Literary Question.

[Colleen Thomas]

In my newest work I wish to make reference to a well known literary source. Basically my main character, who isn't at all familiar with S & M finds herself led into the play room of an S & M club.

I want to say somthing to the effect of she felt like she had just stepped into a scene from...

All I can come up with is Dante's inferno, but having never read it I don't even know how he describes hell. Does anyone out there have a better reference?

-Colly

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Marquis de Sade would be the obvious choice wouldn't it? Or maybe Poe, depending.

---dr.M.

BTW, Dante's Hell was mainly characterized by feelings of anquish and despair among the damned, which is probably not what you want.

 

[SlickTony]

Or maybe the Hell Raisers Club.

 

[kellycummings]

What Dreams May Come

Memnoch the Devil

Revelations

Probably not what you are looking for but those are the only literary references I can think of that depict Hell in any detail.

 

[darrenfate]

If you broadened your reference source beyond the literary world you could have your character feel as if she stepped into a scene in Kubrick's movie Eyes Wide Shut.

Good luck. Post the thread URL here when you finish it!

 

[bearlee]

In my newest work I wish to make reference to a well known literary source. Basically my main character, who isn't at all familiar with S & M finds herself led into the play room of an S & M club.

I want to say somthing to the effect of she felt like she had just stepped into a scene from...

All I can come up with is Dante's inferno, but having never read it I don't even know how he describes hell. Does anyone out there have a better reference?

-Colly

Don't know that I have a better reference but Dante's Inferno is pretty cool in a way. There's something like 8 or 9(9 I think) Circles of Hell and it just gets worse as you go down lower. Actually, if you get a chart on it you still may want to consider using it. The sin and punishment kind of go hand in hand-lazy or wasteful people are condemned to doing meaningless hard labor for oh, about an eternity. There's a circle on sexual sin and I forget the punishment, but I think it was some pretty nasty stuff as I recall.

I don't know-the inquisition stuff is always interesting because many of the tortures employed were designed to inflict horrible pain without actually killing the victim-pretty nasty stuff.

 

[minsue]

I think if you reference Dante, people will understand what you are trying to portray. It's become such a cultural reference to hell that I've known a frightening number of people who were confused when told that it is a piece of literature. (Hey, I like these people, they make me feel smart. ) I didn't read much more than half of it and, IIRC, I don't think he described hell the way most people think of when they hear, 'It was like something out of Dante's Inferno,' but that doesn't really matter. What matters is the connotation of the sentence. I think it has become a common enough reference that it would still bring to mind the kind of mental images that you may be looking for.

 

[A7inchPhildo]

I like the reference

Here is a page that might give you a bit of an idea what Dante's Inferno is. It is 9 circles of hell. Even those who have never heard of it will place inferno as being in hot water/ deep shit!


The Structure of
Dante's Inferno


http://www.atsweb.neu.edu/uc/s.cassavant/DanteOut.html

 

[A7inchPhildo]

Oh at the bottom of that page you can click on the map of hell it might give a better perspective as to how it is laid out.

 

[Just_John1]

I want to say somthing to the effect of she felt like she had just stepped into a scene from...

-Colly

How about caligula??? That movie was both pretty out there fairly S&M oriented and well known enough for most people to be able to make the reference... I guess the other choice would be Clock Work Orange... Probably wouldn't fit as well but...that's all I could come up with.

JJ1

PS oh great one! Congrats!!! Chuckle chuckle...

Edited because I'm uncoordinated

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Thanks all, I remember a book I read when I was very young called through the looking glass. Apparently auntee thought she was giving me the alice in wonderland book, but it was actually an underground erotic classic with a particularly nasty, but sexually charged hell. I think that reference would be too obscure anyway, I have never been able to locate the book again after my folks confiscated it.

But I want something that is well known enough to be a good general reference and dante's is the best I could come up with.

-Colly

 

[Guest]

Colly, Dante placed the damned in the various circles of Hell so that their punishment “fit the crime”. E.g., Paolo and Francesca, the infamous illicit lovers are damned to the opposite of their sin (lust) and are sexually united for eternity—but in eternal frustration without satisfaction. A whore is damned to intercourse with slime which she must treat as she did her customers. The spendthrifts and the avaricious are doomed to spend their time crashing great weights into each other. Flatterers get to live forever in sewage. Fortune tellers have their heads turned around and must walk backward for eternity.

Basically Hell is full of exquisite torments and suffering. There are nine circles for a variety of sins and punishments. Perhaps an S&M playroom could be alluded to as seeming like the waiting room or vestibule to Hell, and your character could wonder which of any number of punishments the different guests will be receiving. There’s much flogging and piercing in Hell, on a big scale; you could compare the tools, toys, costumes, etc. of S&M to the tortures of Dante’s Inferno.

Best to you, Perdita

 

[ffreak]

I think I'd be torn between three references, two already quoted here:

Dante's Hell - the imagery here would involve lots of haziness, heat, and screaming, which probably describes a pretty long row of clubs in San Francisco, except that smoking has been banned.

