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The Marquis De Sade: A Life | 
| Author: N Schaeffer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Category: Book
List Price: £12.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 441192
Media: Paperback
Edition: New e.
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 577
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.5
ISBN: 0674003926
Dewey Decimal Number: 809
EAN: 9780674003927
ASIN: 0674003926
Publication Date: November 1, 2000
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
This is a big black book about a black-hearted man. Neil Schaeffer manages to suggest some of the complexities and contradictions in de Sade's character, but there is no doubt that he got up to some pretty unpleasant things. Schaeffer's skill is in giving us the full gamut of Sade's distinctive sexuality (as much masochistic, it turns out, as sadistic) in detailed if understated description--while also managing to place the whole story in context. De Sade's tastes were not actually that unusual for the times in which he lived. Eighteenth-century France was a cruel period, leading up to the violent Revolution of 1789 (in which Sade participated), and it produced a tremendous amount of sexual whippings, beatings and violent goings-on. Schaeffer's analysis of Sade is acute without becoming prurient. "His sexual life would find a modern equivalent among a great many rock stars," he writes, adding that "the public expect and vicariously enjoy the escapades" of such figures, which is a good insight into the appeal of books such as this one. There are even moments of tenderness in The Marquis de Sade: A Life, as we learn of Sade's lifelong romanticism, and sometimes we even feel sorry for him. A letter makes reference to "three or four friends" and Schaeffer comments: "it is unknown who these friends are. Sade had no friends." This is unsurprising, given his predilections, but somehow sad. --Adam Roberts
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| Customer Reviews:
 Beyond the Myth and Philosophy July 7, 2008
Neil Schaeffer's Sade is a man of dualities, an adult-child torn between contrasts; materialist and idealist; nihilist and romantic; revolutionary and monarchist; aristocrat and citizen; anarchist and statesman; atheist and theistic blasphemer; amoral artiste and moral satirist. The only consistency is inconsistency itself, as Sade drifted between extremities - unable to land comfortably in sanity, unable to truly be the moderate Robespierre tried to execute him for being. Schaeffer maintains (I believe correctly) that people misunderstand Sade because of their inability to discern that he was never completely one thing or the other; he wasn't a satirist of an amoralist, but both simultaneously.
This is a Sade beyond the demonic myth and the postmodern/existentialist philosophizing; it is Sade as a flawed, wrought, tragic human being. A man often persecuted by people infinitely more vile than him (namely Louis XVI, the aforementioned Robespierre and Napoleon), but who also often mistreated his most loyal friends and even his remarkably steadfast wife. Sade was a man eternally in conflict with authority, sometimes an illusory authority, the product of his madness, and sometimes a terribly real authority. His farther, God, his stepmother and so many tyrants and conspiratorial cabals served this central role in Sade's fascinating life.
I love Angela Carter's Sade, Simone de Beauvoir's Sade, Albert Camus' Sade and even Yukio Mishima's more fictional Sade, but Schaeffer's Sade is altogether more complex and, for this reason, more real. Schaeffer should be praised on his erudite portrait and his willingness to non-judgementally asses and interpret Sade's character. He forms a narrative that is both readable and researched, both entertaining and challenging; in the way that Sade's literature is both entertaining and challenging.
I am not without my criticism. Schaeffer's obvious contempt for Sade's relativistic meta-ethics, whilst perhaps well grounded, is misplaced in a biography, which in my opinion would be better leaving such considerations to the reader. Also, Schaeffer's reliance on Freudian theory for his analysis of Sade's psychosexual development is, to be generous, awfully archaic. However, these faults do little to tarnish the overall brilliance of `Sade: A Life' - the best book on Sade I have ever read, the book that finally convinced me that Sade the person is vastly more interesting than Sade the myth.
An excellent biography of an interesting man October 19, 2006
There's no doubt that de Sade comes over from this book as a troubled and unhappy man, but not one who deserves the reputation that he has. Far from being a 'sadist' he's actually a man who takes refuge in his own imagination and has been much misunderstood as a result. Schaeffer is an excellent biographer: clear, objective, non-condemning with a novelist's touch in conveying scene and atmosphere as well as character.
I picked this up on impulse knowing nothing more about de Sade than the average person and found myself enthralled and saddened by what de Sade suffered.
Very interesting and well-worth reading.
A fascinating historical figure rescued from myth. October 17, 2001
37 out of 37 found this review helpful
If you happen to look up reviewers' critiques of the film Quills [...] then you'll quickly see just what extremes the mere mention of the name of the Marquis de Sade drives people to, even within the context of a highly fictionalised celluloid account of his final days.It is to Neil Schaeffer's enormous credit that The Marquis de Sade: A Life, takes not only a more balanced view, but, indeed, restores the Marquis to the position of fascinating and complex historical figure that he most surely is. Schaeffer does not duck the details of de Sade's sexual adventures or, more importantly, his pornographic writings - although it becomes a little wearing to read his pseudo-Freudian explanations of the man who (unwittingly) gave his name to sadism, particularly since, as he points out, most of de Sade's "perversions," including erotic flagellation, were hardly new at the time. He does raise the point that much of his literary output could well have been aimed at satirising the political figures and situation of his day... pornography as a political weapon is not a new concept. But what does come through clearly, however, is that de Sade's main "crime," in the eyes of the establishment, was his blasphemy and constant challenges to church and state. His disproportionate incarceration - some 29 years throughout his life - was primarily a result of this and, indeed, his own family's displeasure with such a refusal to compromise his own philosophical beliefs in the name of safe conformity. Schaeffer presents his subject within a superbly well drawn historical setting and paints a man that we would do well to learn from. A fascinating insight into a complex and angry himan being who, whatever one thinks of his ideas, had the courage to stick by them in the face of massive oppression.
 Sensationalist nonsense April 18, 2000
Another sensationalist tract in the now anachronistic Victorian mode on de Sade. Defunct now that we have unearthed, since the 1950s, so much genuine info on the marquis! As for describing Sade as "a black-hearted man", mass murderers such as Bonaparte and other heads of state, who have always seen fit to persecute Sade during his life and since his death, would no doubt be seen by this particular author as heroes! While a writer is held responsible for the actions of the villains in his novels! Absurd! Anthony Walker.
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