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Title: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Bbc Radio Presents) ISBN: 0-553-52624-3 Publisher: Random House Audio Publishing Group Pub. Date: 06 July, 1999 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 2 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.7 (30 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: one of the top three of all time...
Comment: Along with L'Assommoir by Zola and Journey to the End of the Night by Celine, Choderlos de Laclos's masterpiece ranks as one of my favorite books of all time. To fully appreciate the genius of the letter writing form,one must understand that the libertine novels of the 18th century all utilized this format. Laclos admittedly set out to write a book that would depart from other works of the century to leave a dramatic imprint on the world, and he succeeded. While written in the same lingusitic and seductive style of a libertine novel, Laclos transforms the limited and mundane scope of the libertine world into a riveting classic. Each character reflects a different conception of "love" and how the libertine world can go awry when true sentiment is confused with lust. La Marquise de Merteuil reflects the purest degree of libertinage. In perhaps the most spellbinding of all the letters, she explains to Valmont her duplictious conduct after her husband's death to obtain her reputation among men and place herself at the forefront of society's attention. In contrast, Mlle. de Tourvel is the epitome of sentimental love, to the point that she can become physically ill if it is not reciprocated. Clearly what separates this work from other romance novels of the 18th century, elevating it to the level of other world masterpieces, is the character of Valmont. He is the heart and soul of this novel in every way possible. One one hand, Valmont is extremely self-assured in his ways, when describing his calculating, rational strategy in courting naive young ladies. On the other hand, he refuses to accept the reality evidenced by his relationship with Mme. de Tourvel that he is not the manipulative libertine that he, and society, consider him to be. The deep struggle within Valmont between his true feelings and his vanity in preserving his reputation of libertinage is perhaps the most compelling storyline in the novel- because it is physcological and under the surface. At this level, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is often compared to "Crime and Punishment". les Liaisons is more subtle in its physcological dimension in that the reader must form her own conclusions about Valmont's physchosis whereas Raskelnikov's mental state is at the heart of the prose. If I have not convinved everyone yet to go ahead and experience the magic of Laclos (who fortuneatley survived the Terror), then I have failed in my task...
Rating: 5
Summary: A wickedly enthralling study of evil
Comment: Choderlos de Laclos' epistolary novel has been made into at least three film versions, but none of them come nearly up to the real thing. Laclos' story of evil and depravity, starring a pair of jaded aristocrats so satanic we wonder if they have a human bone in their bodies, is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, novels of the 18th century. In a nutshell, it revolves around the cynical plot to seduce and destroy the reputation of a young girl fresh out of her convent, which they plan and achieve with the icy calm and cynical detachment of a pair of mathematicians solving a calculus problem.
The anti-hero and anti-heroine of this book, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquis de Merteuil, fascinate and repel us at once by their sheer wickedness. Valmont is a depraved Casanova, lay-em-and-leave-em, who has lost count of all the broken hearts and destroyed characters he has left in his wake. The Marquise de Merteuil, married and widowed too young, has combined shrewd intelligence with appalling powers of deception to engage a string of lovers whom she uses and casts off at random. Somehow these two find each other and form an unholy partnership. When the book opens, their affair is already spent, but they have remained friends; and the Marquise is infuriated when she learns she is about to be dumped by her current lover, a rich aristocrat named Gercourt, who is about to marry Cecile de Volanges, the most naive teenager who ever emerged from the protective cocoon of convent education. Her main attraction, for him, is her virginity, and it is this the Marquise wants Valmont to do away with so that Gercourt will find out on his wedding night that he didn't get the innocent virgin he was expecting, but an already corrupted young woman, and will become the laughing stock of Paris.
Seducing and abandoning an innocent girl is an old story to Valmont, but he has more pressing concerns; he is hopelessly in love with a young married woman, Madame de Tourvel, whose virtue seems impregnable. And here he appears as more sympathetic and human than the Marquise; even if he's trying to seduce a married woman, he, at least, is capable of love; something which is beyond the Marquise, who sees other people as nothing more or less than objects to be used or cast aside. It's only when he finds out that Cecile's mother has been telling Madame de Tourvel his scandalous life history that he decides to seduce Cecile, to pay back the mother for messing in his business. At the same time, he perseveres in his pursuit of Madame de Tourvel. But just at the point of victory, the Marquise turns his very strength, his ability to love, into a weakness; she uses it as a weapon against him to make him think his love for Madame de Tourvel is contempible. At this point, we see the real conflict in the book, Valmont against the Marquise. But Valmont, as cynical and jaded as he is, is no match for this lady; her very emotional detachment makes her unassailable. Valmont doesn't have a chance. He's not only destroyed the Madame de Tourvel, he's also destroyed himself. It looks like the Marquise is the sole victor in this combat. But is she? Fatally, the Marquise has forgotten that letters can be dangerous weapons, and she's written a few too many. What goes around comes around.
Laclos's book caused a sensation in its own time that reverberated for decades afterward; 40 years after its publication it was condemned by a criminal court and publicly incinerated in a mass book-burning ceremony. If Laclos had still been alive then, they might have wanted to toss him on top of the pyre. Whatever feelings the book may have aroused when it was written, it has endured for two hundred years since as a masterpiece of literature in any language. Any book that has been the basis of three different films, each unique from the other, has to be saying something to modern readers. Laclos' book says a great deal and says it magnificently.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Classic Worthy of a Spot in Any Booklover's Collection
Comment: I must admit, I have to force myself to read the "classics" since I am usually drawn to whichever modern book is getting -- or has recently received -- quite a bit of hype from the media. It made for an interesting literary journal to skip from The Corrections to Les Liasons Dangereuses. Beautifully bound and typeset, this edition of Les Liasons Dangereuses tells a twisted story of the plotting and eventual downfall of two young rich lovers whose evil schemes end up getting the best of them. If you are like me, you may have read this novel after you had seen films based on this 18th century French novel (including -- but not limited to -- 1988's Dangerous Liaisons with Glenn Close and John Malkovich, 1989's Valmont with Annette Bening and Colin Firth, or even 1999's Cruel Intentions with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon). If you enjoyed these movies, reading the original book -- as is the case in most see-the-movie-then-read-the-book situtations -- will only heighten your appreciation for Pierre C. De Laclos' artful, and at times erotic, storytelling.
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Title: The Princesse De Cleves (Penguin Classics) by Madame De Lafayette, Walter J. Cobb ISBN: 0140445870 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title:Dangerous Liaisons ASIN: 6304696515 Publisher: Warner Studios Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.98 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $13.03 |
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Title: Jacques the Fatalist and His Master (OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS) by Denis Diderot, David Coward ISBN: 0192838741 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Letters from a Peruvian Woman (Texts and Translations : Translations, No 2) by Francoise De Graffigny, David Kornacker ISBN: 087352778X Publisher: Modern Language Association Pub. Date: 01 December, 1993 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: The Nun (Penguin Classics) by Denis Diderot ISBN: 0140443002 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1977 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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