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How to Read...
How to Read Sade
Intent upon letting the reader experience the pleasure and intellectual stimulation in reading these classic authors, the How to Read series provides a context and an explanation that will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon. Approaching the writing of major intellectuals, artists, and philosophers need no longer be daunting. How to Read is a new sort of introduction--a personal master class in reading--that brings you face to face with the work of some of the most influential and challenging writers in history. In lucid, accessible language, these books explain essential topics such as the historical context that frames de Sade's daring philosophy.
John Phillips introduces the Marquis de Sade's highly original and thoroughly subversive depiction of human sexuality, and the philosophical and political thinking that underpins it. He shows how, though Sade's work continues to shock, it can also be seen as the logical conclusion of eighteenth-century materialism. As the only writer of his time who dared to put the body at the center of philosophy, Sade has a unique place in the history of modern thought.
Extracts are taken from the entire range of Sade's literary, philosophical, and personal writings, including The 120 Days of Sodom , Philosophy in the Boudoir , Justine , Juliette , and his Last Will and Testament.
John Phillips introduces the Marquis de Sade's highly original and thoroughly subversive depiction of human sexuality, and the philosophical and political thinking that underpins it. He shows how, though Sade's work continues to shock, it can also be seen as the logical conclusion of eighteenth-century materialism. As the only writer of his time who dared to put the body at the center of philosophy, Sade has a unique place in the history of modern thought.
Extracts are taken from the entire range of Sade's literary, philosophical, and personal writings, including The 120 Days of Sodom , Philosophy in the Boudoir , Justine , Juliette , and his Last Will and Testament.
130 pages, Paperback
Published September 17, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 21, 2015
How strange to discover that John Phillips, main songwriter of The Mamas and the Papas, whom we associate with sunny harmonies and gentle hip-dippiness, should write a monograph on the works of the Marquis de Sade. I must have listened to “Monday Monday” a million times and failed to detect any hint of sadomasochistic cruelty lying beneath the plangent melody, but it’s clear from this essay that Phillips was steeped, soaked and smooshed in all aspects of the Marquis’ revoltingness.
De Sade is famous for writing the four most-violently-pornographic novels of all time – only Brett Easton Ellis can really hold a lighted candle to these remarkable creations: Juliette, The New Justine, The 120 Days of Sodomy, and Philosophy in the Boudoir.
But de Sade is confusing. His famous novels consist of vastly repetitive cartoonlike scenes featuring giant dildos, fountains of bodily fluids, coprophilia, burnings alive, disembowelments, babies, yada yada yada, the very stuff you were expecting, but more so. (John Phillips helpfully informs us : “Sadeian eroticism is not confined to the transgressive use of bodily waste” - a useful reminder.)
How much of this stuff is supposed to be satirical, deliberately non-realistic or indeed straightforwardly pornographic is a matter of dispute. (But you would have to be a right sick bastard to get off on de Sade, really.) Breaking up the unpleasantness, there are many passages of elegant philosophical debate, which usually seek to skewer some commonly held 18th century view, such as that society needs laws, or that the weak should be protected, or that there is life after death. All this common-place wisdom is ripped asunder with gusto, much like the next virgin to enter the room. But – again – is this de Sade playing wicked devil’s advocate here? Will the real Marquis please stand? We may remember that in one of the most amazing twists of a truly amazing life, when de Sade was finally sprung from jail in 1790 after the revolution, this most haughty of aristocrats became a judge working for the National Assembly and an active member of a far left political party.
Because the violent misogynistic fantasies are bundled together with the severe materialistic philosophy, I’d say de Sade, by being almost the first openly atheist author, put back the cause of atheism about ten thousand years. The godly sort were likely to conflate the two - as does de Sade and say there, if you don’t believe in the Lord you’ll be a-sodomising your own grandma in a trice. But this is false logic. You may indeed a-sodomize your own grandma, but your atheism did not lead you to this act – it was your incestuous gerontophilia.
John Phillips does not even begin to address a central point raised by de Sade’s work, which is – why should pornography tend towards violence? Reading de Sade gives you the notion that the only way to live freely is to live violently, that if you reject the despotic state you are then able to become the despot to the weaker subjects in your own life, i.e. women, children and priests, because that’s nature’s way. De Sade’s libertines are all male, except for Juliette, who sports a giant strap-on a lot of the time and so becomes a ladyboy with a real mean streak. Instead of confronting this unacceptable and omnipresent aspect of de Sade, Phillips tries to kind of justify his methods:
acts of violence in de Sade always have a philosophical underpinning and a philosophical context. Such acts are not presented for their own sake, as they would be in some modern forms of pornography, for example, but as exemplifications of a philosophical point, or as a pretext for a philosophical debate.
