cover image Amorous Initiation: A Novel of Sacred and Profane Love

Amorous Initiation: A Novel of Sacred and Profane Love

O. V. De L. Milosz, O. V. L. Milosz, O. V. De L. Milosz. Inner Traditions International, $22.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-89281-418-3

One begins this novel from 1910 delighted by the prospect of a philosophically inclined, symbolist decadent tale. That hope doesn't last long. In 18th-century Naples, the Danish narrator recalls one evening spent with the aristocratic Sassolo Sinibaldo, who regales his guest with the story of the great love that came to him in Venice at the age of 45 after a dissolute and disillusioned youth. The object was Annalena, a young prostitute whom Sinibaldo may or may not know was also beloved by the narrator. In any event, Annalena isn't really a person, but rather the faceless springboard for Sinibaldo's subsequent repetitious meanderings on the glory and the corruptibility of the body. His affair consists of often brutal sex, nasty fits of jealousy, pathetic whimperings and wild self-hatred; but, although clearly imperfect, his infatuation is still his one portal into a greater, ancient love. Milosz ( Les Sept Solitudes ) dots his tale with evidences of his learning, most of which are happily elucidated in the endnotes. The reader may wonder, however, at the need to go through such etymological hoops as to define the name Antisthene as a neologism meaning ``with morbid increase of vital action'' when the more straightforward reference to the cynic Antisthenes would seem to fit the bill. (Nov.)