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SUSAN SONTAG
III
Two French books recently translated into English,
Story of
0
and
The Image,
conveniently illustrate some issues involved in the
topic, barely explored in Anglo-American criticism, of pornography
as a branch of serious literature.
Story of
0 by "Pauline Reage" was published in Paris in 1954,
and immediately became famous, partly due to the patronage of
Jean Paulhan, who wrote the preface.
It
was widely believed that
Paulhan had written the book, too-perhaps because of the precedent
set by Bataille, who had contributed an essay (signed with his own
name) to his
Madame Edwarda
when it was first published in 1941
under the pseudonym "Pierre Angelique," and also because Pauline
suggested Paulhan. But Paulhan has always denied that he wrote
Story of
0, insisting that
it
was indeed by a woman, someone living
in another part of France who didn't wish her name known. Though
Paulhan's story about the unambitious provincial author was not
generally believed, the conviction that it was he who wrote the book
eventually faded. In the years since, a number of more ingenious
hypotheses, attributing the book's authorship to other figures on the
Paris literary scene, gained credence; and then were dropped. The
real identity of "Pauline Reage" remains one of the few well-kept
secrets in contemporary letters.
. The Image
came out two years later, in 1956, also under a
pseudonym, "Jean de Berg," and, to compound the mystery, dedi–
cated to and with a preface by "Pauline Reage," who has not been
heard from since. (The preface by "Reage" is terse and forgettable;
the one by Paulhan is long and very interesting.) Speculation at Paris
literary parties about the identity of "Jean de Berg" is at least more
restful than the gossip about "Pauline Reage." One rumor only,
which names the wife of an influential younger novelist, has swept
the field.
It's not unreasonable that those curious enough to speculate
about the real people behind the two pseudonyms should regularly
come up with some name from the established community of letters
in France. That either of these two books should be an amateur's
stroke of genius is almost inconceivable. Both, but particularly
Story of
0, are highly "literary" books. By this I mean that,
dif–
ferent as one
is
from the other, both
Story of
0 and
The Image
evince a quality in the writing that can't be ascribed simply to an
