/lit/ - Literature

Justine.

>>20893740
I just finished reading De Sade's "Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue" and in every single chapter all the antagonists (and there are a lot of them) are talking about the "laws of nature". And I think what they are talking about is just De Sade's opinion. btw. the book is pretty repetitive. It's always the same. Justine naively trusts some stranger after fleeing from the perils of another torturer and rapist and finds herself once more in the hands of another even worse degenerate. And either before, in the middle or after another session of torture, rape, incest, pedophilia and murder the various antagonists talk about their philosophies, their life and their morals in a very long winded way. But it's always exactly the same: the law of nature is to take, fuck, torture, kill who you want, the law of society is just a hindrance and against nature. And (just as the title of the books spoils the whole idea) he who acts that way by raping and killing will be rewarded with wealth and luck, but he who tries to be a good citizen, lives a good life and tries to help others will suffer greatly and probably die a horrible death.

>>20710827
I just keep on reading...
Since I'm currently especially selecting books that are deemed disturbing, I don't have a problem with these scenes. IMO the worst in that kind is the Marquis de Sade. While the 120 Days of Sodom starts rather slow, later it's just an endless barrage of rape, torture, murder mostly aimed towards children. Since he run out of time in prison and had to leave his draft behind, the last chapters are only bulled points of endless lists of above mentioned rape/torture/murder scenes he wasn't able to draft out. Some seem to think that De Sades works are just some naughty BDSM novels, while especially the 120 Days is more the novel equivalent of "A Serbian Film"... just so much more gruesome.

I'm currently reading de Sade's "Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue" which also has lots of the above mentioned scenes, just not es many as the 120 days. But I'm more disturbed by De Sade's bad writing style and the many moments where you can almost imagining him "tipping his fedora". Even in movies it's a really bad trope when villains explain their plans in detail. De Sade is even worse, there are pages after pages of antagonists not just explaining their plans to the protagonist, but also rationalising their deeds and anti-religious, anti-humanist and anti-society philosophies. It's like if De Sade's cosmos of characters only consists of ruthless highly intelligent sociopaths with excessive logorrhoe when asked about their reasons (or even when not asked at all since they're just that chatty). Every single antagonist in every chapter has these moments when the plot is stopped in its tracks and now you have dozens and dozens of pages of just them talking about their worldview.

what's /lit/s opinion on Justine/Juliette?
porn, hatecrime, great style of writing, Bildungsroman with an emphasis on virtue and vice, all of the above?

Two obvious ones: >>19356707

I started reading Justine which has made me really horny. Should I give it to my upright, God fearing GF to read?

Also she dresses sexy around the house and says stuff like
>I dress sexy cos I want to be comfortable
>Doesn't always mean I want to fuck
>50/50 chance she's gushing
>50/50 chance she actually doesn't want to fuck

>>17598843

I enjoyed it.

What a nihilistic novel, he sure does love torturing his main characters doesn’t he? Any other books like it?

If i like the following:

The Last Messiah - Peter Wessel Zapffe
Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche
The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus
The Trouble With Being Born - Emil Cioran
Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue - Marquis de Sade

What would you recommend me?

What the actual fuck did he mean by this? Which parts were satire and which parts were his genuine beliefs?

What is the most transgressive book ever written?

Also, do you think it's possible to write truly transgressive lit in the 21st century? It seems to me like contemporary audiences are desensitized to most stuff that would be shocking a few decades ago

What's the best edition of Justine (or does it really matter)?

In general, what do people here think about Sade's works?

>>10422112
Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

So in Marquis de Sade's "Justine", the dedication as well as Part I of Book I seem to indicate that actually one should dedicate their life to virtue despite the difficulties and disadvantages of a virtuous life. Is he being sarcastic or does he actually believe this?