Constructing a Story

[gunhilltrain]

Don't worry. I might take a lot of things quite seriously, but myself isn't one of them.

About de Sade, and specifically Justine, I think one's appreciation also depends on which version/edition one reads. As you describe it, I think you (started to) read La Nouvelle Justine, the third and last version, which differs in an important way from the first and second versions, in that Justine's experiences are not told by herself (and so much cruder language is used than in the earlier editions) and is also much longer. I myself read the second version (1791 edition).

I'll take your word about Justine. I really doubt that I'm going to be requesting at hold on it for the New York Public Library - they'll ship the book to your local branch if you wish. Anyway, the catalog indicates that they have some version of it available ("Good Conduct Well Chastised;" does that subtitle sound familiar?). I can understand de Sade's need to keep coming up with new versions; in my own small way I sometimes do the same.

More likely, as I mentioned above, I may get Venus in Furs, which they also have available.

 

[Bubo_bubo]

I'll take your word about Justine. I really doubt that I'm going to be requesting at hold on it for the New York Public Library - they'll ship the book to your local branch if you wish. Anyway, the catalog indicates that they have some version of it available ("Good Conduct Well Chastised;" does that subtitle sound familiar?). I can understand de Sade's need to keep coming up with new versions; in my own small way I sometimes do the same.

Well, in English there is of course the issue of different translations and their quality/fidelity to the original text. I frankly don't know what exists. The subtitle in French is either "Les Infortunes de la vertu" or "Les Malheurs de la vertu", so that subtitle seems like a rather free interpretation (which in my opinion doesn't augur well for the rest of the translation).

More likely, as I mentioned above, I may get Venus in Furs, which they also have available.

 

[XerXesXu]

Maybe there should be a thread just about de Sade, but I wonder how many of us have actually read him.

I read him, as philosophy, not fiction. For many, God died in The Enlightenment and he, like others, was exploring what moral values should be, and where they’d come from, in the new, atheistic world.

I have no God, and in my teens, I was on the same trip. It never occurred to me that his works were meant to be erotic, he used sex and violence as the traditional lightning rods for moral questions (though he was sentenced to death for consensual buggary of a female prostitute, so had personal kinks – he beat that wrap on appeal – money and influence talk.)

He poses the questions – If, in a chaotic world, ‘good’ acts produce no net balance of ‘good’ consequences beyond those of ‘evil’ acts, why chose to be good rather than evil? Why not act entirely selfishly? The net consequences for others are the same, with no consequences for oneself. This made him unpopular with the Catholic status quo. He was confined to a lunatic asylum.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Well, in English there is of course the issue of different translations and their quality/fidelity to the original text. I frankly don't know what exists. The subtitle in French is either "Les Infortunes de la vertu" or "Les Malheurs de la vertu", so that subtitle seems like a rather free interpretation (which in my opinion doesn't augur well for the rest of the translation).

Yes, they do have one subtitled "The Misfortunes of Virtue," which has to be ordered "in advance" because there only seems to be one copy in the system. Although, if I still have a negative opinion about it forty-eight years later, that doesn't bode well. Although, for a lot of stuff that I was assigned in college (I didn't read all of it, for sure) I don't even remember what all those were.

I guess I'm impressed anyway that he kept doing new versions of it; very few authors attempt that. People on Lit often advise against revised versions of our stories and say to just move on. To me, if the urge strikes for a new version, I say just do it anyway. I even had some on Lit where no one noticed that there even was an earlier one still in place. I guess that has something to do with the original intent of the thread?

 

[gunhilltrain]

I read him, as philosophy, not fiction. For many, God died in The Enlightenment and he, like others, was exploring what moral values should be, and where they’d come from, in the new, atheistic world.

I have no God, and in my teens, I was on the same trip. It never occurred to me that his works were meant to be erotic, he used sex and violence as the traditional lightning rods for moral questions (though he was sentenced to death for consensual buggary of a female prostitute, so had personal kinks – he beat that wrap on appeal – money and influence talk.)

He poses the questions – If, in a chaotic world, ‘good’ acts produce no net balance of ‘good’ consequences beyond those of ‘evil’ acts, why chose to be good rather than evil? Why not act entirely selfishly? The net consequences for others are the same, with no consequences for oneself. This made him unpopular with the Catholic status quo. He was confined to a lunatic asylum.

Yes, but you don't actually live your life that way, do you? (If you do, you can't borrow my drill set if I lived next to you.) This is more than I can deal with in a forum post. By the way, I don't hold any faith in the Catholic Church nor were all of de Sade's confinements necessarily justified. And being sentenced to death for consensual anal sex - don't they do that in Saudi Arabia, a place I would hardly say has Enlightenment principles?

