Must We Burn Sade?

By Simone de Beauvoir

The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) has been labeled everything from a sadomasochistic pornographer (The 120 Days of Sodom) to the fiction writer responsible for the ideas that led to the Nazi death camps. Must We Burn Sade? peels away the negative legacy that has shrouded Sade for too long. Deepak Narang Sawhney points out that "Sade's legacy has been neglected, recreated, fictionalized, and venerated by medical guilds, literary hacks, religious detractors, and intellectual movements. In the past two centuries, Sade has come to represent many things for many people. . . . It is unclear whether we know Sade the writer or the apparatus which has been set up to either condemn or to sanctify his life and work."

By contrast, this intriguing collection of essays seeks to examine Sade for what he was--a writer of novels and letters, a creator of plays and stories, and an author of essays and political manifestos. The contributors examine the literary, theatrical, political, social, and philosophical aspects of Sade's work, acquitting him of the false accusations and trials that have plagued his name by revealing his influences and motivations, and by providing an understanding of society's fear of Sade. What is so alarming about Sade's books that civilized society has felt compelled to disassociate itself from his works? This volume forces us to rethink Sade. Included are essays by Kathy Acker, David Allison, Georges Bataille, Catherine Cusset, Lucienne Frappier-Mazur, Annie Le Brun, Alphonso Lingis, Stephen Pfohl, Deepak Narang Sawhney, Philippe Sollers, and Alistair Welchman.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573927392
• ISBN13: 9781573927390
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: Humanities Press Intl
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Simone de Beauvoir and Sade

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.