The Ages of Lulu

by Almudena Grandes

Book Review by Lisabet Sarai

First published in the U.S. in 1995 by Barney Rossett's infamous Grove Press, The Ages of Lulu is a controversial pseudo-memoir of a woman's sexual odyssey from childhood to maturity. When it was released, the book was been widely condemned as exploitative and shallow.  Publisher's Weekly wrote: “this luridly inventive first novel strives to shock but instead proves that a woman's quasi-pornographic erotic fiction can be as mechanical, repetitive, graphic and cerebral as men's contribution to the genre.”

I couldn't disagree more. When I read the book a few months ago, I found it to be an intelligent and arousing chronicle of the obsessive relationship between a woman and the man who is her brother's friend, her ravisher, her husband, and ultimately, the master who keeps her sane.

Lulu is fifteen when the story begins, a Catholic schoolgirl hopelessly in love with her brother's best mate Pablo. Pablo is twelve years her senior. Lulu is precocious – she masturbates with her brother's recorder on a dare – but full of the confusions and misconceptions of any teen. When Pablo takes her virginity on the floor of his mother's atelier, the experience is not exactly pleasurable, but it is enough to bind her to him for life. He encourages her sexual experimentation, and she is eager to obey his suggestions.

When Pablo returns from a jail term for political crimes (the novel is set in Spain under Franco), he and  Lulu embark on an unconventional marriage in which he seeks out other women and she finds her pleasure in the company of gay men and transvestites, sometimes with Pablo's participation and sometimes not. Their escapades together and apart become increasingly extreme and perverse. Finally, Pablo tricks her into participating in a ménage that includes her own brother. Disgusted and disturbed by Pablo's duplicity, she leaves him and goes off on her own, but she cannot escape his influence. As she plunges deeper into an underworld of sadomasochistic excess, she tells herself that she is following her own desires, but in truth she is a rudderless outcast, seeking satisfaction that only his love and attention can provide.

The Ages of Lulu does involve a wide variety of sexual situations and activities. However, what I found most erotic about the book was the interplay between Pablo and Lulu, the way he educates her and urges her to act out her fantasies – and his. Their relationship is far from healthy, based as it is on a love that borders on obsession. Arrogant and self-involved, Pablo views Lulu as his creation and his property. Meanwhile Lulu's sexual adventures are ultimately for his pleasure as much as for her own – to win his approval and respect. Nevertheless, their convergent and complementary fantasies are believable and compelling.  Even in her thirties, to him, she will always be his little girl, the horny teen whom he initiated into sex. He will always be her goad, her mentor and her comfort.

Lisabet Sarai
May-June 2009

The Ages of Lulu by Almudena Grandes
(Grove Press; November 10, 1994; ISBN 0802133487)
Available at Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

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© 2009 Lisabet Sarai. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

About the Author: Lisabet Sarai has been writing ever since she learned how to hold a pencil. She is the author of three erotic novels, Raw Silk, Incognito, and Ruby's Rules; co-editor, with S.F. Mayfair, of the anthology Sacred Exchange (Blue Moon); and editor of Cream, the Best of the Erotica Readers & Writers Association.
Visit her website, Lisabet Sarai's Fantasy Factory for more information and samples of her writing.
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