Book Review: Consent by Vanessa Springora translated by Natasha Lehrer

There is a fragment in Consent where Vanessa, at the time 14, is admonished by the Romanian-born French philosopher Emil Cioran being adviced to be more submissive and accompany G. (short for Gabriel Matzneff) - the man who abused her - on his way to creation. The artists need to be understood by a woman who self-sacrifice herself for the sake of the ´genius´ she accompanies. Cioran was supported for his whole adult life by a woman - whom he never married - and who gave up her artistic career. 

Cioran was Matzneff´s mentor. For years, Matzneff wrote openly about pedophilia, both in fiction and while sharing his personal experiences - often sharing photos and personal details (particularly names) of underage persons. The relationship with Vanessa started when she was 14 and he 49. Her divorced mother was moving in his intellectual circles and acknowledged the relationship. She made a pact with him to do not hurt her. Others may have mention a sexual precocity on her side and consider that the connection between the two as ´normal´. 

The episode with Cioran I mentioned before was not a name dropping, it was in fact a testimony of the ilusory cult status of intellectuals within the French culture and society. Matzneff resisted the accusations against him, which were obvious, with arguments pertaining on his prestige, his cultural capital being transferred into a superior status. Underage sex without consent seemed an artificious information which did not make sense for the culturally superior French intellectuals. Hence, the loneliness of the victims, of the many women who were abused by G. as little girls. Indeed, ´it´s forbidden to forbide´ was a concept more important than protecting a child and the blindness of left French intellectuals only adds more deception to a landscape of denial. 

Matzneff, now in his 80s, promised to write his own version of things. As it is anything else to be said.

Consent is an important book for understanding not only the concept as such, but for the insights into the French intellectual landscape. Translated into English by Natasha Lehrer, it shakes the nonmoral fundament of the St.Germain Republic of Letters. There are moral values that do apply to anyone, no matter how gifted as an artist.

Rating: 4 stars