Reaux, Valery, Sade

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The New Yorker, The Economist, The New Scientist, and two issues of Eclectic Reading and The National Enquirer.

I've also read the complete works of Sade -- astounding how repetitious that gets. I also read Historiettes by Tallemand de Reaux: it was like the memoirs of Saint-Simon, except it was all anecdotes that were salacious or funny. I also read Paul Valery's notebooks.

Sade's Crimes de l'amour

I read Sade's Crimes de l'amour, and it is not literarily memorable. This turned out to be a privately printed collection of short stories. I noticed that the distribution was assigned to an individual living who knows where in Europe, and had a circulation restricted to 'bibliophile' aficianados known to the guy who paid for the printing. And I was shortly to find out why: there was a story at the end that qualifies as pornography (i.e. minors coerced into sexual acts) even if it is not explicit by today's standards. The fine binding meant that an individual could bring it into Canada without it being particularly noticed. So I'm going to recycle it rather than donate it and let it circulate again. Who knew? And it was purchased for me as a gift (because it was in French) at the local public library used bookstore. Nobody at the library read it, that is for sure. Mind you, I've read books I thought were pornographic, i.e. describing sexual acts in which women were not willing participants, that were held in our public library, protested, but was ignored. Put it down to experience.