Your Name Written on Water: An Erotic Novel

by Irene González Frei

Book Overview

Your Name Written on Water, winner of an international contest for erotic literature in Spanish and a bestseller in Spain, is a startling and charged exploration of desire and narcissism that reads like Carole Maso's Aureole with a twist of The Story of O. Sofia works in a gallery in Madrid, the young wife of an architect whose love for her has hardened into a passionate and destructive resentment. Her life is transformed when one afternoon, by chance,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802136486
• ISBN13: 9780802136480
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Haunted

This book hit many levels for me, and has value in many ways. First off, it is beautifully written. The writer and translater has a knowledge of language that quickly becomes poetry. Secondly, this erotica is truly original. As an author myself, I am blown away with the courage it took to write this story, which breaks many rules that commercial books seem to follow. I found a sexuality here that I can so strangely identify with, and that I haven't yet found in another book. In many ways, it is intensely pure, and not naughty at all. In fact, I think this book is shortchanged if one called it simple "an erotic novel," because the sex is a psychological feast as well as physical. And thirdly, I must add that the story itself is on my top list of favorites now. This novel is many stories: it's an updated interpretation/spin off on the narcissus myth, it seems inspired by the textbook idea of homosexuality being a form of narcisism, and it is also the sad story of a woman who creates her own idea of love in rebellion for being abused by a man. I read this book slowly because I didn't want it to end. But, thanks to the author, I am left with much to ponder...

Insatiable erotica!

It appears that the Spaniards, like the French, are excellent at writing erotica that is both insatiable and literary. Vicente Munoz Puelle's The Arch of Desire introduced me to the aforementioned brand of erotica, and in turn helped me discover Your Name Written on Water. This beautiful novel centers on eroticism mixed with narcissism.Sofia and Santiago have an affair that is as barbaric as it is passionate. As Santiago's S & M-like lovemaking becomes all the brusquer for Sofia - to the point of causing a miscarriage - she decides that enough is enough. In her quest to find meaning in her life, she encounters Marina - a woman who is the identical vision of Sofia. What transpires is a disarming tale of tangible passion with narcissistic undertones, especially when the two women create Clara - an imaginary synthesis of the two women. There are various twists throughout the novel.Your Name Written on Water is an erotic tour de force that leaves the reader satisfied - so to speak. Irene Gonzalez Frei (pseudonym) has created a wonderful masterpiece. It doesn't surprise me that this novel became a bestseller in Spain. It's rare to find a novel that is both erotic and literary, and Frei's book quenched my thirst for such an unheard-of combination.

Very very strange story indeed ....

The author, certainly takes the reader on a wild roller coaster ride as we follow a young Sofia trying to cope with everyday life and certainly efervescent sexuality. She is a young married woman and it appears that her husband and most of the men she gets involved with are nothing to write home to mother about..... Course her downfall is that she likes it rough and tht's why we have a story. Sofia meets, well into the book, Marina a beautiful young Uruguayan girl that could well pass for her twin sister. The two girls hit it off very very very well and theres no doubt in Sohia's mind that she's dumping her husband for this new kind of sexual experience ... The end of the story is both shocking and surprising to say the least ...... all in all it may not be my kind of book since I think it should probably be classed as 'high brow' erotica, but, it does deserve high praise of the author who paints a very realistic picture of sexual struggles with life .....

Sensitive and beautiful

This one might be one of the books that most influenced me. It's such a nice story, with such nice characters that you must enjoy it, it's so sad and so beautiful at the same time that it really gets inside of you.You've got to read it!

art is meant to stimulate...

Your name written on water... A beautifully written tragety, one that weaves the reader into a world that is sweet and painful. Each person who reads it will respond differently, a sign of important art; that it brings out our individual responses. This is not a book for everyone. It is a book for me. For I loved it. I laughed and cried and remembered feelings that I have had, the book took me places; some dangerous but some good. Her writing is prose-like, it has melodies that make a person want to relax into them, and yet she writes about harsh subjects, things that are dangerous, things that are cruel. This is not a book for Harlequine Romance readers. This is not a book for people who do not like to have their world view shaken up a bit. This is a book for lovers who understand that love, like life, is a two edge sword, that pleasure and pain are sometimes emeshed, and that the human experience is just that, an experience. This is a book for those who would want to take Isabel Allende one step further. For those of us that wish that "The story of O" was more lyrical. The only disappointment was that after publishing such a brave work, the author chose to use a psuedonym. Instead of celebrating her rare talent for writing strange beautiful truths, she hid behind a false name. Although it gives the reader reason to think... have I read this author before?