(Yes, he does overuse the p word.)
Phillips tries really hard to describes de Sade’s attitude to women as “ambivalent”, but he has to acknowledge that
The overwhelming majority of de Sade’s female characters are consistently represented as objects : objects of desire, and yet of simultaneous contempt ("I get pleasure from women, but I despise them; more than that, I detest them as soon as my passion is sated" says Jerome in The New Justine)… the breasts and the vagina of their female victims are repeatedly bitten, pricked, whipped and stabbed. Sade’s libertines frequently declare their aversion for the female genitals, which they insist be kept hidden from view.
Instead of calling a spade a spade and honestly admitting that de Sade’s work is misogynistic and – well, could be that de Sade himself was, too, if that’s not too much of a stretch - he faffs about in a ridiculous fancy mystical way, like this
What Jerome and others hate about the female body is a kind of absence, one that is manifestly physical. Absence is equally characteristic of nature itself, which the libertine also hates because it works in an apparently motiveless and arbitrary fashion… Nature, then, is responsible for female absence, which itself inescapably becomes a metonym for nature’s absent causes.. The female body is the sign and symbol of nature’s disappointing nullity…
What bollocks, Mr Phillips, what pure bollocks. I should stick to “California Dreamin’” in future.
*
Note : my review of Justine is here and my review of a great biography of de Sade is here.
De Sade is famous for writing the four most-violently-pornographic novels of all time – only Brett Easton Ellis can really hold a lighted candle to these remarkable creations: Juliette, The New Justine, The 120 Days of Sodomy, and Philosophy in the Boudoir.
But de Sade is confusing. His famous novels consist of vastly repetitive cartoonlike scenes featuring giant dildos, fountains of bodily fluids, coprophilia, burnings alive, disembowelments, babies, yada yada yada, the very stuff you were expecting, but more so. (John Phillips helpfully informs us : “Sadeian eroticism is not confined to the transgressive use of bodily waste” - a useful reminder.)
How much of this stuff is supposed to be satirical, deliberately non-realistic or indeed straightforwardly pornographic is a matter of dispute. (But you would have to be a right sick bastard to get off on de Sade, really.) Breaking up the unpleasantness, there are many passages of elegant philosophical debate, which usually seek to skewer some commonly held 18th century view, such as that society needs laws, or that the weak should be protected, or that there is life after death. All this common-place wisdom is ripped asunder with gusto, much like the next virgin to enter the room. But – again – is this de Sade playing wicked devil’s advocate here? Will the real Marquis please stand? We may remember that in one of the most amazing twists of a truly amazing life, when de Sade was finally sprung from jail in 1790 after the revolution, this most haughty of aristocrats became a judge working for the National Assembly and an active member of a far left political party.
Because the violent misogynistic fantasies are bundled together with the severe materialistic philosophy, I’d say de Sade, by being almost the first openly atheist author, put back the cause of atheism about ten thousand years. The godly sort were likely to conflate the two - as does de Sade and say there, if you don’t believe in the Lord you’ll be a-sodomising your own grandma in a trice. But this is false logic. You may indeed a-sodomize your own grandma, but your atheism did not lead you to this act – it was your incestuous gerontophilia.
John Phillips does not even begin to address a central point raised by de Sade’s work, which is – why should pornography tend towards violence? Reading de Sade gives you the notion that the only way to live freely is to live violently, that if you reject the despotic state you are then able to become the despot to the weaker subjects in your own life, i.e. women, children and priests, because that’s nature’s way. De Sade’s libertines are all male, except for Juliette, who sports a giant strap-on a lot of the time and so becomes a ladyboy with a real mean streak. Instead of confronting this unacceptable and omnipresent aspect of de Sade, Phillips tries to kind of justify his methods:
acts of violence in de Sade always have a philosophical underpinning and a philosophical context. Such acts are not presented for their own sake, as they would be in some modern forms of pornography, for example, but as exemplifications of a philosophical point, or as a pretext for a philosophical debate.
(Yes, he does overuse the p word.)
