The Dame's Review

I have decided that my faith in women is so resoundingly low nowthat quite frankly I cannot be bothered with it all. I have however accepted a dinner invitation from a rather delightful young ladytomorrow night who swings my way, she is perfectly desirablebut also resoundingly unavailable. Oh well, a girl can window shopcan' she.

What has bought this on I hear you ask? After three lazy days off where all i appear to have done is sleep, watch re-runs ofSugarush, devour a delicable novel...oh and sleep, I have found myselfquestioning my motivation for what I always thought were the fairer sex. I would quite like a girlfriend like Saint from Sugarush, sexyin a non-conventional way and clever. I would like an adventure, the opportunity to get to know someone wholeheartedly, to talk absolute
bollocks and laugh about it, to take walks along the river in work town
at random hours, to have some great sex and explore someone else's body with rigour and passion... But, alas, in the modern world this is apparently far to much to ask for,and so Ihave made a decision to give women up. I can't be doing with them anymore. The book I have devoured over the last few days has, I admit,acted as somewhat of a catalyst here.


Landscape with Animals - Cameron Redfern* passion.desire.obsession *

An exquisite erotic novel that explores what it is to love the thingsyou cannot keep. A married man and a single woman meet at a partyand their attraction is instantaneous - they circle one another, untileventually he is led to her bed. This is an affair, but in no way a fling. This is the rare and extreme kind of love that is balanced on the finest of blades, a love that can tip people either way: the kindof love that people die for and kill for; a kind of love that heals or ravages the heart. Landscape with Animals is an honest, erotic novelabout a primal state in which nothing matters but the moment, a boundless moment in which there are no rules to bind or break. It charts a love affair that comes once in a lifetime, and changes livesforever.

What made me pick this book up? Well, the beautiful woman on the cover.Whoever said don't judge a book by its cover is flawed, because someof the best reads I've had have come from a judgement about the cover. This is a perfect example.

The long and short of it is a woman sees a man she knows of at a party. From the start she wants him. She wants him so much she wants him to die for her. She tells him "I want to screw you till you scream".He is married and she subsequently views his initial refusal as punishing her for something she had no say in (ie) his marriage to another woman. Her every thought is consumed by him and this comes across so well in the writing. To him, sex must mean something, he initially refuses to go to bed with her because acceptingher proposal to him is viewed as a failure on his part.

"I walk with this ridiculous swagger...I want to tell everyone about you. Complete strangers, when I'm buying a newspaper or waiting to cross the road. There's this girl, let me tell you. I keep droppingyour name into conversations when you've got nothing to do with it. Ican hardly be bothered eating, it's just a pest of a thing. I don't want to sleep because that's time I'm not thinking of you...I 'm as happy as an idiot. Because of you".

What first struck me about this book was the writing. The subject matter has been done before of course. Boy meets girl, boy and girl have wonderful sex, boy falls in love with girl. She writes as if she has actually felt it, had that feeling deep within her where she finds true escapism in another human being. A feeling that beginswith raw passion, sex so explicit the reader could almost believe theyare there. But ultimately, a feeling that somehow turns into love.
The next thing that got me thinking was: is this a story about love orpassion? The woman states she knew she would love him from the moment she met him, but she requests absolutely nothing from him. She doesn'trequest he leave his wife for her, nor does she tell him he must loveonly her. All she wants is time with him occasionally, this time is so powerful it enables her to live. He appears to fall in love with her as well and their time together is beautifully written, his only fear being that she might start to blame or despise him. It also calls
into question the fact that because he loves his wife and her, it must be
possible to love two people at once.

The question that was on my mind throughout was, is this really love or stupidness? Instead of being concerned for her own happiness she is consumed only by love for him and the "gravity of his situation". He on the other hand uses metaphor after metaphor to describe her hold over him, describing her as a "splinter under his skin, he wants toscratch her out of existence".

The reader tries so hard to get inside the psyche of this man. This manwho belongs to others and not to her. This man who loves her but notquite enough to put her before everything he belongs to. He doesn't trust her but cannot seem to give her up, all the while she is telling him the moment he wants to be set free she will set him free.

I absolutely loved this book, without a doubt. It did get me thinkingthough. Is this love? Everytime they meet they end upexploring each others bodies thoroughly, no stone is left unturned and they make love to one another with no secrets, every pore laid bare.Sexually they give each other everything. She is willing to give this man her heart, her whole being. She is there for him at home and he comes and goes as he pleases. They seem to have a hidden hold over one another with neither being able to give the other up. Ultimately, is this woman a mug or is she genuinely overcome by a love so forceful she has to exist in shadows? Is he taking advantage of her knowing he will always have something just that bit betterto go home to? Does real love really allow for you being comfortable with yourpartner sleeping in someone else's bed every night and coming to youoccasionally for sex and whatever else they may need?

Overall, it is for the reader to decide what is actually going on between the lines. Love or passion. The language is beautiful, the idea of the novel is overdone but equally beautiful. But if all elsefails, the senses are overwhelmed by the descriptions given of themtenderly getting to know one another, exploring each other and realising they actually do mean the world to each other. Therelationship possesses a uniqueness that only appears very infrequently,
and the story is told by a writer who, unlike most, actually possesses the ability to capture all of this using only words.

Back to the factory now for 4 days, only hope this 4 day stint is as enjoyable and worthwhile as last week's set. Wish I could go into more detail, but this, as are a lot of other things, is impossible.

Yours,
-The Dame-