth about everything. The wives, the children, the commitments, the psycho stuff you want to do, the psycho stuff you want me to do. No problem, honestly, I don’t care. But lie about the name. Please?
The weird thing about all this is that as far as I can tell it’s only a female thing, this idea that has such a following now about everybody having to share what the woman’s going through. I’m thinking especially of those women who make their husbands diet because they are. If I can’t eat dessert, then you can’t. It’s sick!!!!
What about this: e a bloke whose electric drill breaks down in the back shed. So he brings a hammer into the kitchen, smashes the Bamix with it, because that will make the two of them equal, his wife will be properly sharing his moment of frustration.
Equality isn’t about all being the same. Why is that such a hard concept to understand?
PS: just in case it isn't clear. I have not read this book. But I ran out of room on my other Millet book review, so...
Oh, I forgot. Speaking of woman and men being equal and the same, I like this:
That's the cartoon, but Randall Munroe did a bit of actual work on this and found out that the difference between genders wasn't that big on colours.
But then, to quote:
But I don't. Imagine a world where men liked dusty rose as much as women do. It's some place I don't want to be....
A friend warned me yesterday that it was going to be Mother’s Day today and had I forgotten? Well, not so much forgotten as not noticed, but I’m not a mother, Stephen, so? There are advantages, you see, to not being one. But you have one, he replied. That’s easy. My mother would kill me if I so much as mentioned such a piece of marketing crap designed to make mothers feel even worse than they did before.
Lined up at the Post Office a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t help wondering about the movies you could buy for your mother leading up to the big day. Lots of Audrey Hepburn, for example. Why? Why a bunch of movies about other women looking better and managing better and having better husbands and – is that really what mothers want? Wouldn’t they want sex videos of men with useful attributes and a chance to say to hubby why can’t you do that?
As it happened, last night, I was at a dinner party the point of which was to induce a baby. This was mostly done with basil and chilli, though as far as I know it didn’t work. Picture, if you please, Kate and Michael. Michael pours himself a drop or two of wine. Kate snarls what are you doing. Um, Michael tentatively replies, having some wine? Kate snarls back how come I’m not allowed to have wine and you are?
Huh? I mean, really. HUH!!!! What the fuck’s going on here? Well, I knew, and I was a bit surprised Kate hadn’t noticed, but anyway, I thought I’d point it out. Helllooo, Kate. You are about to have a baby? And your husband isn’t? It doesn’t matter, though, what I think. The woman went and had some wine because it’s all about being equal and that’s what makes them equal. If he has wine then she will too even if she shouldn’t. Honestly. Where do people get this puerile idea that this is what equality is? I wonder if the guy’s expected to have a crap while her baby’s coming out because that’s as close as he’s going to get to the experience. Is she going to be squatting on her bed (or whatever it is they do) saying ‘Well I’m ready, are you ready, Michael?’ and a bit later ‘Michael. What the fuck? It’s just a crap, get on with it.’ ‘That’s all very well for you to say, dear, but you know very well this is a very special crap and I have to get it just right. You know what they said at the clinic about this.’ I wish men didn’t have to be girls these days.
I felt like saying to Michael dump her. Right now. You’re a nice looking chap and you can come with me. But. I no longer have sex with Michaels. I lived with one for quite a while, greatly regretted it and really I just don’t want to get that close to one again. Which is a pity since one of the better offers of sex I’ve had lately has been from a Michael and the whole situation isn’t readily explicable. In fact, I’m thinking I might have to back down on my principles here. The last few nights I’ve been to a couple of dinner parties, I’ve met four very nice men, and….they are all called Michael. Every one of them.
I’m dying to have sex, I mean, really, dying. So if you are reading this and keen and your name’s Michael, do me a favour. Tell me the truth about everything. The wives, the children, the commitments, the psycho stuff you want to do, the psycho stuff you want me to do. No problem, honestly, I don’t care. But lie about the name. Please?
The weird thing about all this is that as far as I can tell it’s only a female thing, this idea that has such a following now about everybody having to share what the woman’s going through. I’m thinking especially of those women who make their husbands diet because they are. If I can’t eat dessert, then you can’t. It’s sick!!!!
What about this: e a bloke whose electric drill breaks down in the back shed. So he brings a hammer into the kitchen, smashes the Bamix with it, because that will make the two of them equal, his wife will be properly sharing his moment of frustration.
Equality isn’t about all being the same. Why is that such a hard concept to understand?
PS: just in case it isn't clear. I have not read this book. But I ran out of room on my other Millet book review, so...
Oh, I forgot. Speaking of woman and men being equal and the same, I like this:
That's the cartoon, but Randall Munroe did a bit of actual work on this and found out that the difference between genders wasn't that big on colours.
But then, to quote:
So I was feeling pretty good about equality. Then I decided to calculate the ‘most masculine’ and ‘most feminine’ colors. I was looking for the color names most disproportionately popular among each group; that is, the names that the most women came up with compared to the fewest men (or vice versa).
Here are the color names most disproportionately popular among women:
1. Dusty Teal
2. Blush Pink
3. Dusty Lavender
4. Butter Yellow
5. Dusky Rose
Okay, pretty flowery, certainly. Kind of an incense-bomb-set-off-in-a-Bed-Bath-&-Beyond vibe. Well, let’s take a look at the other list.
Here are the color names most disproportionately popular among men:
1. Penis
2. Gay
3. WTF
4. Dunno
5. Baige
I … that’s not my typo in #5—the only actual color in the list really is a misspelling of “beige”. And keep in mind, this is based on the number of unique people who answered the color, not the number of times they typed it. This isn’t just the effect of a couple spammers. In fact, this is after the spamfilter.
I weep for my gender.
But I don't. Imagine a world where men liked dusty rose as much as women do. It's some place I don't want to be....
December 25, 2014
Points granted for Millet's candor: jealousy, being on the nastier side of the emotional spectrum, is not something most people want to admit to or analyze in regards to their own situation.
Points deducted for attitude: holy hell, this woman is pretentious! Look, lady, you're giving in depth descriptions of how you crawled around on the floor, sniveling and searching your significant other's private stuff in order to find more proof with which to enlarge your wounds. You freely admit that this practice continued for years. Considering these pathetic facts, try not to be so freakin' smug about it.
Further points deducted for display of selected self-awareness: Millet admits to crisis-inducing jealousy, she admits to impossible expectations of her lover being so intuitive as to read her mind and behave in certain ways, and she admits to behavior like searching his things for more evidence after he's already admitted to his actions, but when it comes to acknowledging her own hypocrisy, there's a distinct lack. (If you've read The Sexual Life of Catherine M. you already know what I'm talking about. Even in Jealousy she makes mention of her own transgressions, although she does so as if hers are acceptable while his are not.) Lip service is paid late in the book, but it's only that, you can tell she's not really acknowledging any double standard.
Overall it was nice to read about someone delving into the muck of jealousy. Unfortunately, Millet thinks she's much more clever than she actually is, the writing is pretentious to the point of being ridiculous, and it's probably safe to skip this one unless you really enjoyed her previous work.
Points deducted for attitude: holy hell, this woman is pretentious! Look, lady, you're giving in depth descriptions of how you crawled around on the floor, sniveling and searching your significant other's private stuff in order to find more proof with which to enlarge your wounds. You freely admit that this practice continued for years. Considering these pathetic facts, try not to be so freakin' smug about it.
Further points deducted for display of selected self-awareness: Millet admits to crisis-inducing jealousy, she admits to impossible expectations of her lover being so intuitive as to read her mind and behave in certain ways, and she admits to behavior like searching his things for more evidence after he's already admitted to his actions, but when it comes to acknowledging her own hypocrisy, there's a distinct lack. (If you've read The Sexual Life of Catherine M. you already know what I'm talking about. Even in Jealousy she makes mention of her own transgressions, although she does so as if hers are acceptable while his are not.) Lip service is paid late in the book, but it's only that, you can tell she's not really acknowledging any double standard.
Overall it was nice to read about someone delving into the muck of jealousy. Unfortunately, Millet thinks she's much more clever than she actually is, the writing is pretentious to the point of being ridiculous, and it's probably safe to skip this one unless you really enjoyed her previous work.
