Gifted women and sexuality in classics--ARIANE, a girl who plays a "man's game" and FALLING, a mature woman "played" in a conman's lethal game,

ARIANE a Russian Girl by Claude Anet (New York Review of Books) is set in 1920s provincial Russia, though its teen heroine's attitude toward men is pure pop diva. Yet in this time and place, men might rule women from birth to death, but Ariane's life was her own. Her aunt may be an influence, a rare educated woman and a physician, who's chosen to pursue a happy single life.. Then past 40, Ariane is shocked to see her proud aunt humilated, ruined by "romantic love."

Weaponizing her beauty and intelligence,  Ariane becomes popular among men of her class, young and old with money and titles, who assume she is marriageable. Yet, the only expectations she entertains are to pursue her education at the university in Moscow.  When her final exams are "brilliant," and she's accepted by the elite Moscow university, Ariane's thrilled, though her father to pay.  He demands she arrive at his home and prepare to marry his friend. Legally, at 17, Ariane's his property to marry off.  But aware of her options, she finds a reliable discreet "banker."  Even her aunt is shocked, when she offers her money for education and is refused.

As Ariane plans her escape to Moscow, she realizes she can have a full social life, long as she keeps men in context.  Though highly sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others, she sees no rational reason to please. Her dates were often perplexed. Traditional culture and law, led men to assume the controlling authority of her life, financial and sexual. That Ariane was on the "make" for freedom, personal and intellectual, was not possible. 

In Moscow, she meets Prince Constantine, businessman and "man of the world", who also finds his "waif" of a student fascinating. But, as a sophisticated man, he arranges his life, as he likes. His conditions are clear, no long-term relationship. Before long they are locked in a struggle of desire and cruelty. Constantine, who also has a lovely refined mistress, is shocked by Ariane's behavior. Yet her her writing on the sexes explains the conflict he hates but cannot do without. 

"Men speak freely of the women they've had, and we're condemned to silence. Why? Aren't we as free as you? Don't we, like you, have the right to take pleasure wherever we find it? They praise seducers in art, poetry, and literature and put a mask of infamy on any woman who's had many lovers. This is the point where the fight must be fought. Woman's morality must triumph and that's what I'm working at..."

 ARIANE is said to have been the inspiration for Billy Wilder's classic Love in the Afternoon. It might be compared to Colette's emotional explorations of sex between men and women. But the high stakes of Ariane's battle, its outcome for her amazingly independent self had me riveted. At 18, her crisi is how to be true to herself and honor the Prince's rules. It seems conflict without resolution. Then she takes charge? 

In our time, women's autonomy--the ability to pursue their health and to determine motherhood--cannot be assumed. Yet desire is untamed. Who a person loves, when and how, can't be legislated.  ARIANE, explores the psychological enforcement of societal norms for women, gender as political identity, and the emotional turbulence and ambiguity of sexual desire for both sexes. 

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Hilary Mantell wrote of Elizabeth Jane Howard, "In her novels, Howard described delusion and self-delusion. She totted up the price of lies and the price of truth. Married to popular author, Kingsley Amis, Howard's fate was the usual lot of women writers, considered less because their domestic duties were thought more important."  Though enormously successful, Mantell believes Howard was devalued because she wrote "womans' stories in books bought by women." 

FALLING is a shocking novel, based on a true story of a conman, who got women to fall in love with him for profit. In FALLING, Henry, a self-reported "handsome man in his 60's" lives on a boat he's supposed to be selling for absentee owners. He's still married to a hard working woman, whose pension he's managed to steal. In his inner thoughts he tried his best. She just wasn't his type. He compromised with a "good thing," since he admits to himself he's not much of a worker...

Daisy, more his type,is  a successful playwright and scriptwriter. She's been been married twice, has child-rearing behind her and an income to buy the little cottage nearby. Attractive for her age, shy and poetic, he believes she will appreciate his artistic talents. Henry does write beautiful observant letters and it seems they have more in common than a hired gardner and his employer. He's careful to both intrigue her and gain her trust him--a delicate thing. Emotional scars and age are what the two have in common. He bides his time, as cartaker of the cottage, while she's away on assignment. How can he   win her over?

The novel uses alternating histories of Henry nand Daisy in letters and diary entrees. Reactions to each other differ, as do ideas of new lives in this duet of mixed purposes. As the relationship developed, I became horrified. Daisy's survived bad marriages, raised a daughter and her independence, hard won and habitual, becomes fragile, after a horrific accident and hospitalization. When she returns to the cottage, he's there to care for her--as long as she needs him. Henry catalogues her tastes, desires and how far, she will let him into her world. Taking care of her injured body, gives him intimacy and an uncertain trust. Vulnerable and in pain, Daisy believes in Henry, because he acts kindly, attentively and gives her space.. 

Delusion and self-delusion are all over this fine novel. At the heart is sex, the healing kind women don't expect, especially "at an age when traces of beauty seem a mirage." Henry, in charge of her body, uses sex as cure. And she recovers,  again becomes independent with work and routines. He deludes himself she will become someone else. When the delusions crash down, it's devastating, dangerous and indefensible.  Rich suspense and pity here. For adults only.

S.W.