I would say that good acts do produce a net balance of good consequences. Of course, not everybody lives up to that, but the world would be even more chaotic if none of them at least tried to live up to it. I'd say the most basic kind of social organization (down to the tribal level) couldn't exist if everybody was entirely selfish.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Yes, they do have one subtitled "The Misfortunes of Virtue," which has to be ordered "in advance" because there only seems to be one copy in the system. Although, if I still have a negative opinion about it forty-eight years later, that doesn't bode well. Although, for a lot of stuff that I was assigned in college (I didn't read all of it, for sure) I don't even remember what all those were.

I guess I'm impressed anyway that he kept doing new versions of it; very few authors attempt that. People on Lit often advise against revised versions of our stories and say to just move on. To me, if the urge strikes for a new version, I say just do it anyway. I even had some on Lit where no one noticed that there even was an earlier one still in place. I guess that has something to do with the original intent of the thread?

If the book is on sale on Amazon, it may be a print on demand. When it is, it always shows one available.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Yes, but you don't actually live your life that way, do you? (If you do, you can't borrow my drill set if I lived next to you.) This is more than I can deal with in a forum post. By the way, I don't hold any faith in the Catholic Church nor were all of de Sade's confinements necessarily justified. And being sentenced to death for consensual anal sex - don't they do that in Saudi Arabia, a place I would hardly say has Enlightenment principles?

I would say that good acts do produce a net balance of good consequences. Of course, not everybody lives up to that, but the world would be even more chaotic if none of them at least tried to live up to it. I'd say the most basic kind of social organization (down to the tribal level) couldn't exist if everybody was entirely selfish.

Sade's hedonism was deplorable. With that said, he shouldn't have been imprisoned for dubious philosophy or giving an ass fucking to a willing whore.

 

[SamScribble]

... He was confined to a lunatic asylum.

Which gave Peter Weiss the opportunity to write his excellent play: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of The Marquis de Sade

 

[SimonDoom]

I read him, as philosophy, not fiction. For many, God died in The Enlightenment and he, like others, was exploring what moral values should be, and where they’d come from, in the new, atheistic world.

I have no God, and in my teens, I was on the same trip. It never occurred to me that his works were meant to be erotic, he used sex and violence as the traditional lightning rods for moral questions (though he was sentenced to death for consensual buggary of a female prostitute, so had personal kinks – he beat that wrap on appeal – money and influence talk.)

He poses the questions – If, in a chaotic world, ‘good’ acts produce no net balance of ‘good’ consequences beyond those of ‘evil’ acts, why chose to be good rather than evil? Why not act entirely selfishly? The net consequences for others are the same, with no consequences for oneself. This made him unpopular with the Catholic status quo. He was confined to a lunatic asylum.

I think you hit the nail on the head. It's fiction in service to a philosophical idea, even if it's not the most coherent or admirable philosophy. And I think one has to see him as a shock artist too: he wants you to be shocked by what he's saying, like Nietzche. He wants to scramble all your usual ways of looking at things and consider a completely different way of thinking. Whether or not one thinks the philosophy is BS or the fiction that results is bad, it's interesting and provocative, and I think it recognizes something in the human psyche that many don't want to acknowledge.

Circling back to the original thread, I think it's a perfectly legitimate approach to erotica. There is a transgressive element to erotica, and it's fun to explore it, whatever the consequences.

 

[XerXesXu]

And being sentenced to death for consensual anal sex - don't they do that in Saudi Arabia, a place I would hardly say has Enlightenment principles?

I would say that good acts do produce a net balance of good consequences.

Can you prove that 'good' acts do produce a net balance of good consequences?

You note that the Saudis do 'good' acts. Do you think their 'good' acts produce a net balance of 'good' consequences?

If you want to see why De Sade constructed a story to pose those questions, rather than through an academic paper, read The Monadology'. It's mercifully short.

You may note, that's the same reason I constructed a story to illustrate my reflections, rather than setting them out academically.

 

[XerXesXu]

Which gave Peter Weiss the opportunity to write his excellent play: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of The Marquis de Sade

'Good' consequences resulting from 'evil' acts?

 

[gunhilltrain]

If the book is on sale on Amazon, it may be a print on demand. When it is, it always shows one available.

I'm sure I could buy it if I wished to do that. But if I don't want to borrow it for free, then I certainly don't want to spend money to get a copy.

