Marquis De Sade - thoughts?

[blue_diamond21]

Im halfway through The Complete Works of the Marquis De Sade. I was just wondering what people thought of his writing. I have read Justine and Philosophy in the Bedroom (I preferred the latter) and while they both centre on children becoming sexually aware and deviant I tried to look past this and focus on De Sade meaning behind why he uses children (or at least my interpretation of it).

Has anybody else read his works? It would be interesting to hear what you all think

[Eric]

I find Sade's work incredibly interesting, and I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the influence that the French mechanistic materialists (i.e., Diderot, La Mettrie) played on his philosophy. I think that many people unfairly dismiss Sade as a pornographer just writing for shock value, but he was really a descendant of what Jonathan Israel calls the "radical Enlightenment", which began with the Cartesians and the Spinozists and became much more radical as it evolved. In many ways, Sade carries this radical strain of thought to its logical conclusion. And despite being portrayed as a totalitarian by his critics, Sade was actually a passionate advocate of the ideals of the French Revolution: women's rights, sexual liberation, secularism, etc. As for writing style, I did find some of his longer works like Justine repetitive at times.

[blue_diamond21]

I agree about the repetitive nature of Justine but Im glad someone else his writing as more that a pornographic book! I have found his work quite interesting and have been surprised at how much I have enjoyed his work - I read reviews on Amazon before buying and the people that panned it should probably have know better that to buy it in the first place!

[Abagayle]

Any specific book I should read first? I'm going to Borders today. ;D

[blue_diamond21]

If you come acros Justine and Juliette rea Justine first, They are sisters and Juliettes stories follows on from Justines and elaborates on her sisters explanatoins of what happened to her (Juliette). Other than that, I would probably leave 12 days of sodom until last - its definitle the most 'deviant' shall we say

[Eric]

If you come acros Justine and Juliette rea Justine first, They are sisters and Juliettes stories follows on from Justines and elaborates on her sisters explanatoins of what happened to her (Juliette). Other than that, I would probably leave 12 days of sodom until last - its definitle the most 'deviant' shall we say

I agree. Another bonus is that "Justine, Philosophy In the Bedroom, & Other Writings" has two of his shorter, more accessible works: "Philosophy In the Bedroom" and "Dialogue Between a Priest & a Dying Man".

[aemdis]

I went through a phase a few years ago and tried to buy the oldest translations of some of my favorite books. One of those being Justine by De Sade at the time. Well, on one hand it was historically interesting, but on the other, some of hist 'terminology' was just translated vulgarly and it was actually quite funny!

I love what De Sade stood for and his importance historically, but overall, I think that it's not that entertaining unless you look at it from that point of view.

[KatKennedy88]

I have always been fascinated by his work tho I've never read one before. I always want to read something new, see? I heard it is violent but behind all that there's something deeper. I hope to find his works in my local bookstore...