120 Days of Sodom (Arena Books) (Paperback)

by Marquis de Sade (Author)
Key Phrases: two buttocks, old libertine, lovely ass, Madame Guerin, Great God, Madame Fournier (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
“...this astonishing new version renders the previous translation null-and-void...” -- Professor Stephen Barber, CalArts

“The book that dominates all books.” -- Georges Bataille --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description
The 120 Days of Sodom is the most extreme book in the history of literature. The Marquis de Sade narrates the escalating sex-crimes of four libertines who barricade themselves in a remote castle with both male and female victims and accomplices for a four-month, precipitous orgy of sodomy, coprophagia and rape leading inexorably towards torture and human decimation. A masterpiece of black humour, pornographic to a point of excess and aberration never reached by any other writer, and required reading for anyone looking for the seminal origins of contemporary culture's fascination with cruelty and violence, The 120 Days of Sodom is the first and ultimate literary outrage. It also stands as the first attempt by an author to collate a systematic psychopathology of human sexual disorder, pre-dating Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis by a century. Until now, Sade's masterwork was only available in a tame, outdated translation. This new, uncensored and more complete version of The 120 Days of Sodom brings the work back to incendiary life, returning it to the streamlined status of the revolutionary, raw work Sade had intended. Unbearable, unforgettable, violent, cruel, blasphemous, obscene: The 120 Days of Sodom is a unique and addictive detonation of the senses for the discerning 21st century reader. With a preface by Georges Bataille, author of The Story of the Eye. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd (September 7, 1989)
• ISBN-10: 0099629607
• ISBN-13: 978-0099629603
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,809,699 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars A translation for people who don't actually want to read Sade., July 10, 2009

By	keuner & niemand - See all my reviews

This review is from: The 120 Days Of Sodom (Paperback)

From the translator's note: "In making this new translation, the aim was to present the book in something more resembling a completed state. With some minimal editing and restructuring, and by wherever possible correcting mistakes and filling in important gaps - mainly by following Sade's working notes and later reflections, but occasionally by extrapolating from the existing text - it is hoped that this monumental masterwork, one of the cornerstones of modern literature, has now been restored to a version more appropriate for a 21st century readership."

I will leave it up to you to decide whether this is the kind of translation that you want to pay money for, but I would rather not be presented with a book that has been "restructured", "corrected", and "filled in", in order to make it more "appropriate" for my reading. Some of these points may be valid considering that Sade lost the manuscript, but as there are no notes anywhere in the book to say where the editorial corrections and extrapolations have been introduced, it is literally impossible to say what it is that you are reading: Take any randomly chosen sentence and ask yourself, is this from Sade's text or is it the translator's corrected version?

Nor is any information given about the nature of Sade's supposed "working notes and later reflections", where have these come from? Although Sade wrote the manuscript quickly he had been preparing it for some time and he had a further three and a half years to check it before it was finally lost to him, so the need to correct mistakes and fill in gaps seems unwarranted, especially as it has not occurred to any other editor, English or French, to take on such a responsibility. Furthermore, checking the text against the French reveals that it has hardly undergone "minimal editing and restructuring", as the crucial Introduction has been reduced by half and completely reorganised, removing the extensive background details about the characters and their agreements prior to establishing their retreat.

Contrary to what Stephen Barber and Lady Jane Orgasmo have said, this version in no way supersedes the earlier edition and is very far from being "unexpurgated". Simply translating "décharge" as "cock juice" does not make the text more accurate, as décharge just means "discharge", and if that is what Sade wrote why replace his terms with something that only sounds adolescent?

It seems as though Solar Books have decided that they want a more reader-friendly version to market, one that is less challenging and more streamlined, easier to consume, which is of course hardly what Sade would have wanted.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A PROPER TRANSLATION, FINALLY, December 15, 2008

By	Lady Jane Orgasmo "Lady Jane Orgasmo" (Berlin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The 120 Days Of Sodom (Paperback)

IGNORE the idiotic "search inside" feature that has been illegally placed on this book - the text you will find jacked inside is actually from the old, creaky translation that the editors at Solar books have been trying to save us from. What you will ACTUALLY find inside this new edition is, finally, a new, modern and unexpurgated translation, with all of Sade's errors corrected and the text restored according to Sade's working notes and later written directives. This is the ONLY version for the 21st century!

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Note, this is not a literal translation., November 25, 2008

By	Lorenzo "Lorenzo" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The 120 Days Of Sodom (Paperback)

If you click the "Look Inside" for this book, it gives you the Wainhouse translation. This is more a retelling. If you are interested in Sade's version of the book, ignore this edition.

I only gave it one star until I have read more.