The Passionate Philospher: A Marquis de Sade Reader

Unabridged, the lewd writings of the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) can be wordy, repetitious and sickening. Taken in the small doses gathered in this tart, eye-opening anthology, however, they prove the adage that less is often more. Along with the libertine who explored the extreme limits of sex, we meet the utopian social philosopher who, in Aline et Valcour , portrayed a South Seas island paradise where all social customs are democratized; here Zame, the novel's white-haired sage, delivers a defense of vegetarianism. In stories, dialogues and extracts from novels, Sade airs his defiance of all forms of authority, vents his atheistic, anticlerical beliefs and sets forth a principled rejection of the death penalty. Juliette, the eponymous heroine of one of his novels, is a mass murderer preoccupied with sex, crime, power and money; her obsessions prefigure modern neuroses and social ills. Crosland, translator of two volumes of Sade's stories, provides a candid introduction and running commentaries that persuasively depict Sade, imprisoned 27 years, as an iconclast revenging himself on society by highlighting humankind's capacity for cruelty. (Dec.)