Rapture

"What is frightening is the loss of the sacred in the human, particularly in sexual relations, because it means no true union is possible." - Marguerite Yourcenar. Shortly before her death in a car accident, Camille, a quiet, erudite, somewhat mysterious unmarried woman in her sixties, had entrusted [...]
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"What is frightening is the loss of the sacred in the human, particularly in sexual relations, because it means no true union is possible." - Marguerite Yourcenar. Shortly before her death in a car accident, Camille, a quiet, erudite, somewhat mysterious unmarried woman in her sixties, had entrusted to a friend - the narrator of this book - a manuscript that described a passionate love affair she had experienced when she was forty. "Rapture" is this woman's meticulously detailed and totally candid account of the highs and lows of a physical and spiritual relationship with a man, Julien, that overwhelmed and obsessed her, and of their secret meetings and rituals in a white bedroom. Rarely in fiction has sexuality, both male and female, been analysed so extensively - and so honestly - from a woman's perspective. Interspersed with Camille's introspective analysis of the growth and decline of her love for Julien are a series of reflections taken from Roland Barthes, Georges Bataille and Proust, among others, that serve as a counterpoint to this memorable tale of an all-consuming love affair.