“Now, dear reader, you must prepare your heart and your mind for the most impure story that has ever been written since the world existed, such a book being found neither among the ancients nor among the moderns.”
It sounds like a very cheap excuse (like reading Playboy for the interviews), but I read this primarily out of historical interest (and okay, maybe a little curiosity too). I'm just going to say it straight: this is gross, but really gross, extremely gross, in ways you can barely imagine. And it is not only the unimaginable sexual escapades that de Sade describes, but mainly the ever-increasing violence, and the sickening way in which other people (especially women and children) are degraded to mere objects.

To be honest: I mainly read the run-up to the book and most of the 'stories' of the first cycle (the first of 4), and even then, gradually I began to read diagonally, skipping the worst passages. I didn't have the stomach for it to begin with (some scenes really make you feel sick), and also, after a while the endless descriptions of the excesses really started to get boring. That also says something. Moreover, according to de Sade, that first cycle only contains a description of the “simple passions”. From the schematic overviews of the next three cycles (which he did not write out, thanks heaven), it can be concluded that after that first ‘simple’ cycle, it only goes crescendo into gruesome torture, up to and including the most beastly mutilations and even murder.

Curiously, all this is presented by de Sade as a kind of scientific experiment. The core of the story is that 4 friends (rich and powerful men) isolate themselves in a Swiss castle, together with about 30 victims, and for 4 months indulge themselves in an endless series of sexual and violent deeds, and while doing that, meticulously recording and sharing all their emotions and experiences. Regularly they debate on, for instance, what brings the greatest pleasure (the act or the desire for it), and its moral implications (or rather, the lack thereof), almost like in a Platonic dialogue.

So, even amidst these excesses occasionally interesting things can be found, I mean on a philosophical level (imagine!). For instance, they conclude that their happiness comes from the fact that others (their victims) cannot enjoy what they can, in other words: inequality and domination are basic goods. Or that good and evil are completely arbitrary, and that therefore everything is allowed. Striking, but not unexpected, are the fierce attacks against the church and against religion in general: only Nature (with a capital) counts, because, by making possible the most terrible acts, nothing (and certainly not God) stands in the way of doing just that, and therefor every evil is justified. It is the libertine “natural philosophy” that de Sade keeps coming back to.

Now, one of the points I was curious about is to what extent de Sade can be seen as an exponent of the Enlightenment of the 18th century, a thorny issue. Ok, he was part of the nobility, and therefore thoroughly rooted in the ‘Ancien Regime’, but so were other Enlightenment philosophers. And agreed, his focus was certainly not on higher reason, but on the contrary on the dark side of the human species. But his approach exudes the rationalistic-mechanistic view that is so typical of the French 'philosophes' of that period. Only look at the thoroughness with which the four ‘masters’ perform their brutal deeds, in a systematic-premeditated order, report on them and discuss them. In a way you can surely say that de Sade also exposes the dark side of Enlightened rationalism, eventually leading to the Holocaust (I'm not saying anything new, here).

Naturally you wonder: what was the personal motivation of de Sade to write all this, and especially why in that excessively explicit way? I know: libraries have already been written about it. And the views on this range from “de Sade just had a sick mind”, to “he wanted to provide a brilliant insight into the seething, stinking pit that hides inside each of us, but which we usually keep hidden”. I guess, all these views are valid. And so I definitely came to understand why the figure of Sade, and his writings, continue to fascinate, even after more than 2 centuries. But if you want my (completely non-binding) advice: beware, if you want to read this, know what you're getting into.

Annex: I have now also read his Justine ou Les Malheurs de la vertu (the reworked version from 1797), and I must say that it is on a much higher literary level (ok, this sounds very “I read Playboy for the interviews”-ish), it is a little bit less explicit, and, actually contains a little less violence, although it remains very rude and particularly derogatory of the female species. But above all it contains many more well-developed passages that philosophize about the (im)moral aspects of libertine behavior, and in that sense it is much more interesting.

Los 120 días de Sodoma del Marqués de Sade relata la historia de cuatro hombres adinerados que esclavizan a 24 víctimas, en su mayoría adolescentes, y las torturan sexualmente mientras escuchan historias contadas por viejas prostitutas.

Dégoûtant. Répugnant. Choquant. Extrême. Personne ne peut mélanger l'érotique et l'horreur comme Sade, et c'est ici, dans ces 120 Journées éprouvantes, qu'il est à son meilleur. Il y a tant de sexualité dans ces pages, bien entendu, que je suis tout à la fois surpris qu'on ne parle plus souvent des horreurs qui - je crois - surpassent en tout, en nombre comme en imagination, ce qui tient à la pornographie. Oui, l'horreur, l'immonde, l'atroce sont bien là : et, franchement, à part peut-être le 300 MILLIONS de BLAKE BUTLER, je ne connais aucune autre œuvre capable de s'approcher de près (ni même de loin) du contenu de celle-ci ; et encore 300 MILLIONS étant un must du genre, les 120 Journées restent littéralement indépassable.
Certainement pas pour les faibles de cœur.
Et tellement épouvantable qu'on ne peut pas le lâcher. ( )

originally paperback, bound later

Whatever you may have heard, its worse. The frame story is about 4 of the vilest men to walk the earth. They retreat to a remote castle to be able to indulge themselves without fear of interruption. Those they take with them include 16 kidnapped teens aged 12-15, 8 boys and 8 girls. The main point of the story is a catalogue of every sexual fetish the author can imagine. Some are told each day by 4 storytellers who accompany the group.
Only the first 30 days are told in detail the rest is just sketched as the work was never finished. Just to give some idea of how dark things get, the majority of characters don't make it out alive.
The score i've given this is only based on the quality of the writing NOT on the content.
NO ONE should read this except maybe people who want to be Profilers like on 'Criminal Minds'. ( )