About this title: This volume contains Philosophy in the Bedroom, a major novel that presents the clearest summation of his political philosophy; Eugenie de Franval, a novella widely considered to be a masterpiece of eighteenth-century French literature; and the only authentic and complete American edition of his most famous work, Justine.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Translated by richard seaver and austryn wainhouse. Loose Binding. Worn Along Spine and Edges. All books in VG or better condition. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Grove Press,
Date Published: 1990.
ISBN-13:9780802132185ISBN:0802132189
Description: Inked signature on front flyleaf with red line on bottom of text block, else very good plus, unused condition with text clean & binding tight. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Grove Pr
Date Published: 1990-10-01
ISBN-13:9780802132185ISBN:0802132189
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780802132185. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Grove Press
Date Published: 1994
ISBN-13:9780802132185ISBN:0802132189
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Grove Press
Date Published: 1990-01-11
ISBN-13:9780802132185ISBN:0802132189
Description: Fair. WE SHIP WITH ECO-FRIENDLY MAILERS. Last 50 pages of the 750 page book have a half inch tear from a scissor (also the cover was cut, too). One break in the binding. Clean pages. Cover shows minor wear other than the cut. read more
"marquis de sade's books..i might say very erotic and full of sodomy in the author's life,yet the book is not only filled with sex fantasies but it is filled with anti-christening and gay lesbianism."
"It was a worthwhile read more than an enjoyable one--the thought of saying "I really liked De Sade's Justine" is just uncomfortable. It is certainly intriguing when compared with, at the very least, Venus in Furs or any other studies of deviance (in this case both the act of writing as well as the stories themselves)."
"The myth and the reality differ. Sade is both more and less interesting than his reputation. This was my first reading of anything by him, and I found it rewarding and tedious by turns.
There are three parts to this volume. The first contains a couple of essays by Maurice Blanchot and Jean Paulhan. I suspect these would be more profitable to read after one finishes Sade's writings proper within the volume. It kind of feels like a 100 pages of throat-clearing before you've even read the guy. Better to just meet the bogeyman.
Part two consists of 'Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man' and 'Philosophy in the Bedroom'. The former is about the most concise (and concision is not one of the Marquis' virtues) summary of Sade's views in the volume. In short, Nature is right. If you feel it, it is natural. What is natural is not to be resisted. Sade doesn't really work out the problem of conflicting desires--what do we do when two of us have mutually conflicting natural wants? There are some dodges that come up again and again: a half-baked idea about reincarnation that crops up a lot, and a simple recourse to power. In this he seems proto-Nietzschean. That is, when desires conflict--I want to play loud music, you want to sleep--the stronger of us wins. If this is hard cheese for the weaker, Sade intimates it may be better for them in their next incarnation.
The latter dialogue ('Philosophy in the Bedroom') is lengthy, and reminds me of the lyrics to the Pulp song "This Is Hardcore": Oh that goes in there. / Then that goes in there. / Then that goes in there. / Then that goes in there. PB narrates the education of a young female libertine (Eugenie) by her older acquaintance Madame de Saint-Ange, Saint-Ange's brother Le Chevalier de Mirvel, and their mutual acquaintance Dolmance. In the course of young Eugenie's willing education, every character's openings are sampled by every above-named participant (along with a well-endowed servant or two). The players not only have extraordinary stamina and imagination, they seem to be quite limber as well. Think of it as the ultimate game of naked Twister. Oddly more interesting than the various sexual tableaux, are the disquisitions in favor of vice, led primarily by Dolmance, as the players restore their precious bodily fluids. In the course of his arguments, Dolmance justifies sodomy (of course), fellatio, cunnilingus, incest, flagellation, murder and the sexual joys of coprophagia, among several other things. What is impressive is how powerful some of these arguments turn out to be. Sade is not a trivial thinker or philosopher, and perhaps slightly more attention is lavished on these lengthy diatribes than on the sexual gymnastics. Indeed, he seems to be having more fun in these passages than anywhere else, if only as a succès de scandale. Given the modern-day connotations of the term sadism, there is actually less physical punishment doled out here than one might expect. Also, of the texts in the volume, this one is the most devoted to the ideal of female pleasure in libertinage--in this text, women get to play too. The other texts express a much more decidedly instrumental view of women in the role of getting pleasure.
The third and by far the largest part of the book is devoted to two prose narratives further illustrating Sade's doctrines. The first is "Eugenie de Franval." This shorter narrative tells the story of how one Monsieur Franval, equipped with leisure and wealth, raises a daughter to be his lover. He has to overcome the intrusions of a pesky mother-in-law (as Sade did in real life) and a pious, uncomprehending wife. Sade's sympathies are entirely on the side of the father and daughter (who is her father's willing lover in this tale). Though he ends the story (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) by bringing the father to ruin, it is a testimony to Sade's skill as a narrator that he manages to invest the reader's energies on Franval's behalf for much of the time in this weird little work.
The last item in the volume is 'Justine'--the main reason I picked up this book in the first place. The basic tale is well-known: two sisters orphaned at a young age. One (Juliette) takes the path of vice and flourishes; the other (Justine) insists on virtue and suffers. And suffers. And then suffers some more. In some ways this is the least successful work in the volume. Once the basic template has been established, the only suspense in the work derives from seeing how Justine's good intentions will be crushed the next time. Help a man captured by thieves? Get raped in the woods. Save a dying man ridden over by horses? Get shackled into a counterfeiter's chain-gang/whorehouse. Seek confession at a monastery? Be enslaved in a hellish monk's seraglio. Attempt to prevent a daughter from being vivisected by her surgeon father? Get branded (literally) as a thief. And so on. Justine's donkey-like addiction to virtue is almost as insufferable as her absolute failure to help _anyone_ she attempts to rescue over the course of the text. Indeed, she is so guileless that she is frequently made use of by other characters, who are inevitably smarter than she is. She has a moment or three of doubt, but like her extraordinarily resilient ass, she always bounces back. And her ass must be resilient in this work. Sade here lays on the tortures--we get plenty of beatings and whippings, as well as auto-erotic asphyxiation, forced enemas, branding, erotic cutting and bleeding. Along with copious amounts of sodomy and the occasional more traditional front-entry, so to speak. What is striking (at first) and then boring (at long last) is the fact that every villain or betrayer into whose hands Justine falls, offers up long defenses of vice and atheism. These defenses themselves are not so bad--but every single one of them sounds like Dolmance, which is to say, Sade. In characters like rich libertines (the Comte de Germande, Saint-Fleur) these speeches make a certain kind of narrative sense; they seem out of place in the mouths of prostitutes (Dubois), highwaymen (Couer-de-fer), or counterfeiters (Roland). Nevertheless these speeches are creative and powerful. In the end, they pall simply out of repetition. Every character who abuses Justine gets one of these long diatribes, and every single one of them explodes Justine's feeble defenses of virtue and Christianity. The deck feels a little stacked.
Sade belongs in the company of challenging, counter-intuitive Enlightenment thinkers like Bernard Mandeville. His arguments about nature weirdly echo and pervert Rousseau's. He is forthright in his defense of atheism and his arguments are powerful attacks on eighteenth-century versions of theodicy. Indeed, a good course might profitably pair Candide and Zadig with Justine. His remarks on vice and virtue are serious philosophy and his ideas deserve engagement even if the sexual permutations and games might seem off-putting to many. (And frankly, even if you are into this stuff, after a time it just gets exhausting trying to figure out who's member is where and how her hand can reach that if she is being taken in this and that way by both of them at the same time while their servants stimulate that orifice with a whip, a tongue, and/or a bull's pizzle.) In short, Sade's writing in this volume is more than pornographic, though it is assuredly that as well. But if all you are looking for is wanking material, you would do better with a picture version (Sade For Dummies?)--this monster clocks in at 800 pages, which is clearly much too much to read with one hand."
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