My first brush with the Marquis was reading Justine from the Grove press editions back in the eighties. This still is a great set if any of you has yet to discover them. I found myself chuckling aloud at his stylistic waltz with words. After going again through the Anne Rice “Beauty” series recently, my mind kept dwelling on the fig leaves of word play in both works. There are many more examples in literature, but it is the ability of the Marquis to put himself out as an artist in time regardless of the consequence, which I most admire.

The process could indeed be viewed as selfish sadism on the part of the artist, to share with his victim, the reader, drawing the blood of imagination with quill. But I view it rather as the masochist need of the artist with the self. A dwelling, in bliss, I say not so much a physical as a mental probing laid down and thrown out through the centuries. What value then art, if not that of the artist? Point being, this validity as an artist cannot help but touch us today because of the human condition.

I’ve just finished the new book by Rodrigo Rey Rosa “The good cripple” who explores the self and the duality of need that I would like to recommend. The human psyche is indeed complex and can only fathom the artist from personal experience.

As for me though I feel the Marquis calling and nagging me to read and think again. Maybe trying to justify a good read deserves the lightening bolt of art.

“Well, let’s be off,” said the bawd, “ply those switches, spare not to strike hard.” from “The 120 Days of Sodom”.

Comments?

Cool tribe this.