I changed my broadband provider recently. I was forced into it, if you must know. The situation was pretty rough, I had to hang my head of the window to get a limp-wristed hand shank of a shit signal. Couldn’t bloody do anything. Total fucking ball ache. It takes the bastards about two years to sort out a separation (the big cut off) and then a remarriage to a new superfast supplier, and they act as though you should be grateful. They eventually managed to send an engineer round to finger my cables in the rain. Then, you’re off. The world suddenly seems less small, less content.
So, here we go again. Violet’s sporadic adult book review looks at a ruddy bloody masterpiece of a dirty book. Something quite extraordinary between the covers. The aim, as always, is to attempt to answer that swollen question: can a good book ever be as memorable as a good fuck?
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Book title: Helen and Desire
Author: Alexander Trocchi
Introduction: Edwin Morgan
Publisher of this edition: Rebel Inc
Copyright: © Alexander Trocchi, 1954
First published: 1954
Photography: Peter Ross
THE RAUNCH REVIEW: Violet’s Verdict
Quick synopsis: The book recounts the sexual adventures in the cuming-of-age journey of 18-year-old Australian Helen Smith. It’s kind of like a diary, but not really. She basically makes a run for it from her father and goes on a sex rampage around the world. Driven by the unrelenting desire to have it off.
Title: Says pretty much what’s in the tin. Meat and two veg. Helen and her desire are the main boner running through the book, so yeah. It’s widely acknowledged that Trocchi wrote the book in a week because he was skint, so he probably didn’t have much time for the title. Obviously, the name Helen immediately makes you think of Helen of Troy and all the shit that went down because of her face.
Cover image: I am a big fan of this cover! Mainly because I reckon a load of people don’t even notice the pubes/bush at the bottom. The photo is a good choice because it screams masturbation and female desire/pleasure, which is both what this book is all about and something that needs to be celebrated/discussed more. I’ve spent quite a lot of time trying to work out whether it’s a man’s hand in the photo and I’m leaning towards, yes (because of the signet ring and the shape of the fingers).
Best sentences in the story:
Occasionally, leaning the weight of his body on top of one of her arms, he released his grip with one hand, reached down, and clawed at the swelling white orb of one buttock which stuck out from the frilly lace of her knickers like the gleaming nob of a boiled egg from a tattered eggshell.
Snaith fingered me under the table but I made him desist because I was anxious to get to Charleston as quickly as possible.
Simultaneously, my nerves registered the final ecstatic vibrations of the strong shaft which transfixed me.
He sank on his big knees on the straw between the hot scissors of my legs and, guiding his member in with his fingers, he penetrated me, until his hard belly was at mine and his chest, under his sweatshirt, was riding on the firm ballbearings of my nipples.
When a man is involved in the warm chrysalis of a woman, the confederacy of motion, the mutual seed pleasures, can take place on various axes.
He raised her legs onto her stomach, opened her thighs like a bible and lowered his muscly front into the soft and shadowy cleft.
Then his mouth quitted its task and there existed a lecherous rudder between my excited buttocks searching for the little studlike amethyst between them.
The oily plump of white asparagus.
She was a sweet bitch in the raw, gamey, sweaty, sweltering, bucking her beautiful arse like a serving-maid under a milkman.
Two of them were not remarkable in any way, women merely, like taxis waiting, over a small drink, for whatever men might enter.
The tremors in my wrists, flanks, and calves continued for some time under the sweet suffocation that I continued to experience beneath his spent weight.
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Overall sexual content: I think it’s really hot. Despite lots of reviews online saying that the sex is overcooked (it is true that the sentences are long and wordy), I don’t agree. Trocchi’s writing sucked me in/off and tickled my underneath. I suppose it could be a question of taste, like everything.
The book blasts open with Helen having sex with a massive log on the beach. It’s pretty heady/steamy and creates a muggy atmosphere of the erotic, which is powerful. I certainly think something indescribable (that’s all I can manage) about desire is captured in this book.
Overall conclusion: 9 out of 10.
Titillation station: As with the majority of dirty books, the storyline is almost redundant. It just strings the sex scenes together. I think that’s forgivable and almost valuable here, as it enables the reader to get lost in the sexy stuff without having to give a shit about the plot or what stuff is going down where. You can also feel a sense of urgency in the writing (polishing it off in a week is pretty good going), not only because it could do with another wave of editing, but also because Helen needs to be pleasured all the fucking time.
Food for thought: Helen has sex with some navy seal whilst he is flying a light aircraft over a wide expanse of water. He manages to multitask, but sadly Trocchi doesn’t describe the flaps coming down and the screech from the tires. I suppose everything leads there in the end: once you’ve done it on a train toilet and upstairs on a double decker and with some well-hung king or other, the sky is the limit.
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