The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues
Poet and writer Susan Griffin is famously provocative, though her  provocation takes very different forms, ranging from her classic feminist  treatise,Women and  Nature, which linked patriarchy with the oppression of women and nature,  to her well-receivedA  Chorus of Stones, which weighed in on the nature of war. But inThe  Book of Courtesans, Griffin is downright scintillating. Courtesans, she  writes, were not prostitutes nor even kept women, though certainly they used  their sexuality to financial gain. Rather, they were personages and celebrities,  friends to royalty and the most famous writers and artists of their time, the  subjects of gossip, the charismatic epicenter of the Second Empire, the Gay  Nineties, the Belle Epoche, "Gay Paree." Their faces were immortalized in  paintings by the Renaissance masters, by Degas, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec,  their lives by Proust, Balzac, Zola, Flaubert. They lived in splendor, set  fashion standards, owned fabulous jewelry collections. And they were talented  authors, poets, actresses, and singers. In a time of prescribed roles for women,  they turned the tables, creating lives of remarkable intellectual and financial  freedom.Griffin sings the praises of these women and enunciates their virtues, which,  ironically, are the sort popularly thought to be made anachronistic by feminism.  With her impeccable timing, the French dancer Mogador achieved legendary status  the first time she danced on stage and later became a countess. Harriet Wilson  seduced the Duke of Wellington with her cheek, and delivered him from boredom.  Marion Davies' gaiety enlivened all those who saw her, Madame Pompadour was the  embodiment of grace, and Sarah Bernhardt exuded so much charm she acted her way  straight out of the role of courtesan. Griffin imagines herself into her  subjects lives with sensitivity and sensuality--the rags to riches stories that  characterized them and their creative responses to often dire circumstances. In  the end, she not only immortalizes these feminist precursors, but reminds us  that "the capacity to take pleasure in life is no less a virtue than any other."--Lesley Reed