Sarah Bernhardt: My Erotic Life.
Cassimally (The Memoirs of Irene Adler, 2013, etc.) pens a fictionalized autobiography of the famed French actress.In Cassimally’s version of Bernhardt’s life, she was born in mid-1800s France, the daughter of a courtesan and an unknown father. She was a Jew who wanted to be a nun, though her mother wished otherwise. Bernhardt was determined: “I was not going to make a living on my back”; but for a time, she did. She was a timid teen, convinced her first sexual experience would be her last. Her mother capitalized on her virginity—“what has been broken can be fixed”—and Bernhardt was thus visited by a woman named Madame Aglaë, who specialized in “revirginification.” Luckily, Bernhardt met a young man who boosted her self-esteem and stirred her passion. After garnering a contract with the Comédie-Française, a theater in Paris, she hoped for a career as an actress but was dismissed after slapping another performer. Eventually, she returned to the stage and found acclaim; she also slept in a coffin, was an accomplished sculptor, endured the amputation of a leg and was touted as “La Divine Sarah.” She crossed paths with celebrities of her time, including Bertie, Prince of Wales; Marcel Proust; Victor Hugo; and even Mary Lincoln. Presumably a fictionalized memoir without footnotes or sources, the book begins well, with Bernhardt’s thrice-lost virginity (thus the chapter title “How I Lost My Cherry, My Cherry, My Cherry”). Her amorous adventures are varied, with references to her “semi-lunes” (breasts) and her giving, and being given, a “pipe” (“tongue job”). Often accompanying the sexual acts are lovers’ emotional admissions, which tend to be more interesting than the relatively tame technicalities of sex. Bernhardt connects with individuals across the spectrum of society: Oscar Wilde (she told him she would cure him of his homosexuality, and he allegedly wrote Salome for her); the war-wounded men she tended, who were close to death yet capable of an erection; and even a Creole alleged murderer. There’s voice—a chatty tone prevails—but little depth. Ultimately, this is a series of scenes of Bernhardt’s many assignations interspersed with quotes, conversations and opinions.At times spirited vignettes that eventually run out of steam.
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