Customer Reviews

The Crimes of Love

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Like other eighteenth-century "libertine novels," especially Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons, The Crimes of Love tells us what happens when extremely virtuous characters collide with extremely evil ones. And as with other classic writers of the late eighteenth century, the French here is easy for foreign readers. But by contrast with the novels (and the real-life acts) that have given Sade such a bad reputation, these stories are economical and interest us far more through psychology than through cruelty or perversion. To the five entertaining stories he has selected, Michel Delon adds the author's "Idea on novels" and an informative dossier.

This review is based on the French edition published in Gallimard's Folio series. The only recent translation (out of print) was published in the textually unreliable Bantam Classics series. A new translation of these stories would be a worthy project for an intermediate or advanced student of French.

I really enjoyed this book. Generally, the stories are great. The first few tales are very, very good. Towards the end of the book, Sade loses steam, but that doesn't mean that the stories are any less imaginative. I guess I thought it was hard to follow up "Florville and Courval".

I would definitely recommend reading the "essay on novels" thoroughly before reading the stories. Also, read the explanatory notes! Sometimes, it is trivial biographical/historical information, but occasionally there is some very insightful analysis of the text that help explain the point Sade is trying to make. A few of the devices that Sade employs will seem like cliches, but it should be kept in mind that much of his writing is reactionary.

Finally, his stories should also be read in the context of France immediately after the revolution. As the biography points out, Sade escaped the guillotine on a technicality. Hence his disillusionment with liberal republican ideals.

read the book in highschool after i watched the movie quills. very good book actually very entertaining .

Quill is the movie......it's to the point a story, But this book was very much worth getting. it goes beyond the movie

This is better than the last book I read of Marquis de Sade's. However,...I have discovered that the other book was one of his worst but was still great. This book is about many sexual encounters that many people have. It's just very interesting and highly recommended. Can't say more than that.