'Senneval, you see in me your sister, the girl you seduced at Nancy, the woman who murdered your son, the wife of your own father and the ignoble creature who sent your mother to the gallows...' Who but the Marquis de Sade would write, not of the pain, tragedy, and joy of love but of its crimes? Murder, seduction, and incest are among the cruel rewards for selfless love in his stories; tragedy, despair, and death the inevitable outcome. Sade's villains will stop at nothing to satisfy their depraved passions, and they in turn suffer under the thrall of love. Psychologically astute, and defiantly unconventional, these stories show Sade at his best. A skilled and artful storyteller, he is also an intellectual who asks questions about society, about ourselves, and about life, for which we have yet to find the answers. This new selection includes 'An Essay on Novels', Sade's penetrating survey of the novelist's art.
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[An] excellent new edition... A recommended introduction to the Sadean oeuvre for anyone genuinely interested in the ideas that won him enduring notoriety. (Ruth Scurr, Times Literary Supplement )
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By R. Kiely
Format:Hardcover
This book is tame compared to de Sade's other writings. This should be expected, since it is from him that the term "Sadism" derived. Crimes of Love, a collection of short stories, was first published in 1800. Now five of these weird and wonderful tales are available to modern readers.
The stories themselves are extremely witty, moral, tragic and bizarre, all at the same time. They contain murder, incest and intrigue. The contrast between the villainous and virtuous characters is fascinating. Sade's villains stop at nothing to fulfil their evil plans, and have no motivation other than to cause suffering. if you are squeamish or prudish, you should avoid this book and anything else by the Marquis de Sade. (Considering that he was imprisoned for his pornographic writings and is to this day considered dangerous.) Having read his magnum opus, The 120 Days of Sodom, I can assure you that his work can go beyond pornographic. He is probably responsible for the most disturbing and vile piece of literature ever created.
Crimes of Love is not an evil book, nor is it by an evil author. The arguments and philosophising of the characters and narrator are thought provoking. It is interesting, entertaining and well written. It provides everything one should expect from a good book. I would recommend this to anyone over 18, naturally.
The stories themselves are extremely witty, moral, tragic and bizarre, all at the same time. They contain murder, incest and intrigue. The contrast between the villainous and virtuous characters is fascinating. Sade's villains stop at nothing to fulfil their evil plans, and have no motivation other than to cause suffering. if you are squeamish or prudish, you should avoid this book and anything else by the Marquis de Sade. (Considering that he was imprisoned for his pornographic writings and is to this day considered dangerous.) Having read his magnum opus, The 120 Days of Sodom, I can assure you that his work can go beyond pornographic. He is probably responsible for the most disturbing and vile piece of literature ever created.
Crimes of Love is not an evil book, nor is it by an evil author. The arguments and philosophising of the characters and narrator are thought provoking. It is interesting, entertaining and well written. It provides everything one should expect from a good book. I would recommend this to anyone over 18, naturally.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Room For A View
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
Put simply this edition offers a collection of short stories that characterise Sade's obsession with the concept of virtue. Each tale offers a virtuous character or two who are invariably subjected to a range of misfortunes at the hands of unscrupulous, deceitful and amoral characters. Most of the crimes of love are motivated by an unbridled pursuit of carnal pleasure, which sees honour and love as weaknesses of the human psyche. Sade's libertines are animals of the jungle who take what they want, when they want, and remain unrestrained by moral conventions and religious dogma. In this godless world only the strong and most devious succeed. Or do they? Interestingly Sade's villains often come a cropper which is in sharp contrast to the unpunished "heroes" of his more notorious works. As stated in various biographies, Sade did write to earn money and, for me, these novels show certain sensitivity to the realities of publication. Nevertheless Sade's evil doers do push the boundaries of late eighteenth-century mores, particularly the lengths they will go to accomplish their aims and with whom they commit their crimes. I found all the stories and additional material interesting and I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the emergence of transgressive literature. This edition has an excellent introduction by the translator.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars
6 reviews
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great with red wine
22 May 2005
By S. Wittenkamp
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
I really enjoyed this book. Generally, the stories are great. The first few tales are very, very good. Towards the end of the book, Sade loses steam, but that doesn't mean that the stories are any less imaginative. I guess I thought it was hard to follow up "Florville and Courval".
I would definitely recommend reading the "essay on novels" thoroughly before reading the stories. Also, read the explanatory notes! Sometimes, it is trivial biographical/historical information, but occasionally there is some very insightful analysis of the text that help explain the point Sade is trying to make. A few of the devices that Sade employs will seem like cliches, but it should be kept in mind that much of his writing is reactionary.
Finally, his stories should also be read in the context of France immediately after the revolution. As the biography points out, Sade escaped the guillotine on a technicality. Hence his disillusionment with liberal republican ideals.
I would definitely recommend reading the "essay on novels" thoroughly before reading the stories. Also, read the explanatory notes! Sometimes, it is trivial biographical/historical information, but occasionally there is some very insightful analysis of the text that help explain the point Sade is trying to make. A few of the devices that Sade employs will seem like cliches, but it should be kept in mind that much of his writing is reactionary.
Finally, his stories should also be read in the context of France immediately after the revolution. As the biography points out, Sade escaped the guillotine on a technicality. Hence his disillusionment with liberal republican ideals.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating stories of love gone wrong
27 May 2001
By Richard Crowder
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Like other eighteenth-century "libertine novels," especially Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons, The Crimes of Love tells us what happens when extremely virtuous characters collide with extremely evil ones. And as with other classic writers of the late eighteenth century, the French here is easy for foreign readers. But by contrast with the novels (and the real-life acts) that have given Sade such a bad reputation, these stories are economical and interest us far more through psychology than through cruelty or perversion. To the five entertaining stories he has selected, Michel Delon adds the author's "Idea on novels" and an informative dossier.
This review is based on the French edition published in Gallimard's Folio series. The only recent translation (out of print) was published in the textually unreliable Bantam Classics series. A new translation of these stories would be a worthy project for an intermediate or advanced student of French.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top Notch Dark Fairy Tales
5 July 2012
By G. Charles Steiner
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
These are lovely, wonderful stories, written like 18th century adventure stories with romance and intrigue, and with the usual but interesting virtuous hero or heroine, except all the stories' endings here end badly or darkly or tragically, Sade's signature being a consistent refusal of the happy ending. Unlike some stories ending happily ever after where there is a sense of something unnatural having happened as if the happy-ending were simply tacked onto an otherwise difficult story, all of the endings to these stories are mysteriously if darkly natural denouements, seemingly inevitable -- the exact reverse of every known fairy tale. All the stories are intriguing, engaging, and well-plotted. That the dark side wins out in the end is uncannily presented here -- and all the stories are enjoyable to read.
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4.3 out of 5 stars
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