Must We Burn Sade? [Hardcover]

Deepak Narang Sawhney (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1999

For the last two hundred years, the name of the Marquis de Sade has had a singular power to evoke graphic images of the torturous and often murderous practices that bear his name. Sade himself has been labelled a sadomasochistic pornographer, and his works of fiction are considered by some to be the basis for the ideas that led to the Nazi death camps. "Must We Burn Sade?" peels away the layers of this negative legacy. This intriguing collection of essays examines the literary, theatrical, political, social, and philosophical aspects of Sade's writing, demonstrating that Sade's most important work concentrates on the constant struggle in humanity between virtue and vice, which can only be resolved by the creative and destructive impulses of nature. Like no writer before him, Sade shows that desire exists within the matrix of good and evil. This collection reveals Sade's influences and motivations, providing an understanding of society's fear of him while at the same time acquitting him of the false accusations that have plagued his name and his writing for far too long. Sade's words demand that we rethink our relationship to history, that we challenge traditional notions of right and wrong, and that we see the world as it really is. These demands come full circle as the contributors to this volume force us to rethink Sade himself.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Any scholar of Sade and any lover of literature will enjoy this collection of essays..." -- American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

Product Details

• Hardcover: 262 pages
• Publisher: Humanity Books (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573927260
• ISBN-13: 978-1573927260
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,810,814 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simone de Beauvoir and Sade, September 28, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Must We Burn Sade? (Hardcover)

SdB wrote a book on Sade entitled Faut-il Bruler Sade? (Must We Burn Sade), and the title of this collection comes from hers. Sade is a great concern among the French left. Somehow they think that he is an important moralist (this is how SdB closes her book on him, and why she says we mustn't burn him, but must read him, and hold him close to our hearts).

I've read a lot of Sade's work, and a lot of this collection, but am left wondering whether once you dispense with God, whether this is all that's left.

Feminism has always struck me as institutionalized sadism. It burns men, and destroys them. This is the essence of it. Sade is a great justifier of acts as he puts a moral spin on what is the equivalent of getting fun out of hurting other people.

Women in recent years have turned towards Sade as a great explicator and justifier. This is why men on average are living five years less than women. It is all the things they do to us, and have always done, but that are now institutionalized. The feminist-sadist guru is Simone de Beauvoir, who loves the Marquis de Sade, and considers him to be a great moralist.

Read this book and smell the burning flesh of the concentration camps of the universities, the high schools, and the elementary schools. Sadism is the centerpiece of the left, and the very centerpiece of feminism. It is the black heart at the center of all the piety and self-importance, a black hole of rage that gets satisfaction through the humiliation, torment, and destruction of men and boys.