The Crimes of Love

Donatien Alphonse François de Sade The Crimes of Love (1800)
I wouldn't say I've ever been particularly drawn to the writing of de Sade, at least not since having my stomach definitively churned by an excerpt from The 120 Days of Sodom reproduced in some power electronics literature back in the eighties; but I've begun to notice him as a presence at the periphery of other things I've been reading, and I gather his writing has some philosophical dimension, so I picked this up because it's short and seemed like it might not be quite so terrifying as the novel about sticking red hot pokers up people's bumholes, and was therefore a hypothetically good place to start.

It seems that Crimes of Love comprises twelve novellas distributed amongst four volumes, so this is actually more of a sampler, five relatively short stories of which Lorenza and Antonio seems to be represented by excerpts from what I presume to be a somewhat longer work.
 

This was de Sade's attempt to demonstrate that he could write respectable fiction without anything getting shoved up anyone's arsehole. I gather he was tired of having been labelled a pornographer, possibly because the label apparently missed the point of whatever it was he wrote in those earlier books. Nevertheless, even without the descriptions of it going in and out, Crimes of Love probably shouldn't be mistaken for Johnny Rotten settling down and doing adverts for butter, and it's difficult to miss the author taking some pleasure in the ruination of the virtuous as an inevitable consequences of their own trusting but somewhat hypocritical nature. Mademoiselle de Faxelange, for one example, spurns the virtuous man she should have married for Monsieur le Baron de Franlo, who seems initially more promising and whom her parents prefer, which of course ends terribly. Franlo is revealed as a pirate and mass murderer who admires Genghis Kahn and makes his new wife an unwilling partner in his reign of terror; and yet there's a sort of honesty in his tyranny and he is unrepentant to the last, whilst Faxelange herself comes to a miserable end. If de Sade was presenting, as claimed, cautionary tales, it's interesting that the views seemingly closest to his own should be expressed by those against whom he is delivering his warning:

'Death happens everywhere. If I risk the scaffold here I risk a sword-thrust in society. No situation is without its dangers, the wise man must consider them in relation to the advantages and make his decision in consequence. The threat of death is the thing that occupies us least. What about honour? If I had been imprisoned, I should have been regarded as a criminal. Is it not better to live effectively as a criminal while enjoying all human rights, being free in fact, rather than being suspected of some crime while in chains? Do not be surprised if a man becomes a criminal when he is degraded, although he is innocent. Do not be surprised if he prefers crime to fetters, since in both situations he can expect hatred.'

Dorgeville and Rodrigo similarly punish their victims in order to make points, and Rodrigo is additionally interesting for its fanciful and heavily allegorical thrust, introducing its antihero briefly to the notion of civilisation having developed on other worlds, notably Jupiter and Saturn.

Lorenza and Antonio is here rendered as excerpts punctuated by notes explaining what happens in the passages we're skipping. It seems to have been included as an example of de Sade's theatrical leanings and love of dialogue, and to me, reads like a more ponderous variation on Romeo and Juliet; so it's probably fascinating if you're more invested in de Sade's life and work than I am, because I found it more or less unreadable; following which, I was likewise unable to work up much enthusiasm for The Comtesse de Sancerre, the final selection. All the same, I got one hell of a lot more from the first three than I ever expected, so I may come back to these last two at some point, and the earlier, scarier works now seem a marginally less terrifying prospect.