Reviewed by Julian Robinson
(05/09/01)

What makes a dominant man? Paul has all the obvious qualifications: lady-killer looks, impeccable sexual technique, wealth, class and a monster cock. But what enables him to seduce from across the room women he's never met, then abandon them, all in the space of a glance? What makes the ultimately desirable Claire submit herself to his humiliating requirements and painful discipline -- Claire whose face stops traffic and whose bottom stops time itself?

In A Journey Round a Darker Sun, Simon Lowrie one-ups 9 1/2 Weeks in plausibility, in characterization, and by tackling that question head-on. According to Claire,

"It's not that he came across as being vain or conceited, exactly. He's just amazingly self-confident, which is the same but different. Trouble is, people like that can go through the rest of us like a knife through butter, because they're not muddled up by all the doubts and contradictions us normal people have."

These opposite aspects of Claire, dominating Tristan while submitting to Paul, give the tale a twist. As the opposite of Paul -- loyal, sympathetic, accepting -- Tristan provides a sounding board for Claire to bounce her doubts off. A goddess with doubts is an interesting character. Claire agonizes over class issues:

"I can't just turn myself into one of those elegant continental girls it seems he's used to, all chic and stylish and never putting a foot wrong."

Intimate inspections, revealing postures, rituals of apology and correction, all the elements of formal dominance and submission are present, but none of the clichés. No bondage, black leather, home dungeons, slave contracts. Here the rich British corporal punishment tradition sets the tone, from hands-on-head to over-the-knee to the cane. Also refreshingly absent are the genre's obligatory corpse, obligatory history of childhood abuse, and obligatory tragic consequences, which always seem to pop up whenever such a work demands to be taken seriously.

Dialogue carries a great deal of the narrative and it is handled masterfully, especially between Claire and Tristan, with their long history, in-jokes, intimate revelations, her reliance on his judgment, and his manipulative strategies to enjoy more of her than he is permitted.

Claire: "Well, if you really wanna know, he says the only reason he pops it in my mouth so much is that he doesn't know how else to keep me quiet sometimes."

Tristan: "You deserve the best -- best clothes, best cock, best life, best of everything! Nothing else will do!"

And Lowrie deftly juggles even more balls. Claire has a girlfriend named Beth, who gets on Tristan's case with a vengeance and on his ass with whatever is handy. Paul has a housemaid/sex slave named Rachel whom he uses to demonstrate the kind of treatment Claire should prepare herself for, one aspect of which involves copious lubrication.

It is easy to criticize Darker Sun as a patriarchal dinosaur, but to do so misses its multi-layered construction, the subtle transformations its characters undergo, its conviction that meanings matter more than appearances. Sure, Paul seems a right bastard, but his stern facade armors an emotional vulnerability. His strictness serves as much to prevent Claire from getting close to him as to maintain the traditional status quo in male-female relations. Claire instinctively knows that the only way to reach Paul is to comply with his conditions, to come to him on his own terms. This complicated struggle drives the whole machine. Claire finds herself changing, but so does Paul.

"In dread and bliss, Claire squeezed her legs. She saw now that all her mental shields and subterfuges were utterly absurd, and soon Paul's discipline would simply be a part of life for her like sex and socks and work."

"He says he only chose me for my face and bum at first, and was quite surprised to find out later he still liked me with my clothes on."

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