Perhaps the passage of time makes this book no longer as daring as it once tried to be. On the other hand, it is now quaint, in a way it never was meant to be.

Reading this novel gives you a definitely unique experience. It is as if the schoolgirlish author --- with a decidedly schoolgirlish voice in prose --- wants very, very much to write a dirty book full of all sorts of fascinating sexual fantasies. So she is all buildup and no climax: she does her best to set up a variety of situations, but her authorial lens always fogs up at the good parts.

Like most other books whose mainspring is sexual fantasy, the plot contains some non-sequiturs and unexpected developments. These discontinuities lend an ultimately dreamlike quality to the narrative, that is not dispelled by the bizarre --- and truly artificial --- denouement.

Its tale of sexual role reversal was no doubt more interesting in 1884. Those who would seek to read some kind of political statement into this fantasy are undercut by the noticeable naivete of the story itself. I also understand that Rachilde re-worked the main themes of this tale in her several later works. Still, it is definitely a unique experience.

This is possibly the most ridiculous thing I have ever read. It occupies the same place in our hearts as a tango played with a satin bow on a chocolate violin. The over the top style recalls the romance of Gomez and Morticia, or at the very least of Boris and Natasha. The trick is not to take it seriously- let's face it, its isn't a masterpiece by Goethe but it does provide the same amusement as reading a book with Fabio on the cover out loud in a phony French accent. I say this book is a breath of fresh air in an era otherwise filled with the East India company and novels concerning the salvation of propriety for maidens of little means who are smitten with the lord of the mannor but dare not say so in front of civilized company.

Rachilde's masterpiece, Monsieur Venus (1884), is the ultimate decadent novel. It has something for every sexual nonconformist: transvestism (both male and female), sadism, masochism, fetishism, homoeroticism, and even symbolic necrophilia. Rachilde's genius lies in her poetic ability to express the protean possibilities of gender. More than a mere reversal of stereotypical gender roles, her story destroys the boundaries of those limiting roles. The beautiful Raoule, dressed in masculine attire, seduces, violates, and keeps the feminine Jacques as her "mistress." Jacques takes quite naturally to feminine attire, as well as to the drugs and luxurious apartment provided by his lover. Raittolbe, Raoule's suitor--a virile military man--and Marie, Jacques' prostitute sister complicate the plot with their ruthless, yet stereotypically "normal" sexuality. However, it is Raoule's sexual ambiguity which threatens to undermine everyone else's gender identity--with the exception of the prostitute Marie, who is the only character with a strong gender identity. Problems begin to occur in the romantic lives of Raoule and Jacques when their mutual transvestism causes Jacques to question both his gender and his sexuality. Read symbolically, this text provides a wealth of meanings and any one of the themes enumerated above, from transvestism to necrophilia, can be explored with fascinating results. However, this is more than a symbolic text; this is a great story, a saturnalia of decadent eroticism. In my opinion, Monsieur Venus has lost none of its power to shock, provoke, and most of all entertain in the more than one hundred years since Rachilde wrote it. Thus I can think of no higher praise for Rachilde than to call her the Queen of Decadence unless, taking her own transvestism into account, I should call her the King of Decadence.