By the way, it seems that de Sade's son ordered all of his unpublished manuscripts to be burned after his death.. One of them would have been a huge multi-volume work.

http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Journées_de_Florbelle_ou_la_Nature_dévoilée.

It seems spiteful and unnecessary to do that to somebody's work, whether one agrees with the content or not. Fortunately, some of our readers can't do the same to us.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Can you prove that 'good' acts do produce a net balance of good consequences?

You note that the Saudis do 'good' acts. Do you think their 'good' acts produce a net balance of 'good' consequences?

If you want to see why De Sade constructed a story to pose those questions, rather than through an academic paper, read The Monadology'. It's mercifully short.

You may note, that's the same reason I constructed a story to illustrate my reflections, rather than setting them out academically.

I thought I said that this is too much for forum posts. And this seems to be turning into the de Sade thread.

But since you asked, no I can't prove it. I did ask how you lived your life, which I think is important. Because, if you are entirely selfish, then I won't lend you my drill set. You'll claim somebody stole it out of your garage and then use it your basement when you think no one will notice. And that's not a "silly" example; that is what unrestrained selfishness leads to.

I meant that the Saudis did bad acts, not good ones for the most part. They behead people, lots of them, for various reasons, their monarchy seems to be totally corrupt, and they mistreat foreign workers. I don't have a grudge against the Saudi people, but their government seems deplorable.

 

[MillieDynamite]

The only true control in life is how we live our life. We can only control how we react to things, what we give to the universe, goodwill or evil.

 

[Bubo_bubo]

Sade's hedonism was deplorable. With that said, he shouldn't have been imprisoned for dubious philosophy or giving an ass fucking to a willing whore.

He seems to have done a fair bit more than that.

 

[XerXesXu]

I thought I said that this is too much for forum posts. And this seems to be turning into the de Sade thread.

But since you asked, no I can't prove it. I did ask how you lived your life, which I think is important. Because, if you are entirely selfish, then I won't lend you my drill set. You'll claim somebody stole it out of your garage and then use it your basement when you think no one will notice. And that's not a "silly" example; that is what unrestrained selfishness leads to.

I meant that the Saudis did bad acts, not good ones for the most part. They behead people, lots of them, for various reasons, their monarchy seems to be totally corrupt, and they mistreat foreign workers. I don't have a grudge against the Saudi people, but their government seems deplorable.

De Sade asks a question, he doesn't give an answer. If you don't have a God to break the tie, how do you know whether you're 'good' and the Saudi's 'evil'? They have their God, you have your answer - cultural norms; want to share? It's complicated.

 

[gunhilltrain]

De Sade asks a question, he doesn't give an answer. If you don't have a God to break the tie, how do you know whether you're 'good' and the Saudi's 'evil'? They have their God, you have your answer - cultural norms; want to share? It's complicated.

I thought I implied that this is more than I can deal with on a board like this. Okay, so it's complicated. But you don't need either God or cultural norms to answer my question: can I trust you with my drill set? Or are you just going to steal it from me?

Here's another hypothetical (i don't actually own a drill set for example). Say you were in Saudi Arabia yourself for some reason and you were arrested by the authorities.* I don't know, let's say they discovered your Lit writings and decided to execute you by beheading. I bet all your speculation about de Sade and God and cultural norms "to break the tie" would seem rather irrelevant as you awaited you sentence to be carried out.

*A somewhat improbable example of course - I have no idea if they can or do check Internet postings by foreigners. I doubt they even execute foreigners. They do have a sort of morality police force called the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. It almost sounds like a phrase de Sade would have made up.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Sade's hedonism was deplorable. With that said, he shouldn't have been imprisoned for dubious philosophy or giving an ass fucking to a willing whore.

I have to give him some grudging credit for taking some of the consequences of his actions, although I'm sure he wasn't happy about those at the time. And he did write his ass off. This is part of the manuscript for 120 Days at Sodom.

https://www.paulfrasercollectibles....pts/marquis-de-sade-s-120-days-of-sodom-saved

You have to wonder if he had a previous draft and this is the final one. Or did he just write it all in one swoop? And he left no spaces anywhere for revisions or margin notes.

P.S.: It says this was written on a single thirty-nine foot scroll. I can't imagine doing something like that.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

And he did write his ass off. ...
P.S.: It says this was written on a single thirty-nine foot scroll. I can't imagine doing something like that.

He was imprisoned for around 20 years. I imagine many of us would write a lot more than currently, of potentially worse quality, in such circs.

 

[gunhilltrain]

He was imprisoned for around 20 years. I imagine many of us would write a lot more than currently, of potentially worse quality, in such circs.