January 19, 2015
This memoir is quite tedious and self unaware. Unfortunately the book only supports the irritating commonplace that women with voracious sexual appetites suffer from psychological problems. Also, Millet's art critique’s tendency for abstraction makes the writing truly irritating and unreadable even for the intellectual wannabe as myself.
January 21, 2023
Comencé esta lectura llena de curiosidad. Si bien no conocía a la escritora, el título Celos me interpelaba, conozco esa terrible emoción, además el anuncio sobre la vida erótica de la autora que encontraría en las páginas de Celos despertaba todo mi voyerismo.
Desde el 2021 comencé a escoger mis lecturas con inclinación por auroras mujeres, y ahora una voz que habla de su vida erótica libertaria y por fuera de los moralismos de siempre la aplaudo sin recelo. Hasta ahí me resultó inquietante el libro de Catherine Millet, cumplió la promesa que yo misma le había asignado, la de mi curiosidad inicial hacia la mujer celosa.
Extrañamente mi entusiasmo se fue desvaneciendo a medida que avanzaba mi lectura, no tengo del todo claro lo que lo causó, pero me aproximo y puedo decir que es un libro que pasa a ser una recopilación de sucesos singulares y hasta novedosos si se quiere, pero con muy poca introspección, la que no va más allá de las emociones más que evidentes de la autora a la vez protagonista. Percibí un narcisismo emocional que terminó por hastiarme. Quizás se trataba de eso, de un relato donde solo importaban las angustias de la autora que daban la vuelta para llegar al mismo lugar y no decir mucho más.
Yo terminé fatigada de esta lectura. Deseé encontrar páginas donde la bella sensibilidad de Millet se dirigiera hacia la narración de la atmósfera de su casa, o de algún otro lugar en los cuales vivió tantas horas de agobio. O que tomara un poco de distancia de sí misma y de su personalidad psicológica para poder referirse con otros matices menos autoreferenciales sobre sus emociones. Muchas veces a través de otras voces, y tomando distancia de la propia, más aún cuando hay mucha afectación emocional, encontramos otras posibilidades de hacer una buena introspección de nosotros mismos.
Desde el 2021 comencé a escoger mis lecturas con inclinación por auroras mujeres, y ahora una voz que habla de su vida erótica libertaria y por fuera de los moralismos de siempre la aplaudo sin recelo. Hasta ahí me resultó inquietante el libro de Catherine Millet, cumplió la promesa que yo misma le había asignado, la de mi curiosidad inicial hacia la mujer celosa.
Extrañamente mi entusiasmo se fue desvaneciendo a medida que avanzaba mi lectura, no tengo del todo claro lo que lo causó, pero me aproximo y puedo decir que es un libro que pasa a ser una recopilación de sucesos singulares y hasta novedosos si se quiere, pero con muy poca introspección, la que no va más allá de las emociones más que evidentes de la autora a la vez protagonista. Percibí un narcisismo emocional que terminó por hastiarme. Quizás se trataba de eso, de un relato donde solo importaban las angustias de la autora que daban la vuelta para llegar al mismo lugar y no decir mucho más.
Yo terminé fatigada de esta lectura. Deseé encontrar páginas donde la bella sensibilidad de Millet se dirigiera hacia la narración de la atmósfera de su casa, o de algún otro lugar en los cuales vivió tantas horas de agobio. O que tomara un poco de distancia de sí misma y de su personalidad psicológica para poder referirse con otros matices menos autoreferenciales sobre sus emociones. Muchas veces a través de otras voces, y tomando distancia de la propia, más aún cuando hay mucha afectación emocional, encontramos otras posibilidades de hacer una buena introspección de nosotros mismos.
