‘Open Confession to a Man from a Woman’ by Marie Corelli: Book Review

This is a book about the flip-side of love. The story is said to be fictional, but the accomplished mistress of sensational writing, Marie Corelli, writes this little novel as if she were truly the woman who underwent the three stages where love was concerned:

Initial Love
Betrayal
Self-realization

It is a wonderful book, full of the reality of what love is and how women are taken for granted in a relationship. I loved this book and will be analyzing it a little more deeply in another blog post. For now, here is my book review of Open Confession to a Man from a Woman by Marie Corelli.

The book is a series of erudite analyses of an independent woman’s feelings for her paramour. The male lover is a painter, while the woman is a writer. The woman is highly successful, independent, and prosperous. The painter, because of his association with the women, is for the while successful. Yet, the woman or Marie Corelli falls deeply in love with him and is betrayed beyond words when he leaves her to marry someone from a wealthy family. This little novel spoke to the independent woman in me because I too am aware of the various conventions that life puts as hurdles between our true desires for the men or people we love and ourselves. I felt one with the intensity of the book which describes:

Possessiveness of love, to the extent of ecstasy beyond the physical.
The ardor of love and the pleasure a true lover gets in burning for the one they love.
The electricity of physical proximity and how women especially get attached to the men they touch and kiss.
The king-like statures we women give to men who are no more men than swans are bass guitarists!
How sensitive children grow up taking their paramours too seriously, and get intensely involved in their relationship.
The betrayal we feel when our lover loves other women who don’t care as much for them as we do.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that Marie Corelli is as prudish as Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters. Rather, her book seems very much in keeping with the truth, and the current situation of love, which even present-day women can relate to. I just loved the honesty of this book. It did not seem like it was penned in the 1920s; it is so modern in approach and very relatable. Marie Corelli is certainly a master of emotive literature. She is blunt, spot-on, and very reflective, but not to the point of dulling her senses to reality. In other words, she listens to her heart but does not let it overrule her head. She mentions very out of the box theories about Catholicism, the Bible, and the way women are portrayed in the Bible. You’ve got to watch out for them because they are priceless and some of them make you laugh your guts out because they are so true! Corelli is also a master of the Bible and has inserted many Bible quotations in this book. She talks frankly about love, her private love affair which ended pitiably but also about how she bounced back. She hopes that this book will serve to help other women to bounce back after a terrible relationship and it’s certainly worth a try. Marie Corelli is far advanced for her time. She reminds me of all these feminist stand-up comedians who write books these days about life, love, and relationships. But truthfully, she is better than all of them. Please read her book and you will certainly not regret it. Her book is so full of forthrightness it makes me wonder how she was able to be so brave in the narrow-minded times she was living in. I love her unconventionality. I also love her unique Biblical interpretations as well as her skewed idea of social norms. For example, she mentions that she loves her love so much that she would never want to curse him by making him her husband. She believes that “the innate passions of men are always aroused by women who are NEVER their wives or those women who NEVER want to ever be their wives.” This is such a fact of life. We get used to our spouses but the thrill of the mistress is something that is beyond the passion men feel for their wives.

Did you like that quote? Here is another one for you to think about. Remember in the Bible the Lord Jesus Christ’s reference to God looking after the sparrows?

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. – Mathew 10:29-31

According to general Biblical interpretation, the idea behind these lines is that if sparrows can be looked after by God then so can humans. Corelli, however, interprets this Biblical text in this form: Since the Lord Jesus in the same breath is equating human beings with sparrows who THROUGHOUT the Bible are mentioned technically as LESSER beings than humans, then:

It is only mockery in our ears because we see that the sparrows and ourselves are equals in the general waste of life.

In other words, if the only saving grace humans have is as good as those of sparrows then we certainly are in big trouble! So, technically God doesn’t seem to take us that seriously but WE have to take him seriously or we’ll be in trouble. Is the Lord Jesus according to Corelli trying to indicate to us that we can be ‘wasted’ just like birds? This is very diagonally opposite to what we are constantly being promised throughout the Bible. I have just read the whole Bible from start to finish in two months and I can vouch for the originality in Corelli’s thoughts. I, however, do not agree with all her Biblical interpretations, and the book should be read with discernment.

I love the way Corelli is firm in the knowledge of herself that she cannot become any man’s wife. She is also aware that that cannot stop her from being in love. Why should the end of love only be marriage? To her marriage is the reason why so many lives are ruined. These and many more such excellent intellectual chewing material can be gleaned from reading this book. Do grab your copy of this book today on your Kindle.

There are a lot of poetical and literary figures mentioned and critiqued in this book. I love the way Corelli has handled her opinion of Shelley’s poetry which is so hilarious that you may fall off your bed laughing; it is just so true! There are many celebrated personalities of that time mentioned in this book which is wonderful to read about from Corelli’s perspective.

I highly recommend this book to all the women out there. Grab your copy of Corelli’s amazing book today. Looking for a good classic read but without the prudishness of the past then read this book. Looking for a new book to read about love from a thinking woman’s perspective, then this is the book for you. Looking for good literature, then grab your copy of this book today.

I hope to read more books by Corelli in the future and review them for you on my blog. I will be doing a deeper analysis of this book in the coming days. The very fact that I want to do so is an indication of the excellence of the book. I hope that before I analyze the book in more detail, you will have managed you get your copy of the book. If you are looking for more book reviews, book review analysis, short story analysis, poems, essays, essay analysis, and other bookish content, then you can visit my blog insaneowl.com. If you are interested in buying my books then check out my website fizapathanpublishing.us or fizapathan.com. Happy reading to you always!