Les 120 Journées de Sodome

I am in a habit of not completing books, so this may not be my first one. I have been reading The Triggering Town. For how simple this book is, it is quite informative. Alongside it I also picked up 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade, which I went into blind.

Wikipedia- Public Domain

The writing is complex, the words of a 1700s book. Some of it I just context clued, but the problem I had at first was that most of it referenced French courts and names I did not know of.

The concepts were fascinating, but the writing structure quite fragmented. I thought of skipping it, but the concepts, like nature wanting suffering to happen, that for its existence it may destroy us all, felt relatable in a strange way.

I got confused while reading as the narrator describes Sade in sentences like he is afraid of blood though he may fantasize exploits of flesh. I figured it was Sade the person, narrated by someone else, but to my surprise it is him writing about himself. I was impressed by the narrator having so much knowledge of his mind, which I now know is because it is him.
He is trying to explain himself and at times seeks empathy.

I could still present this book as bad but before that I had to get some facts together. On deeper research, yes, it is one of Sade's lower rated books, it is fragmented and continues to get more so, and it is not truly completed.

He was in fact a liar. He was arrested multiple times for serious acts of sexual violence, and here I was empathizing with this man who indulged in fantasies which were cruel and truly devious, not some minor cases. The most documented cases were:

1768 — he was arrested for imprisoning and torturing a woman named Rose Keller in his country house.
1772 — arrested for poisoning and sodomy involving servants and sex workers in Marseille.

So in the book when he nudges past and tries not to tell the details, the details are in fact far worse.

Some may say that if I had read his finer works I may not be able to see his intentions. As a person, Sade is not trying to justify his actions, he is lying to himself. He is not saying look how bad these men are. He is saying these men understand reality more clearly than you do. The darkness is not framed as darkness, it is framed as enlightenment. In real life Sade spent decades reframing his consequences as injustice. The book is not just fiction, it is a window into how he actually processed his own actions.

I would not recommend this book as it is easy to get into the flow of his words. Another example is Jeffrey Epstein, who reportedly distributed copies of Lolita and called it the best book he ever read. Nabokov wrote it as a critique of exactly the kind of predator Epstein was, yet he read it as validation.

I am conflicted about whether to try his most famed book, Justine, though I suspect I will leave it uncompleted as well.

Contest: Easter Eggery Part II / Oster-Eierei Teil II

The Image used is in public domain, I can change it, if it isn't by the rules.

_{Posted using SteemX}