March 27, 2020
Últimamente me genera mucha curiosidad la forma de relacionarme con la gente; hace poco estuve pensando que siempre se nos ha determinado una forma de amar o una forma de ser amigos, hermanos, padres, etc; es decir, siempre nos dicen que tenemos que hacer determinada cosa y si no la hacemos pues entonces nuestro vínculo con la persona no está bien construido o no sabemos quererla. Por eso, creo que este libro no llegó a mí por casualidad aunque lo hubiera escogido al azar, pues en este corto texto, Catherine Millet, describe cómo era su relación abierta con su esposo Jacques, y cómo cada uno tenía sus amantes, ella por su lado salía con quien le placiera y él también tenía oportunidad de hacerlo, pero el problema surge cuando ella se da cuenta que él tiene mucha más vida sexual aparte con otras muchachas e incluso más jóvenes que ella. La autora a partir de conocer esta realidad empieza a realizar una construcción de las relaciones de su esposo y desarrolla unos celos que no logra entender, puesto que dentro de su relación estaba permitido tener otras parejas. La forma de relatarlo refleja fervientemente esos sentimientos confusos que se desatan dentro de ella y llegarán incluso a ponerte frente a un espejo para que examines ciertas vivenciaas. Realmente es un libro que engancha con su trama, su erotismo y que te enreda en su historia. Un libro del cual no saldrás con un mal recuerdo
August 2, 2022
Un poquito meh. Una Catherine Millet hiperanalítica y sincera te hace incómoda partícipe del entramado obsesivo en el que se halla sumida. Me han interesado las reflexiones sobre cómo interaccionan la fantasía y los recuerdos, al igual que el componente teatral del acto sexual que subraya cuando recrea sus episodios masturbatorios. Por lo demás, hay partes algo tediosas y bastantes lugares comunes que se intentar intelectualizar.
March 11, 2015
First book excellent. Wouldn't bother reading this one
July 2, 2016
Interesting book with a lot of erotic tension. Reads like a minor psychological thriller: "How will it end? Will they stay together? Will she find her balance again?"
December 29, 2019
Having written about The Sexual Life of Catherine M. as part of my undergraduate dissertation, I can definitely see myself writing a separate piece comparing the two! It has taken me a while to read this book (5 months, to be exact) but I am glad that I continued on with it as, having completed it, I now prefer it to The Sexual Life.
Whilst the first book includes many episodes that can be read as if they are happening in the present, Jealousy has a clearly reflective tone that is sustained throughout. Having read to the end of the second book, it is clear that this is a prequel to The Sexual Life as opposed to a sequel, the "novel" ending at a point in time just before TSL is written, dealing with Millet's struggles around how to craft a memoir dealing with purely her sex life.
The book deals with a lot with its 185 pages, ranging from psychoanalysis, sexuality, her childhood, life as a performance, her relationship with Jacques and art. Whilst it is no where near as sexually graphic as its predecessor it is still definitely a read for adults only, and not for someone who isn't comfortable with the frank and explicit discussion of sex!
Due to the content and Millet's writing style, I can imagine Jealousy being quite a divisive, "marmite" text (as was the case with TSL). Whilst I did find some of Millet's writing quite jolted and overly complicated at times (possibly due to issues with translation), I enjoyed the "novel's" sustained intellectual vigour. However, I'm aware that this wouldn't be to everyone's taste and I did find myself having to break up the reading of this book with "lighter" content, even as someone who enjoys reading academic material for pleasure.
I was originally only going to give this book 2.5 - 3 stars. However, I found the last 20 pages of the book provided a lot of closure whilst simultaneously maintaining Millet's contradictory, dual characterisation, which is also made apparent in TSL but is explained in greater detail within this prequel. Jealousy delves deeper into Millet's past and her contradictory nature (as well as exploring her far from healthy relationship with Jacques, a topic for another review/essay!), dealing with the flip side to her sexually liberated, in control self.
Whilst the first book includes many episodes that can be read as if they are happening in the present, Jealousy has a clearly reflective tone that is sustained throughout. Having read to the end of the second book, it is clear that this is a prequel to The Sexual Life as opposed to a sequel, the "novel" ending at a point in time just before TSL is written, dealing with Millet's struggles around how to craft a memoir dealing with purely her sex life.
The book deals with a lot with its 185 pages, ranging from psychoanalysis, sexuality, her childhood, life as a performance, her relationship with Jacques and art. Whilst it is no where near as sexually graphic as its predecessor it is still definitely a read for adults only, and not for someone who isn't comfortable with the frank and explicit discussion of sex!
