Dom, could you expand on what you said about not
recognising fantasy as something apart from reality? I
think I might have got it wrong but it sounds like "if
you can think it, you can do it". That may be true of
de Sade; it isn't of all of us (I hope). And Jimmy
Carter said lusting after a woman in your heart was
the same as committing adultery. But I'm fairly sure
Mrs Carter, and still more Mrs Clinton, would disagree
and would say there was a difference between a man who
indulged his every whim and one who sought some kind
of substitute relief, in fantasy or whatever.
It's fairly easy to contemplate junking de Sade on
moral grounds because he's such an unimaginative,
repetitive writer (oh God, not another orgy...). It's
when you consider a better writer who still has an
unhealthy fascination with violence, and stimulates it
in the reader, that it gets difficult. I don't see how
one can hide from the fact that one reason Dostoevsky
describes long agonising catalogues of cruelty is
becuase he gets a buzz out of it; it isn't the only
motive but it is there. I read a story like "Akulka's
Husband" knowing that fascination is in me too, and it
tells me things about both him and me that I don't
want to know, but I wouldn't be without it. And at the
end it does leave me with a kind of pity for everyone
involved, because they're real - you can't pity Sade's
characters because they don't have characters; they're
just cardboard collections of protruberances and
orifices. Dostoevsky's people are real, which is why
they have a dark side. I am profoudly grateful for
writers like Sophocles who explore the redemptive
possibilities in man, but now and again I'm grateful
to the one who admits my dark side too.
Regards
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