Some people have indeed become writers while in prison, although it is certainly not the majority of inmates. (Chester Himes is one writer who comes to mind.) I have some time to write because I'm retired, but there is some sort of daily limit, I would call it, to writing, editing, and proofreading. I can't do that for the entire day; I have to stop at some point and recharge. I can't even do it every day of the week. In any case, I'm glad I never had to spend time in a prison.

 

[XerXesXu]

can I trust you with my drill set? Or are you just going to steal it from me?
i don't actually own a drill set for example

I do. Many. I know that tools are useful, and that people, who borrow tools, need tools and will keep yours if they can. My son is young and naive, he loans out my tools to his friends. All the standard sizes for motorcycle and car maintenance are now missing. His greatest coup was to lend my long ladder, used to paint the facade of the house, to clear the gutters, fix the roof etc: to a passing acquaintance. It's never been returned and he doesn't know where his acquaintance lives. I have to buy a new one.


I have a friend whose family relationship broke down over a lawn mower. A close relative, who lived a couple of hundred miles away, was hosting a wedding party, he needed a lawn mower to manicure his lawn. He was lent my friend's expansive mower on a promise that the relative would immediately return it. Days passed, his own large lawn grew, he was patient. A couple of weeks passed, he started making discrete inquiries, he was given reassurance. Weeks turned into months, the exchanges became irritable. After a couple of months his garden lawn had run wild, he decided it was time for a showdown. He was told, 'Why do you keep going on about that fucking lawn mower. You know where it is, you can collect it any time you like.' He had to travel a couple of hundred miles to collect it.

The above is a universal human experience. In a time of need, people will make any pledge. Once the need has passed, they find their pledges, oppressive, extracted by exploitation and morally void.

You can trust me with your theoretical toolset, but must ask for payment per time period, and take a deposit of the replacement value of your tools. Some people make a living doing that.

The Saudis - their house, their rules, their one true God - Saudis are people of the book, they share the Christian God - wins.

De Sade's question is about my house. What should my rules be, absent any God to tell me?

 

[gunhilltrain]

I do. Many. I know that tools are useful, and that people, who borrow tools, need tools and will keep yours if they can. My son is young and naive, he loans out my tools to his friends. All the standard sizes for motorcycle and car maintenance are now missing. His greatest coup was to lend my long ladder, used to paint the facade of the house, to clear the gutters, fix the roof etc: to a passing acquaintance. It's never been returned and he doesn't know where his acquaintance lives. I have to buy a new one.


I have a friend whose family relationship broke down over a lawn mower. A close relative, who lived a couple of hundred miles away, was hosting a wedding party, he needed a lawn mower to manicure his lawn. He was lent my friend's expansive mower on a promise that the relative would immediately return it. Days passed, his own large lawn grew, he was patient. A couple of weeks passed, he started making discrete inquiries, he was given reassurance. Weeks turned into months, the exchanges became irritable. After a couple of months his garden lawn had run wild, he decided it was time for a showdown. He was told, 'Why do you keep going on about that fucking lawn mower. You know where it is, you can collect it any time you like.' He had to travel a couple of hundred miles to collect it.

The above is a universal human experience. In a time of need, people will make any pledge. Once the need has passed, they find their pledges, oppressive, extracted by exploitation and morally void.

You can trust me with your theoretical toolset, but must ask for payment per time period, and take a deposit of the replacement value of your tools. Some people make a living doing that.

The Saudis - their house, their rules, their one true God - Saudis are people of the book, they share the Christian God - wins.

De Sade's question is about my house. What should my rules be, absent any God to tell me?

I'm far too tired to answer any of this right now. Also, I'm trying to get a story ready for posting, maybe by tomorrow. I may get back to this in a day or so.

 

[XerXesXu]

I'm far too tired to answer any of this right now. Also, I'm trying to get a story ready for posting, maybe by tomorrow. I may get back to this in a day or so.

We could agree that we see things differently and repetition's unlikely to lead to reconciliation.

 

[gunhilltrain]

We could agree that we see things differently and repetition's unlikely to lead to reconciliation.

Actually I had some new ideas - or new thinking? - about it, so I was going to try to avoid repetition. I may do it by tomorrow, or I may postpone it (cancel it?) indefinitely. It drifts a long way from the main purpose of this board. I'm sure on the General Board (I haven't looked at that in a long while) they would love topics like this. But I've never posted there and I probably won't start now.

 

[MillieDynamite]

While Philosophy, in general, won't feed the bulldog, it does feed a lot of arguments!