Due to the content and Millet's writing style, I can imagine Jealousy being quite a divisive, "marmite" text (as was the case with TSL). Whilst I did find some of Millet's writing quite jolted and overly complicated at times (possibly due to issues with translation), I enjoyed the "novel's" sustained intellectual vigour. However, I'm aware that this wouldn't be to everyone's taste and I did find myself having to break up the reading of this book with "lighter" content, even as someone who enjoys reading academic material for pleasure.
I was originally only going to give this book 2.5 - 3 stars. However, I found the last 20 pages of the book provided a lot of closure whilst simultaneously maintaining Millet's contradictory, dual characterisation, which is also made apparent in TSL but is explained in greater detail within this prequel. Jealousy delves deeper into Millet's past and her contradictory nature (as well as exploring her far from healthy relationship with Jacques, a topic for another review/essay!), dealing with the flip side to her sexually liberated, in control self.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 14, 2024
Millet's rather exhausting deep dive into "Jealousy" an emotion that reared it's ugly head after she discovers some photographs her partner has taken of another woman. Problem is they are both in an open relationship and she admits that she has another partner at the time of the photographic discovery.
How to reconcile the fact that she is jealous of her partner's affairs. Well you can't really, yet she spends nearly 200 pages trying to dissect her feelings of jealousy. Only mentioned twice is the fact that she has had multiple partners through the years also detailed in "The Sexual Life of Catherine M" which I've yet to read. This book perhaps would have been more interesting as a thesis exploring "what to do when one partner in an open marriage is inching towards monogamy but the other player is quite happy with the way things are. Reminded me somewhat of Mimi Rogers in "The Rapture" when she gets tired of the swinging scene and proceeds to go her own way.
Catherine Millet has been monogamous for 8 years according to a Guardian article I read, presumably coming to terms with her "Jealousy." Not an easy read and not particularly enlightening either.
How to reconcile the fact that she is jealous of her partner's affairs. Well you can't really, yet she spends nearly 200 pages trying to dissect her feelings of jealousy. Only mentioned twice is the fact that she has had multiple partners through the years also detailed in "The Sexual Life of Catherine M" which I've yet to read. This book perhaps would have been more interesting as a thesis exploring "what to do when one partner in an open marriage is inching towards monogamy but the other player is quite happy with the way things are. Reminded me somewhat of Mimi Rogers in "The Rapture" when she gets tired of the swinging scene and proceeds to go her own way.
Catherine Millet has been monogamous for 8 years according to a Guardian article I read, presumably coming to terms with her "Jealousy." Not an easy read and not particularly enlightening either.
June 15, 2023
He leído como 60 páginas del libro y he decidido dejarlo. Leí `La vida sexual de Catherine M.´ y me gustó, por eso decidí, unos años después, leer este. Pero no me gusta cómo está escrito (me satura eso de meter frases taan largas entre dos comas), no me interesa mucho lo que me cuenta (exceptuando alguna cosa, por eso no le pongo una estrella) y me parece como si fuese un poco vamos a estirar el chicle del otro libro que ha gustado mucho. No conecto, no me interesa, incluso me desagrada alguna cosa y no porque la esté juzgando, porque si no el otro libro no me habría gustado.
March 1, 2025
La parte más esclarecedora es cerca del final, cuando empieza a ir al psicoanalista y a reflexionar sobre lo que vivió, todo lo anterior es superfluo y hay veces que no se entiende bien a qué quiere llegar.
March 12, 2023
Very interesting, following on The Sexual Life of Catherine M. I wished it had more resolution or at least more reflection from the author.
September 4, 2023
Una llarga divagació, i clar, en tot plegat alguna frase lúcida diu, però molt farregós tot.
