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raincorbyn's review against another edition
3.0
The novella itself is a protracted revenge-fantasy farce at the expense of the judge who sentenced de Sade to jail time for being impossibly extra. The later short stories are a mixed bag - some are subversive and amusing to the modern reader, some are just gross, cruel, and misogynistic. The overall experience is saved by an outstanding translation and set of notes, but MdS's humor isn't that different from his taste in kink, and is never going to be for everyone.
thomasroche's review against another edition
4.0
Having been recently brutalized by [b:Philosophy in the Boudoir|152113|Philosophy in the Boudoir Or, The Immoral Mentors (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)|Donatien Alphonse François de Sade|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172240258s/152113.jpg|1851152], I was very pleasantly surprised by this book of semi-lost tales from the Marquis de Sade. Philosophy matched aggressive, obnoxious pseduo-intellectual philosophical ravings with tiresome and repetitive sexual description tarted up with, at times, extreme violence. It is bizarre and fascinating as a historical and psychological document, but not exactly a hot read. I mean... I'm weird, but I'm not quite that kind of weird.
The stories in [b:The Mystified Magistrate|867665|The Mystified Magistrate and Other Tales|Donatien Alphonse François de Sade|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179036513s/867665.jpg|1150767], on the other hand, were intended by De Sade as a "light" counterpart to his more "serious" works. In the introduction it's said that De Sade initially set out to be an dramatist and penner of light entertainments. That is certainly evident from these stories, which read rather like "The Three Stooges of Provence." They're bawdy, obnoxious, and bizarrely illuminating in historical terms. The title story is about a judge who wants to marry a much younger woman well above his station, and how he is brutally humiliated by the girl's secret paramour and her noble relatives. Then there's the one about the Persian ambassador who's shown an entire court's worth of pee-pees by way of convincing him that none of them are circumcised, and therefore are infidels, not blasphemous Muslims... it's truly bizarre, and utterly fascinating both in its illumination of De Sade as comic weirdo and of the incredibly complex and contradictory times.
The manuscripts were uncorrected, resulting in numerous errors and inconsistencies, which actually makes for fascinating reading. Wonderful, readable translations. Strange and lovely, in that fringe-history sort of way.
The stories in [b:The Mystified Magistrate|867665|The Mystified Magistrate and Other Tales|Donatien Alphonse François de Sade|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179036513s/867665.jpg|1150767], on the other hand, were intended by De Sade as a "light" counterpart to his more "serious" works. In the introduction it's said that De Sade initially set out to be an dramatist and penner of light entertainments. That is certainly evident from these stories, which read rather like "The Three Stooges of Provence." They're bawdy, obnoxious, and bizarrely illuminating in historical terms. The title story is about a judge who wants to marry a much younger woman well above his station, and how he is brutally humiliated by the girl's secret paramour and her noble relatives. Then there's the one about the Persian ambassador who's shown an entire court's worth of pee-pees by way of convincing him that none of them are circumcised, and therefore are infidels, not blasphemous Muslims... it's truly bizarre, and utterly fascinating both in its illumination of De Sade as comic weirdo and of the incredibly complex and contradictory times.
The manuscripts were uncorrected, resulting in numerous errors and inconsistencies, which actually makes for fascinating reading. Wonderful, readable translations. Strange and lovely, in that fringe-history sort of way.
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