The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings (vuoden 2007 painos)

Only one essential is missing from our happiness--pleasure through comparison, a pleasure which can only be born from the sight of the unhappy, and we see none of that breed here It's at the sight of the man who isn't enjoying what I have and who is suffering that I know the charm of being able to say: I am happier than he is. Wherever men are equal and differences do not exist, happiness will never exist.

Following such ill-found advice I am left unable to rate or compare 120 Days of Sodom with anything. I support the publication of all ideas. That said, this is a vacuum, one absolutely bereft of pleasure or value. Steven Moore notes, "the 500 foam flecked pages that survive are admirable only for their balls-out daring." Reading this is the most uncomfortable experience. There is a philosophical undercurrent at play but one obscured by the buggery, shit-eating and torture. As noted in the introduction, the novel was written on a scroll while Sade was imprisoned and presumed lost in the storming of the Bastille. The project is only a third completed, the remaining sections exist only as notes punctuated by horribly explicit accounts. Based on the completed text, I think it fair to not shed any tears over the unwritten detail.
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“There are,” said Curval, “but two or three crimes to perform in this world, and they, once done, there’s no more to be said; all the rest is inferior, you cease any longer to feel. Ah, how many times, by God, have I not longed to be able to assail the sun, snatch it out of the universe, make a general darkness, or use that star to burn the world! oh, that would be a crime, oh yes, and not a little misdemeanor such as are all the ones we perform who are limited in a whole year’s time to metamorphosing a dozen creatures into lumps of clay.”


In forty-four years of existence, I’ve never read anything as unremittingly evil or as universally unforgiving as this dark tale penned by de Sade. I literally felt embarrassed to be a human. I still do. We’re not so great, most of us. And we’re downright evil, some of us. I find it hard to reconcile such brutality and pitilessness to anything remotely redemptive. This work is a dark mirror—an indictment against humanity and man’s paltry conception of god. If there were a god, how could he allow such atrocities to exist? If he’s too weak, then what is the point of a powerless god in the company of seemingly all-powerful men? And, seriously, how many months can you eat a steady diet of shit and not die of starvation or malnutrition or, at the very least, not come down with the flu? At least a cold sore. Does God get cold sores?

“Piety is indeed a true disease of the soul.”

Well, he surely gets cold feet—at least in this story. Doesn’t even bother to show up. The methodology of the narrative and of its main monsters which de Sade chooses to call “heroes” is stunning in its long view. There is more care and effort put into the nine pages of statutes than there is in the contemplation of any subject’s suffering. In fact, the Duc de Blangis speaks to the doomed assembly: “You are enclosed in an impregnable citadel; no one on earth knows you are here, you are beyond the reach of your friends, of your kin: insofar as the world is concerned, you are already dead, and if yet you breathe, ‘tis by our pleasure, and for it only.” How most of these unfortunates even made it to this demonic event are horror stories in and of themselves—how they must align themselves with the new horrific reality is a hell deeper and more fetid than any one of them could’ve possibly imagined. Nothing has prepared them for this. Nothing can prepare the reader for what will ensue. Libertinage is a word. Embuggering, too. So is depucelate. Each one of these can be understood intellectually. Not one of them has the disastrous ring in the context of this netherworld’s despair. Those words are like echoes of screams in the hallway. Those words may help describe the scene beyond the door, but they’ll ultimately fall flat like so much excised flesh discarded on the flagstones.

So much evil in so much painstaking detail. What a horrendous catalogue. An unending record of the worst possibilities that man can perpetrate against his own kind. Against his younger and weaker kind. Against the most defenseless, the most innocent, the most undeserving of brutal purpose.

Fortunately, the Grove Press edition has a bunch of other worthwhile material: essays by Simone de Beauvoir and Pierre Klossowski; de Sade’s “Reflections on the Novel” (an introductory text to his four-volume work: 𝘓𝘦𝘴 𝘊𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘭’𝘈𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘳); Villeterque’s review of that work; de Sade’s own excoriating review of his contemporary’s review; a play and two short stories. His essays and stories show much more range than I would’ve thought possible if I’d only read 𝘛𝘩𝘦 120 𝘋𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘰𝘥𝘰𝘮. “Reflections on the Novel” is as brilliant and insightful as his critique of Villeterque is savage and incisive. I literally laughed out loud—which I sorely needed, after all that bloodletting and copraphagia and mutilation and nihilism and abject terror that absolutely engulfs the title work in this volume. Sodom. Jesus, no wonder Jehovah wiped out that city.

Evil. That word needs reclaimed. This book is the blueprint of just how it operates when unworried by intervention or recrimination. Who needs the supernatural, devils and wasting angels, when man can think up such horrors on his own?

“One must first have lost one’s mind to be able to acknowledge a god, and to have gone completely mad to worship such a thing.” ( )

Don't have a problem with sex, violence. But when you start involving children in it......I don't care how much of a literary legend you are supposed to be. Your book is getting closed. I knew what I was going into when I started reading this but I had no idea how casual the happenings would be described and to the extent in which these atrocities would be played out. This really is some VILE material. I am not squeamish but I wanted to take a bleach shower after reading this. ( )

Normally, a book this big doesn't take me this long to read. The subject matter, while expected to a point, was more graphic than I thought it would be. ( )

I know, I know...this book has a bad reputation. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am all about freedom of speech, and this book has long been suggested as a prime example of why some people believe that we need censorship (which makes me love it even more). Please note, though, that this is an extremely graphic book and you may want to take very cautious measures whenever reading it. Once you start reading it, it's not something that can easily be forgotten. ( )