Anyone interested in the history of BDSM and located near Barcelona may want to check out a new exhibition at the CCCB – Sade: Freedom or Evil. As the name suggests it’s about the Marquis De Sade, the eponymous root of sadism. For those not in the area there’s a good review of it in the Guardian.
The exhibition features not just his work but also modern artists, including Maplethorpe, Dali and Susan Meiselas photographs of Pandora’s Box. It all sounds very interesting, which is more than I can say for Sade’s actual writing. That always struck me as repetitive and frequently nauseating. I can appreciate extreme kinky fiction, but there’s a level or brutality in his writing that verges more on serial killer fiction than erotica.
I’ll finish with a photograph of a very different type of Sade. This is Ms Sade, who used to work as a pro-domme in NYC. It’s one of my lasting regrets that I never got to play with her before she retired. She was quite the artist herself.
I tried to read “120 Days of Sodom” years ago and disliked it intensely so I agree with you completely. In addition to the problems mentioned he also has a lot of coprophiliac scenes which I have no interest in. The film “Salo” based on the book and made by Piers Paulo Passolini is the only film I have walked out of twice and both times it is during the faeces eating scene. Actually now I come to think of it Passolini is like de Sade vastly overrated, obviously that’s just my opinion and unlike a lot of people these days I think it’s okay and indeed normal for people to hold opinions different to mine.
I don’t really know much about Passolini, other than that film, and that certainly didn’t endear him to me. Like you, I wasn’t a fan. I think I made it through a VHS viewing, but wished I hadn’t bothered.
I think Sade’s interesting from a historical perspective – he certainly led a strange and eventful life. But I doubt I’ll ever try and get through his work again.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing thoughts,
-paltego