Appendix C
[Comprised of passages exerpted from the "prefatory" portions (all of which are assumed to be written by the same person) of the 1965 Grove Press paperback edition of Story of O suitable for analayzing by those Morons Awake! readers unable (or not all that keen) to purchase their own copy.]
(1) Passages Tending to Raise Some Serious Doubts About the Name, Age, Gender, Erotophilosophical Purposes and "Neophyte" Status of Story of O's "Authoress":
"One evening, after that 'Do you really think so?' of the first page, and without ever having the faintest idea that she would one day find the name Réage in a real estate register and would borrow a first name from 2 famous profligates, Pauline Borghese and Pauline Roland, one day this girl for whom I am speaking, and rightly so, since if I have nothing of hers she has everything of mine, the voice to begin with, one evening this girl, instead of taking a book to read before she fell asleep, lying on her left side with her feet tucked up under her, a soft black pencil in her right hand, began to write the story she had promised."—[Appearing on "third" page of unpaginated "A Girl in LOVE" with which Story of O begins.]"As for how the manuscript came into the hands of Jean Paulhan, I promised not to reveal it, as I promised not to divulge the real name of Pauline Réage, counting on the courtesy and integrity of those who are privy to it to keep the secret as long as I feel bound not to break that promise. Besides, nothing is more fallacious and shifting than an identity. If you believe, as hundred of millions of men do, that we live several lives, why not also believe that in each of our lives we are the meeting place for several souls? 'Who am I, Þnally,' said Pauline Réage, 'if not the long silent part of someone, the secret and nocturnal part which has never betrayed itself in public by any thought, word, or deed, but communicated through the subterranean depths of the imaginary with dreams as old as the world itself?'"—[ibid page "8"]
"[Histoire d'O's] author was Pauline Réage, a name completely unknown in French literary circles, where everyone knows everyone."—[Page ix.]
"Until her identity was bared, people found it difficult to assume a reasonable stance vis-ˆ-vis the work: if Pauline Réage was the pseudonym of some eminent writer, they would feel compelled to react one way; if she were a complete unknown, another; and if indeed she were a literary hack merely seeking notoriety, then still another."—[Page x.]
"For beyond the more or less general consensus that the author is a woman, nothing is certain about the work."—[Page xiii.]
"I don't even know who you are. That you are a woman I have little doubt. Not so much because of the kind of detail you delight in describing—-the green satin dresses, wasp-waist corsets, and skirts rolled up a number of turns (like hair rolled up in a curler)—-but rather because of something like this: the day when René abandons O to still further torments, she still manages to have enough presence of mind to notice that her lover's slippers are frayed, and notes that she will have to buy him another pair. To me, such a thought seems almost unimaginable. It is something a man would never have thought of, or at least would never have dared express."—[Page xxv.]
"To this day, no one knows who Pauline Réage is."—[Page xi.]
(2) Examples of Prefatory and/or Editorial Proclivities Which Could be Construed as Being Common to Both the "Authoress" of Story of O and the "Editoress" of Morons Awake!:
"A year or two after O appeared, Miss Réage wrote the preface to another somewhat mysterious work entitled l'Image, by Jean de Berg..."—[Footnote on page xiii.]"In the morning she gathered up the sheets of paper that contained the two beginnings with which you're already familiar, since if you are reading this it means you have already taken the trouble to read the entire tale and therefore know more about it today than she knew at that time."—[Page "5" of "A Girl in LOVE"]
"One of my woman friends (whom I respect, and I am slow to respect) might well be AnneMarie were it not for the fact that she is the epitome of purity and honor: I mean that AnneMarie might have got from her [the] rigor and...resolve, [the] free and easy manner, and straightforward, unequivocal way in which she exercised her profession. To tell the truth, the profession in question (O's and AnneMarie's, prostitute or procuress, to make things utterly clear) are outside my sphere of knowledge."—[Page "14" of "A Girl in LOVE"]
(3) Possible Story of O Precursors of the "Literary Love Affair" Motif in Morons Awake!:
"One day a girl in love said to the man she loved: 'I could also write the kind of stories you like...' 'Do you really think so,' he answered."—[Page "1" of "A Girl in LOVE"]"Without doubt, Story of O is the most ardent love letter any man has ever received."—[Page xxx.]
(4) Possible Story of O Precursors of the "Sociocultural" Motif in Morons Awake!:
"Now she had to get up, wash, dress, arrange her hair, resume the strict harness, the everyday smile, the customary silent sweetness. Tomorrow, no, the day after, when would give him the notebook [containing the results of her first night's 'erotic storywriting' efforts].—[Page "5" of "A Girl in LOVE"]"...everything was a risk: an encounter, a new dress, a trip, an unknown poem. But nothing could stand in the way of taking these risks. The most serious to date, nonetheless, was the notebook. And what if the phantasms that it revealed were to outrage her love or, worse, bore him or, worse yet, strike him as being ridiculous? Not for what they were, of course, but because they emanated from her, and because one rarely forgives in those one loves the vagaries or excesses one readily forgives in others. She was wrong to be afraid: 'Ah, keep at it,' he said."—[Pages "6"-"7" of "A Girl in LOVE"]
"The story was still not completely written when, having resumed their assignation...the man asked her to read sections out loud to him, as she wrote them."—[Page "7" of "A Girl in LOVE"]
(5) Possible Story of O Precursor of the "WakeupCall" Motif in Morons Awake!:
"However much one may disagree with, or even profoundly dislike, these truths (or if you will, these ideas), Pauline Réage has done what all good artists aim for and, when they are successful, accomplish: arouse us from the lethargy of our set ways and routine lives, prick us into consciousness, provoke a reaction (whether positive or negative, it matters little) within us; in short, to make us think."—[Page. xii, emphasis added.]
(6) Possible Story of O Precursor of the "Superprotracted Foreplay" Motif in Morons Awake!:
"If...the art of lovers...is to make pleasure last as long as possible, then [all really great literature must consist]...of a multitude of splendid and excruciating moments."—[Page xvi.]