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Sunday, April 21, 2002


A Man for All Centuries, and Sins

Worthy essay at the NY Times on the Marquis de Sade.

Evidently there is another movie coming out. A French one this time.

This essay is much more than a review though.

Example:

(Sade's..) ...arguments — and he never ceased to argue — touch upon every current controversy: personal freedom, privacy, violence, abuse, incest, abortion, pollution, class, money, privilege, the corruption of institutions, the absence of God, the role of nature and the dilemma of gender.

But even beyond these conceptual categories, Sade's creative work reveals the most primitive humanity: hate, rage, greed, avarice, unquenchable lust, gluttony, jubilant fascination with waste, the furious compulsion to lacerate, pierce, despoil, violate, annihilate — and vast systems of ideas constructed to justify its expression.

Link to full text.