- Paperback: 496 pages
- Publisher: Picador; New Ed edition (23 Feb 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330319612
- ISBN-13: 978-0330319614
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 705,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
This is a big black book about a black-hearted man. Neil Schaeffer manages to suggest some of the complexities and contradictions in de Sade's character, but there is no doubt that he got up to some pretty unpleasant things. Schaeffer's skill is in giving us the full gamut of Sade's distinctive sexuality (as much masochistic, it turns out, as sadistic) in detailed if understated description--while also managing to place the whole story in context. De Sade's tastes were not actually that unusual for the times in which he lived. Eighteenth-century France was a cruel period, leading up to the violent Revolution of 1789 (in which Sade participated), and it produced a tremendous amount of sexual whippings, beatings and violent goings-on.
Schaeffer's analysis of Sade is acute without becoming prurient. "His sexual life would find a modern equivalent among a great many rock stars," he writes, adding that "the public expect and vicariously enjoy the escapades" of such figures, which is a good insight into the appeal of books such as this one. There are even moments of tenderness in The Marquis de Sade: A Life, as we learn of Sade's lifelong romanticism, and sometimes we even feel sorry for him. A letter makes reference to "three or four friends" and Schaeffer comments: "it is unknown who these friends are. Sade had no friends." This is unsurprising, given his predilections, but somehow sad. --Adam Roberts --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
By separating the facts of Sade's life from the mythology and establishing a social context for the libertine excesses of Sade's age, [Schaeffer] may have written the most fearlessly sympathetic portrait of the man yet...He wields the most subversive tool yet employed in any discussion of the Marquis: compassion. -- Doug Wright "San Francisco Chronicle"
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you happen to look up reviewers' critiques of the film Quills [...] then you'll quickly see just what extremes the mere mention of the name of the Marquis de Sade drives people to, even within the context of a highly fictionalised celluloid account of his final days.
It is to Neil Schaeffer's enormous credit that The Marquis de Sade: A Life, takes not only a more balanced view, but, indeed, restores the Marquis to the position of fascinating and complex historical figure that he most surely is.
Schaeffer does not duck the details of de Sade's sexual adventures or, more importantly, his pornographic writings - although it becomes a little wearing to read his pseudo-Freudian explanations of the man who (unwittingly) gave his name to sadism, particularly since, as he points out, most of de Sade's "perversions," including erotic flagellation, were hardly new at the time.
He does raise the point that much of his literary output could well have been aimed at satirising the political figures and situation of his day... pornography as a political weapon is not a new concept.
But what does come through clearly, however, is that de Sade's main "crime," in the eyes of the establishment, was his blasphemy and constant challenges to church and state. His disproportionate incarceration - some 29 years throughout his life - was primarily a result of this and, indeed, his own family's displeasure with such a refusal to compromise his own philosophical beliefs in the name of safe conformity.
Schaeffer presents his subject within a superbly well drawn historical setting and paints a man that we would do well to learn from. A fascinating insight into a complex and angry himan being who, whatever one thinks of his ideas, had the courage to stick by them in the face of massive oppression.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Another sensationalist tract in the now anachronistic Victorian mode on de Sade. Defunct now that we have unearthed, since the 1950s, so much genuine info on the marquis! As for describing Sade as "a black-hearted man", mass murderers such as Bonaparte and other heads of state, who have always seen fit to persecute Sade during his life and since his death, would no doubt be seen by this particular author as heroes! While a writer is held responsible for the actions of the villains in his novels! Absurd! Anthony Walker.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is the best, out of the biographies I have read, as this author brings De Sade alive, as a multi complex character. The abandoned boy, who suffered attachment severance, destroyed his families one connection of escape by beating up the Prince Dauphin, as a 4 year old angry explosion. Banished to Grandma, and then his uncle, De sade's early life was constructed from being unwanted. This left him the desire to seek a mother that later led to a spectacular downfall. He also sought meaning through sexual release. You would not need to be Wilhelm Stekel to understand how this resulted. De Sade was sent to a Jesuit school just before they were banned for child cruetly in an age where there were few measurements for intervention for cruelty. It was here the personality was moulded and shaped into the desire for revenge and more than likely the place where De Sade's anal sex fixation was forged.
After he left the Jesuit school he was caught in the projections of his age to get a moneyed wife so he could enjoy his seual pleasures. This book details how he pursued them and the problems he encountered as a result.
It is more in depth than the Donald Thomas book which now appears cursory as Schaeffer spent time sorting through the correspondence. There is an issue with the analysis being too concerned with Freud, but he has incorporated attachment theory and this book falls in with an Alice Miller type of analysis, looking at how his personality was shaped through trauma. It is a very good read.
In having worked with the effects of a Jesuit education in the 20th and 21st century the legacy of the "correcteur" would have been pulsating. I can only assume the thrashings and various forms of emotional violence meted out to the Marquis ensured his ability to conceptualise emotions was severely limited. This is one of the great shortcomings of his books. He understands the tram lines of power but cannot conceptualise resistance either in terms of retreat or attack. His subjects are all frozen as receptacles.
If you wish to understand De Sade then this is the starting point, but it only takes you so far the rest you have to deduce for yourself from the world around you. It should not be too hard for those who are emotionally literate.
After he left the Jesuit school he was caught in the projections of his age to get a moneyed wife so he could enjoy his seual pleasures. This book details how he pursued them and the problems he encountered as a result.
It is more in depth than the Donald Thomas book which now appears cursory as Schaeffer spent time sorting through the correspondence. There is an issue with the analysis being too concerned with Freud, but he has incorporated attachment theory and this book falls in with an Alice Miller type of analysis, looking at how his personality was shaped through trauma. It is a very good read.
In having worked with the effects of a Jesuit education in the 20th and 21st century the legacy of the "correcteur" would have been pulsating. I can only assume the thrashings and various forms of emotional violence meted out to the Marquis ensured his ability to conceptualise emotions was severely limited. This is one of the great shortcomings of his books. He understands the tram lines of power but cannot conceptualise resistance either in terms of retreat or attack. His subjects are all frozen as receptacles.
If you wish to understand De Sade then this is the starting point, but it only takes you so far the rest you have to deduce for yourself from the world around you. It should not be too hard for those who are emotionally literate.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Beyond the Myth and Philosophy
Neil Schaeffer's Sade is a man of dualities, an adult-child torn between contrasts; materialist and idealist; nihilist and romantic; revolutionary and monarchist; aristocrat and... Read more
Published on 7 July 2008 by Mr. RB FORTUNE-WOOD
An excellent biography of an interesting man
There's no doubt that de Sade comes over from this book as a troubled and unhappy man, but not one who deserves the reputation that he has. Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2006 by Roman Clodia
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical
- Books > Biography > Medical, Legal & Social Sciences > Psychology
- Books > Biography > Novelists, Poets & Playwrights > Novelists
- Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Psychology & Psychiatry > Pathological Psychology
- Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Psychology Textbooks
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