Marquis De Sade - the exquisite master of tormenting the flesh - this would occur in a dungeon, of course.

Kushiel's Temple - in this excellent trilogy by Jacqueline Carey, the heroine is an anguissette, someone who gains pleasure only in the experience of pain. You should be able to find it at your local library in fantasy - but don't educate your librarian, they may ban it. Anyway, the temple has rooms dedicated to what you describe above. The only hesitation I would have is that it is not as well known, where the first two are part of the known european cultural heritage.

"We are no guiltier in following the primative impulses that govern us than is the Nile for her floods or the sea for her waves."
-- Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), French nobleman, namesake of sadism

-FF

 

[kellycummings]

How many have actually read Dante's entire Divine Comedy(inferno)? I love to read, usually 2-3 books a week, and can get through just about anything but I found it surprisingly boring and wasn't able to get far. Might just be me though. Sometimes I find myself absolutely hating some so-called classics. Never have finished anything by Jane Austen. Dickens, though, I like a lot of his stuff. And now I'm rambling........sorry.

 

[Weird Harold]

I want to say somthing to the effect of she felt like she had just stepped into a scene from...

"... that old porn movie, The Devil and Miss Jones."

Not exactly literary, but even those who have never seen the classic porn movie, should at least recognise the name or get the point from just the name.

 

[minsue]

How many have actually read Dante's entire Divine Comedy(inferno)? I love to read, usually 2-3 books a week, and can get through just about anything but I found it surprisingly boring and wasn't able to get far. Might just be me though. Sometimes I find myself absolutely hating some so-called classics. Never have finished anything by Jane Austen. Dickens, though, I like a lot of his stuff. And now I'm rambling........sorry.

Nope, not just you. I only made it halfway through before I gave up. I kept finding myself staring at the page daydreaming. There's too much out there to read to spend time forcing yourself to read something that holds no interest for you.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Re: Re: Literary Question.

"... that old porn movie, The Devil and Miss Jones."

Not exactly literary, but even those who have never seen the classic porn movie, should at least recognise the name or get the point from just the name.

I have seen it, actually enjoyed it a lotmore than I did the succession of chap rip off sequels.

The story is however set in a very far future. I therefore wanted someting that was linked to a literary classic. In the 24th centruy school children will still probably be torturd with John Dun, but I doubt John Holmes is even rembered. I felt the character saying she stepped into a scene from (insert classic) would resonate with my modern audience, but not seem anachronistic coming from the lips of my future heroine.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly, Dante placed the damned in the various circles of Hell so that their punishment “fit the crime”. E.g., Paolo and Francesca, the infamous illicit lovers are damned to the opposite of their sin (lust) and are sexually united for eternity—but in eternal frustration without satisfaction. A whore is damned to intercourse with slime which she must treat as she did her customers. The spendthrifts and the avaricious are doomed to spend their time crashing great weights into each other. Flatterers get to live forever in sewage. Fortune tellers have their heads turned around and must walk backward for eternity.

Basically Hell is full of exquisite torments and suffering. There are nine circles for a variety of sins and punishments. Perhaps an S&M playroom could be alluded to as seeming like the waiting room or vestibule to Hell, and your character could wonder which of any number of punishments the different guests will be receiving. There’s much flogging and piercing in Hell, on a big scale; you could compare the tools, toys, costumes, etc. of S&M to the tortures of Dante’s Inferno.

Best to you, Perdita

Thanks so much Dita

Maybe I should have just posted a snipet and seen if ya'll think it works or if something better comes to mind?


Excerpt:

She tried to get her head into mission mode as they descended a steep, narrow stair. She didn’t miss the four security bulkheads in the roof and walls. That was going to make E & E through the front next to impossible. Unless she found the control room. At the bottom of the stairs was a small landing and an exit covered by hanging beads. The Chinese girl grabbed her and pressed her against a wall.

“Listen to me Anna. The stuff up on the public floor is all stage acting and props. Legit shit so cops will have plenty to deal with if they raid the place. Down here it’s different. This is the real deal, the girls play for keeps and it can get really rough.”

As she was speaking she dug a dog collar and leesh out of her jacket pocket and started to fasten it around Tracy’s neck.

“But there are rules even down here and one of them is, no top goes after another top’s bitch unless invited. That’s what this is for, it will show all the dykes that you are spoken for. The scenes down here can get really raw, but whatever you do, don’t say anything or try to interfere with anything you see. Despite the way it may look, it’s all consensual. Got me?”

Tracy nodded, her mouth suddenly to dry to speak and the Chinese girl lead her into a scene straight out of Dante’s inferno. The light was all red, like emergency lighting or combat lighting. A fog machine somewhere kept the ceiling hidden in a thick vapor that made the place seem a lot taller than it could possibly be. To add to the visual effect groans, screams and cries of animal pleasure filled the room and the odor of aroused woman, sweat, and urine assaulted her nostrils.

The main area of the floor was covered in red carpet and throw pillows. A pile of female bodies writhed in sexual fenzy on it. Large Jumbotrons on the walls showed scenes from hard core S & M flicks. The walls were all in black, and all three sides of the room except the one she came in on sported curtained off alcoves. A long metal bar ran the length of that wall and it was jammed with naked and half naked women. The Bar tender was a burly red head with golden rings dangling from her impossibly large bare breast. She wore only a black leather apron around her waist. And her hands were covered in what appeared to be blood in the eerie light.


-Colly

 

[lucky-E-leven]

I think it works just fine, especially since there is so much visual, aromatic and auditory description around it. No worries, C. Reads just fine (and frightening) to me. Hope that's what you were going for. BTW...it suddenly smells funky in here.

~lucky

 

[Guest]

Fine as ever, Colly. I only suggest capitalizing, even italicizing Inferno (w/ref. to Dante, it's book of cantos in the whole Commedia).

Perdita

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Fine as ever, Colly. I only suggest capitalizing, even italicizing Inferno (w/ref. to Dante, it's book of cantos in the whole Commedia).

Perdita

Thanks again Dita

thanks to everyone else too

*HUGS* all around

-Colly

 

[shereads]

What Dreams May Come

Memnoch the Devil

Revelations

Probably not what you are looking for but those are the only literary references I can think of that depict Hell in any detail.

Here's an obscure Hell reference. An adventure/theology/suspense/globalpolitical adventure novel called The Descent, that was something of a cult hit a few years ago. Not my usual fiction, but when I read the premise in Outside Magazine (by which I vicariously live Everest expeditions from my reading chair), I couldn't resist: A climbing guide in Nepal shelters his group from a blizzard in an ice cave, and stumbles upon an entrance to Hell. Not Hell the biblical concept, but Hell, the actual subterranean world from which the biblical imagery is drawn. Complete with winged gargoyles that reminded me of nasty-tempered flying wolverine/monkeys.

I was hooked at the point early in the first chapter when a climber wakes up in the cave, notices his backpack has been ransacked, and makes the unwise decision to follow a trail of M&Ms that leads deeper into the ice cave...



Haven't thought of this book in years, not until you asked about hell. Not that this reference will do you any good; few people will know what you're talking about. Nevertheless, The Descent (Jeff Long) is marvelously entertaining for rainy-day reading. And the descriptions of Hell - which becomes the target of a global race to colonize it, because everyone on the surface wants the mineral rights - are vivid, imaginative and creepy as, well, hell.

I loved this trashy novel, and I recommend it for anyone who enjoys suspense/adventure fiction with a brilliant and entirely unexpected plot twist. It's fun, scary, ironic, and such a good idea that I'm amazed it took someone so long to write it. Think "Journey to the Center of the Earth" with 21st century corporate interests (substitute "Helios" for "Halliburton"), weapons of mass destruction, the ultimate church & state debate, and a team of explorers, geologists, a sex-starved nun turned anthropologist, are guided into the depths of hell by a mercenary who survived imprisonment by one of the underground tribes - all wrapped around an attempt to settle, once and for all, whether Satan was (is?) a real figure in history. You won't guess the end unless you cheat, no matter how good you think you are at guessing surprise endings.

To pique your interest (or bury it altogether) here's an excerpt, lifted from the "tour of hell" on the book's website. ( http://www.randomhouse.com/features/thedescent/hell3.html )


West Beneath The Clipperton Fracture Zone

On September 5, they found their first hadals. Reaching a fossilized shore, they unloaded their rafts and hauled gear to high ground and started to prepare for night. Then one of the soldiers noticed shapes within the opaque folds of flowstone.

By shining their lights at a certain angle, they could see a virtual Pompeii of bodies laminated in several inches to several feet of translucent plastic stone. They lay in the positions they had died in, some curled, most sprawled. The scientists and soldiers fanned out across the acres of amber, slipping now and then on the slick face.

...Under Ali's sweeping headlamp, their white skin glittered like quartz crystal. For all the heavy bone in their brows and cheeks, and despite the obvious violence of their end, they were remarkably delicate.

H. hadalis -- this variety, at any rate -- looked faintly apelike, but with very little body hair. Most looked no older than thirty. Many were children.

Ali tried integrating them into the family of modern man. It did not help that they had horns and calcium folds and lumps distorting their skulls. She felt strangely bigoted.

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Re: Re: Literary Question.

The story is however set in a very far future. I therefore wanted someting that was linked to a literary classic. In the 24th centruy school children will still probably be torturd with John Dun, but I doubt John Holmes is even rembered.

For a far future setting, I'm sure you're right about the true classics being a better reference, but have you considered something more "futuristic" that still ties into popular culture:

"... A scene from a Klingon romance novel"

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I find it odd to see that sodomy is considered a worse sin than murder.

 

[Guest]

I find it odd to see that sodomy is considered a worse sin than murder.

Flicka, if you are referring to Dante, his Commedia is theologically based (and don't forget it's a medieval work). Having to do with sex, sodomy was considered the worse abomination. P.