June 22, 2025
😴🥱😴🥱
October 25, 2010
An intense if not slightly introverted read, some parts of which I had to re-read. However the point was not lost on me and I'm really glad I went on this journey with Ms Millet. Fortunately for the reader she has a habit of relaying her thoughts and then reiterating them in simpler manner which reinforces her initial point. God I'm beginning to sound like her LOL. Not a sexual (in fact not sexual at all) book, it's a reflection of the other side of her life. I (wrongly) assummed that the events which take place in this book arose after she had written TSLoCM. not so they happened before that book was even properly conceived, and TSLoCM was written in part aas a result of the events which happen in this book. The only issue I have with this is the end which a) makes it clear that there will not be a sequel (although why would we need one) and b) made me feel sad that Ms Millets verve has become tainted with melancholy thoughts of old age.....I can understand that you can't be a dreamer all your life but I felt as though she'd slpped quietly into the relms of mature woman far too easily as though the gamut of emotions she felt on finding out about Jaqcues had somehow stripped her of her vitality. I'm sure thats not the case because she wrote TSLoCM after his indiscretions were uncovered and that book screems of vitality. So perhapes this book reflects more how she felt att the time and not so uch how she feels to-day.
Was it worth the cover price? Yes, I'm glad I read this, although it's not necessary it does complete the wheel.
Was it worth the cover price? Yes, I'm glad I read this, although it's not necessary it does complete the wheel.
February 26, 2014
Already within the first few pages I resonate with images and feelings of being drawn in magnetically to something of which I long seem to have been aware yet not yet known. The familiarity of words as veils rather than meanings clothes the language she uses, despite translation from French, so that I feel exposed to thoughts and actions I have long attempted to voice for myself. Part of me wants to put the book down before it alters my own perceptions and capabilities beyond the purity I still long to retain in my memory of them – my supposed innocence of which I had so little practice and claim.
The title of the book is not a feeling that I have much felt within myself. It is more one that others, for their own reasons, seem to have felt about me. And that has been my innocence more than any choice I made to act or not act in so many situations, especially where men were concerned.
Already I am challenged to consider how far I might walk through this door – knowing, as always, for whatever return there is no going back.
The title of the book is not a feeling that I have much felt within myself. It is more one that others, for their own reasons, seem to have felt about me. And that has been my innocence more than any choice I made to act or not act in so many situations, especially where men were concerned.
Already I am challenged to consider how far I might walk through this door – knowing, as always, for whatever return there is no going back.
May 16, 2010
Millet's writing about encountering the infidelity of her long-term partner, Jacques Henri, reminded me of Simone de Beauvoir's novella The Woman Destroyed. Both are conceptual, speculative accounts of the annihilating self-abnegation that is sometimes the result of jealousy. As in The Sexual Life of Cathering M., Millet's writing is painfully revealing and while I marvel at her ability to make herself so vulnerable, I have to admit it's not easy to like her by the end of the book. Jealousy debases us in humiliating, haunting ways.
January 2, 2019
Catherine foi um furacão que passou por mim e me deixou fora de órbita. Uma inteligência invejável. Uma história singular. Uma mulher de um potencial único. Talvez pela grande capacidade intelectual, é um tanto consciente demais do mundo exterior e interior, o que a perturba e a faz sair de si. Acompanhar as interpretações que ela faz de sua história foi começar a repensar e analisar a minha própria vida.
February 15, 2012
Terwijl Catherine er meerdere mannen op na houdt is ze ziekelijk jaloers op de minnaressen van haar vriend. Een zoektocht naar de ondoorgrondelijke zieleroerselen van een moeilijk mens
ongelofelijk saai, niet te doorgronden boek. Het enige wat interessant aan het boek is dat nu toch duidelijk is dat deze nymphomaan ziek in d'r hoofd is.
ongelofelijk saai, niet te doorgronden boek. Het enige wat interessant aan het boek is dat nu toch duidelijk is dat deze nymphomaan ziek in d'r hoofd is.
Read
April 20, 2016I got this author's name from The Little Paris Bookshop, by Nina George from Ms. George's list of books to read. Catherine Millet's The Sexual Life of Catherine M. was recommended reading. Since that was not yet available, I checked out this sequel. Here we go again. I read a few pages and wasn't interested. I have the first one now. We'll see how it goes.
November 1, 2010
better than the sexual life, her first book. at least i thought so...i guess i got tired of reading about all her conquests and this had more depth and weight to it. maybe i'm just equating melancholy and substance, though.
July 14, 2011
Not my kind of thing...
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews