Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990 TAG: 9005130272
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by LYNN ECKMAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
A poorly translated book, "Body of a Girl" is only 137 pages long, yet it took me two weeks to finish. Hailed as truly liberated and sparing nothing and nobody, its frank eroticism offends more than it titillates.
When she is picked up in a park in Paris by an older man who claims to be a writer, Elisa agrees to be the heroine of his future novel. His asking her to recount her memories of childhood and the secrets of her sexual experiences prompts her to remember in detail all that has happened in her short life. However, she fears boring and/or shocking him, and so at first she changes or omits certain events and impressions.
As she records her most intimate fantasies and encounters, she gains confidence, loses her awe of the man and finally turns the table on him. She grows more and more sexually provocative and aggressive, but not toward the writer. What had started as a caprice becomes a bitter struggle for dominance between male and female.
Violent and ugly, "Body of a Girl" made me feel like a reluctant voyeur.
by CNB