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Title: The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings by Marquis De Sade, Richard Seaver, Austryn Wainhouse ISBN: 0-8021-3012-7 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: November, 1987 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.32 (57 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Don't get me wrong...
Comment: De Sade is a powerful writer, an influential writer, and even an insightful writer. What he is *not* - even by his own stated standards - is a good writer. It's not a matter of moral sensibilities, because if you're intending to let yourself be outraged I can't imagine why you'd be reading this. His prose is enthusiastic, violent, sometimes downright childish, but when it comes down to it most of the time it is just plain awful.
I should mention, quickly, that if you intend on reading the 120 Days and you know what you're in for, this is a good edition to read. It has some very good supporting material, an excellent introduction by Klossowski, and some other writings of de Sade (including a more conventional published article that was simply hilarious).
Some very good essays exist by such authors as Bataille and Klossowski, however, that are probably more coherent presentations of his ideas than you'll find in his own work. I'll grant the importance of going straight to the source, of course, since that's why I read this myself. In retrospect, though, I would find reading a book of literary criticism *on* de Sade much more rewarding than this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Sade's most notorious and difficult work.
Comment: The Marquis de Sade - The 120 Days of Sodom and other writings....
Because of the extreme obscenity that we find in his writings they have always been a favorite target of censors, and it wasn't until the mid-sixties that unexpurgated editions of Sade's works became available in English translation in the United States.
For those who would like to read the authentic texts, I can strongly recommend the present authoritative and critical English edition. It has a full introduction, critical essays, bibliographies, etc., and is beautifully translated. But it is not for the beginner, and definitely not for the squeamish. Read 'Justine' and 'Juliette' first.
There are a lot of other 'Sade' books on the market, or books that pretend to be giving you Sade, but the present ediition contains the only authoritative and uncut English translation. As for earlier translations, some of them tend to be rather expensive, possibly because they have usually been issued in limited editions and book dealers have a nasty habit of classifying them as Erotica, as, in other words, "the sort of book that one reads with one hand."
In fact, Sade is not not really erotically stimulating at all. My own feeling is that his descriptions of sexual high jinks are intended more to provoke laughter than to excite, and anyone who goes to him for titillation is going to come away disappointed.
Roald Dahl, the famous writer of children's books, pointed out somewhere that children love the grotesque, the exaggerated, the monstrous, the ugly, the dirty; they find such things hilarious. I think there's more than a bit of this in Sade, and perhaps buried deep down in all of us too. Sade was able to see into the depths of the subconscious mind, and for anyone who is interested in understanding who and what we really are he is unsurpassed.
Rating: 3
Summary: I'm Still Waiting For The Pop-Up Book Version
Comment: I'm gonna try to get down to the nitty gritty of this book. It's a real love it or hate it book, but I'm somewhere in between. Is it good? Yes and no, it depends on what you're looking for. Is it erotic? Not a chance. If that's what you're looking for, read a Penthouse letter. 120 Days is just interesting and entertaining. It's pretty long winded though, and gets boring kinda fast-this is why I had to take breaks and come back to it periodically. How could it be boring? Being bombarded with one sexual atrocity after another desensitizes you. It's like eating Apple Jacks three times a day for a month-it's just not tasty anymore. All in all, it is fun to read in small doses. Actually, funny if you ask me. The whole thing is so outlandish and overdone that it can't be anything but funny. No, I'm not a fan of physical and sexual abuse towards children(DeSade should have left that out to retain at least some dignity. It's NOT cool, no matter how frickin' "free spirited" you claim to be), and I didn't particularly enjoy that. But as long as it's words on a page and not real actions, that's a big plus. DeSade must have either got tired of the story or was running out of paper coz the last third of the book merely lists the sexual activities and totally does away with the narrative altogether. This list sure isn't Kama Sutra; I wouldn't suggest showing it to your girlfriend or wife for a trial run coz no human being is physically able to perform many these things. If you do though, I salute you coz you're a much braver soul than I. You can look for philosophical and psychological meanings in this book, but lets slice right through the Bull, shall we? Sure those meanings are to be found, but 1 out of 10 people who pick up this book are in it for the sizzle and not the steak. Alot of these people read this and proudly show it to their friends and coworkers coz it's the cool/rebel/freakish, yet intellectual thiing to do. I know people who do this. I don't know if I was trying to be cool exactly when I picked this up, I just wanted to see what the big deal was. In the end, I would suggest this novel. Why? The same reason I tell people to watch Caligula: Just To Say You Did.
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Title: Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom and Other Writings by Marquis De Sade, Marquis De Sade, Austryn Wainhouse ISBN: 0802132189 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: October, 1990 List Price(USD): $18.50 |
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Title: Juliette by Marquis De Sade, Austryn Wainhouse, Sade ISBN: 0802130852 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: September, 1988 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Incest by Marquis De Sade, Andrew Brown, Janet Street-Porter ISBN: 1843910306 Publisher: Hesperus Press Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Misfortunes of Virtue and Other Early Tales (Oxford World's Classics) by Marquis De Sade, David Coward, Marquis De Sade ISBN: 0192836951 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: July, 1999 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: The Ghosts of Sodom : The Secret Journals of the Marquis de Sade by The Marquis de Sade ISBN: 1840681012 Publisher: Creation Books Pub. Date: 15 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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