Phillips tries really hard to describes de Sade’s attitude to women as “ambivalent”, but he has to acknowledge that
The overwhelming majority of de Sade’s female characters are consistently represented as objects : objects of desire, and yet of simultaneous contempt ("I get pleasure from women, but I despise them; more than that, I detest them as soon as my passion is sated" says Jerome in The New Justine)… the breasts and the vagina of their female victims are repeatedly bitten, pricked, whipped and stabbed. Sade’s libertines frequently declare their aversion for the female genitals, which they insist be kept hidden from view.
Instead of calling a spade a spade and honestly admitting that de Sade’s work is misogynistic and – well, could be that de Sade himself was, too, if that’s not too much of a stretch - he faffs about in a ridiculous fancy mystical way, like this
What Jerome and others hate about the female body is a kind of absence, one that is manifestly physical. Absence is equally characteristic of nature itself, which the libertine also hates because it works in an apparently motiveless and arbitrary fashion… Nature, then, is responsible for female absence, which itself inescapably becomes a metonym for nature’s absent causes.. The female body is the sign and symbol of nature’s disappointing nullity…
What bollocks, Mr Phillips, what pure bollocks. I should stick to “California Dreamin’” in future.
*
Note : my review of Justine is here and my review of a great biography of de Sade is here.
October 8, 2016
This is touching and very well written book. Philips shows us the true face of de Sade: radical thinker, charming person and a good, noble citizen. Profundly democratic aristocrat, tender pervert and modest egocentric. De Sade is here internally inconsistent enough to be first modern Everyman. Playing his cards with temperament he receives severe punishment from any government under which rule he falls. Obviously people who choose bleak, boring existence are terrified with just a thought, that someone could want to live for real... Yet, after years spent in solitary confinement, he keeps no resentiment. In the hour of test he shows mercy and let his own persecutors to escape the death.
Enemy of religious and political fanatism, joyfull bonvivant and learned reader, de Sade becomes first modern man. Despite his will to be fogotten he keeps to be important partner in discussion for very different artists and thinkers of modern times.
In this book you can meet de Sade - your neighbor (paraphrasing Klossowski).
Reading it I could feel de Sade thoughtful, sad smile on my back... Wonderful book!
Enemy of religious and political fanatism, joyfull bonvivant and learned reader, de Sade becomes first modern man. Despite his will to be fogotten he keeps to be important partner in discussion for very different artists and thinkers of modern times.
In this book you can meet de Sade - your neighbor (paraphrasing Klossowski).
Reading it I could feel de Sade thoughtful, sad smile on my back... Wonderful book!
March 3, 2021
This book is like an extensive version of A Very Short Introduction of Sade which was written by the author.
Compared with A Very Short Introduction, it has more literary examples of Sade's writings, more nuances in Sade's writings are thus able to be revealed by the author. I believe the author had in his mind to change the cultural stigma of Sade's writings and I am totally by his side. Sade may truly be a sexual pervert(although I would say that he's not that insane as the cultural media portrait) but his writings are definitely not as shallow as one might think. I recall that the first time I read Sade's writings (The Philosophy in the Boudoir), I aimed for the sexual depiction and thought it would be some mediocre pornography. However, the dialogue between characters not only amused me in a whimsical manner due to the often exaggerated actions, but also the philosophy(hence the name of the book!) behind it. It would be a blunder to simply conclude that Sade was promoting libertinism. From his other writings, we learn that he was a decent writer. Then over the top style in his libertinage writings become an alert for such a hasty conclusion.
Compared with A Very Short Introduction, it has more literary examples of Sade's writings, more nuances in Sade's writings are thus able to be revealed by the author. I believe the author had in his mind to change the cultural stigma of Sade's writings and I am totally by his side. Sade may truly be a sexual pervert(although I would say that he's not that insane as the cultural media portrait) but his writings are definitely not as shallow as one might think. I recall that the first time I read Sade's writings (The Philosophy in the Boudoir), I aimed for the sexual depiction and thought it would be some mediocre pornography. However, the dialogue between characters not only amused me in a whimsical manner due to the often exaggerated actions, but also the philosophy(hence the name of the book!) behind it. It would be a blunder to simply conclude that Sade was promoting libertinism. From his other writings, we learn that he was a decent writer. Then over the top style in his libertinage writings become an alert for such a hasty conclusion.
June 18, 2024
A short introduction into the books of the Maquis de Sade. It begins with a simplified biography and gives reasons as to why his novels are mired by controversy. The text covers both his novels, short stories and essays, giving the meanings of his stories, what underlines each work and why he wrote the way he did.
A short but interesting read and probably will prove useful when you continue to read his novels.
A short but interesting read and probably will prove useful when you continue to read his novels.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews