It’s always very nice when someone says flattering things about you, especially so when those words come from someone with similar interests . . . in this case erotic literature . . . and even more so from someone for whom English is not their native language.
So I was thrilled to receive a lovely email two weeks ago from the gentleman who publishes at La Bauge littéraire (a site dedicated to erotic literature) to tell me about his review of my Ebook The Modesty Diaries – Part 1 The Journey on his site. Now although I’m multi-lots-of-things (as you can probably imagine), I’m afraid multi-lingual is not one of them . . . although I just swoon at the sound of a French accent, my schoolgirl french is not good enough to read more than a few words!.
However La Bauge has just re-published his review in English which he has very graciously allowed me to re-publish in full below. Several other posts from La Bauge also have English translations and I really urge you to visit the wonderful world of Amber Jahn and discover some of her amazing paintings at: A Radiant Artist. They are quite simply stunning!!!
Thank you once again to La Bauge . . . and, as I have already said to him . . . his words below have motivated me to try to find some time to compile more of my (lots and lots) diary scribbles over the past few years, into a new Ebook Edition as soon as I can.
Katie Ellison, The Modesty Diaries, t. 1 « The journey »
The article you are about to read on the Modesty Diaries has first been published in a French version on my website dedicated to erotic literature, La Bauge littéraire. As the French still have difficulties coping with the idea that there are things worth saying in other languages than their own, this original feature on Katie Ellsion and her Modesty Diairies has remained without any attention. Which is rather sad, as Katie and her excellent texts are worthy of being discovered by a larger public. So I decided to publish an English translation in order to reach a bigger audience, for the sake of these diairies, its saucy details and its human dimension which extends far beyond the boundaries of physical love-making.
As you all know, literature is a kind of a game at the crossroads of reality and fiction. While some texts don’t seem to have any connection whatsoever to the world we all live in, others try to render it in the most accurate way or are destined to give an account of someone’s (for example the author’s) life and his reflections on it. Regardless of this consideration, literature is always fictional, never the real thing entirely. Conscious of this state of things, I was not able to exclude the idea of the Modesty Diaries being some kind of literary hoax. Something rather common and not to be rejected as false or dishonest, just a way of making literature out of something. Since the initial publication of this feature, I have chatted on multiple occasions with this diary’s author, and I am convinced now that the woman behind it all is in fact real. As for the actions related, I am of course not an eye-witness and I can by no means guarantee the veracity of every single detail, but I am convinced that the episodes of her life she has chosen to integrate into this stunning text – those that have led the author on her path to an enlightened – and profoundly human – sexuality – are indeed genuine. This being said, we should of course not forget that, having been transformed into literature, these experiences have acquired an additional dimension and a veracity that extends beyond that of a single person.
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Those who come and visit the den of literature’s wild boar on a regular basis know all about the terrible thirst of this beast of the Teutonic forests for all things related to literature, a thirst that pushes it to transgress all bounds in its search for something to quench the fire in its guts, a fire nourished by its lust for literature and sex, a lust so measureless that it makes him forget all decency, a longing to push to the heart of even the strangest phantasms. You can easily imagine that such a longing is difficult to satisfy, and this is one of the reasons that pushes the wild boar to take a good look over the fence, to see what treasures there may possibly be in other languages. After Barbara Shumway, an American author presented recently with two features, it is now the turn of Katie Ellison, an English writer that I met, just as Barbara, on about.me, a site that built its business case around the notion of egotism, a kind of virtual visiting card that seems to exert a particular attraction on writers of erotica.
We should perhaps start by asking ourselves in what measure Katie Ellsion is about literature. Her texts are presented as excerpts from her diary, first published on a blog destined to be some kind of report of her discovery of – and slow progression toward – polyamory and a swinging life-style, of her first steps in this new world whose doors so often remain closed to the common mortal, caught in the conventions of a society that professes some sort of serial monogamy.
« These extracts are not fiction, but real life accounts of her occasional affairs, swinging adventures and encounters over the past decade. »
Having never met the author elsewhere than in her writings, it is of course entirely possible that this is some kind of literary hoax, something rather common since the romantic ages, a trick that consists in creating fake biographies with all the appearances of the real thing. Whatever it may be in this case, as we talk (almost) exclusively literature in the wild boar’s den, and as this one has the habit of reaching out to those that offer him the possibility to travel the minds of writers, we are going to give credence to Katie’s story and delve into her texts, The Modesty Diaries, as if these really were the true confessions of a woman fulfilled by the experience of her openly assumed free sexuality.
As one would expect in a diary, everything is written from a first person perspective. As one follows the plot, one discovers a woman that nothing seems to make any different from the ordinary twenty-first century woman, married with kids, doing well in the job and at home. A woman whose first steps in the discovery of the sentimental and sexual aspects of life are those of the biggest part of her contemporaries. Up to the day where she starts (or lets herself get into) an affair, with all those mixed feelings that come along with it:
“Someone else found me attractive! Wanted me! Aroused me! Excited me! I just couldn’t help myself… even the complete feelings of guilt and shame in the aftermath, couldn’t stop me. I enjoyed it… and yes, I wanted it, I needed it.”
A not very original experience that many have lived through, torn between fulfilment and shame, and that many have not been able to prevent from letting it destroy their marriage. But here lies the difference : The main character of this very intimate diary had the chance of being married to a man that not only understands her but actively encourages her to take more lovers, at the sole condition of telling him everything about it, up to the most saucy details. And that has been the start of a series of encounters that the author has chosen to present on her blog, which has later become the basis of the three volumes of her Modesty Diaries.
The episodes inspired by the rich sexual life of Katie E. (yes, this should remind you of the work of another famous sexual egotist, The sexual life of Catherine M.) have all one thing in common (at least in the first volume I just finished reading), a certain naiveté that, despite the open indecency of the characters and certain of their practices, makes for a refreshing sense of innocence. An innocence that largely contributes to make even more credible the allegations of the chief protagonist who professes the extra-literary, non-fictional character of herself and her texts. The things happening between Modesty (aka Katie) and her lovers are not out of the ordinary, and every person with a healthy sexuality is sure to have enjoyed it in some form: Modesty loves to suck cock, gets her nipples played with, enjoys head-jobs and passionate french-kissing. As I said, nothing out of the ordinary. There are no transgressions apart from the main one that lies at the heart of the matter, polyamory (rendered even more spicy by a big dosage of cuckolding). Apart from that, the sexual habits of Modesty Ablaze are those of about 99% of the population, and no-one would find anything wrong with that.
So, nothing special as for this matter, if it were not for the sincerity of the narrative that contributes to make Modesty Ablaze a real human being, a fellow, a person one would love to meet, not only to enjoy her open-mindedness and her excellence in all matters sexual, but to bask in the all-to-human warmth that she irradiates, a warmth so contagious that it makes exceptional beings out of those who just cross her path, beings that get into the readers’ heads and continue to live there. All thanks to the writing skill of Katie Ellison. And I hope you understand that this is an exploit so outstanding I just had to single it out.
If I have chosen to present to you, my faithful readers, the works of Katie Ellison, it is first and foremost for the profound humanity that lies at the heart of her writing, a humanity we all have a great need for in these times of obscurantist terror, a humanity that expresses itself precisely by what makes us human in the first place, tenderness and love, feelings that lead us into the arms – and between the legs spread wide open – of our fellow humans. This being said, I cannot stress enough how much the indecent encounters of Katie E. can be arousing! A reading adventure that guides those who let themselves be tempted from sexual heat to human warmth, an exploit that makes the diaries of this woman – a woman in the most profound of ways – such a remarkable read.
Republished here with permission from La Bauge littéraire (a site dedicated to erotic literature)
Xxx – K
When I first began posting pages here at the end of 2011, the purpose of my Modesty Ablaze blog was almost as a form of therapeutic release.
