Rogue Review  No. 36 - May 28, 1998

by Lee Vine

A Certain Circle in New York by Marc Proust

M/F, F/F

Length: 4,100 words

==========

NOTES:

(1)  IF YOU ARE UNDER 18 THEN STOP READING NOW!!!!!
(2)  IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL ACTS WHICH SOME 
PEOPLE CALL PLEASUREABLE BUT YOU REGARD AS NECESSARY FOR THE 
PERPETUATION OF THE HUMAN RACE THEN STOP READING NOW!!!!!!!
(3)  IF YOU AREN'T SURE IF EITHER (1) OR (2) APPLY TO YOU THEN STOP 
READING NOW!!!!

==========

Summary

Simon and Julie have a vanilla sex life.  That changes after Meg 
starts cleaning their place for them.

Commentary

This story leaves a lot of unanswered questions.  That is not 
necessarily a bad thing.  It leaves a lot up to the reader's 
imagination, or perhaps I should say the readers imagination.

Another thing Mr. Proust does is omit quite a few apostrophes.  I got
the impression that he was semi-consistently trying to imitate the 
style of George Bernard Shaw, who if I remember correctly did the 
same.  There was also a certain Pygmalion-esque quality to this 
story, but the part of Henry Higgins in this case was not played by 
a man, but by a woman.

I liked the plot.  It basically tracks the sex life of Simon and 
Julie until it comes to a crashing halt one afternoon.  The 
revolution in Julie's personality was both disturbing and arousing.  
Simon's reaction to it seemed typically male.

This story leaves me wanting more details about Simon and Julie and 
Meg.  It is a very narrow view that Marc Proust gives us, but is done
so well that it is hard to fault him.

Judgment

This story was excellent, but I would have liked a little more of 
something.  This is a minor consideration and expresses an extremely
subjective desire on my part.

