An Erotic Beyond: Sade - Hardcover

Paz, Octavio

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151003521 ISBN 13: 9780151003525

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998

Synopsis

Through an early poem-written just after he became acquainted with the work of the Marquis de Sade-and two later essays, Nobel Prize laureate Paz “admirably questions and explores the meaning of a figure who will not leave us alone” (Kirkus Reviews). Written with Paz’s usual authority blended with irreverence, this book is as provocative as its subject. Translated by Eliot Weinberger.

About this title

About the Author

Octavio Paz was born in 1914 and died in 1998. The author of eighteen books, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990.

Reviews

Mexico's Nobel Prizewinning poet and essayist meditates on the Marquis de Sade and his writings. Paz (Sor Juana, 1988; The Light of India, 1997; etc.) discovered Sade when he went to Paris in 1946. Simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by the eponymous father of sadism, the poet found in him a figure crucial for the modern world. In 1947 Paz wrote a poem, ``The Prisoner,'' as a somewhat begrudging homage but also as an inverted votive offering to the demon that had begun to haunt his imagination. Where are the borders between spasm and earthquake/eruption and copulation? he wonders. The poem is the first item included in this very brief book. Second comes an essay, Metaphors, which Paz wrote in 1961. Here the writer seeks heroically (if also inadequately) to define Sade's place in the order of things. Though not systematic at all, the essay coruscates with lightning bolts of insight. He shrewdly distinguishes between sexuality and eroticism, devoting his thought especially to the latter. Unlike mere sexuality, the erotic is fluid and always changing. It belongs as much to our imaginative as to our bodily lives and thus, suggests Paz, lies beyond fixed principle. It cannot be defined, yet it defines us. Our passions, he comments, are more powerful than our character, our habits, or our ideas, they are not ours. We don't possess them, they possess us. The final piece, a short memoir of those days in Paris and people with whom he discussed Sade, adds little to the central essay but is pleasant to read. Paz's sober inquiry into the weirdness and horror of Sade does not titillate, seek to shock, or flirt with kinky absurdities. Paz meets the Sadean challenge with uncommon intelligence and intellectual maturity. Though tiny, Paz's new book admirably questions and explores the meaning of a figure who will not leave us alone. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This passionate little book unites two controversial and demanding writers, the Marquis de Sade, who was imprisoned for his point of view over 150 years ago and continues to make waves in the collective consciousness, and Paz himself, who is revered by many for the originality and sophistication of his vision and writings and castigated by others for obfuscation and arrogance. Paz is a powerful thinker and magnificent articulator, and his poetry and prose always lead many down new and illuminating corridors. The "three attempts at understanding" Sade gathered together here are no exception. The first is a vivid and empathic poem Paz wrote in 1947 after first becoming acquainted with Sade's work. The second is a long and fascinating essay about the difference between sexuality and eroticism, and the third assesses Sade's legacy. This slim volume can almost serve as an addendum to Paz's acclaimed The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism (1994). Donna Seaman

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151003521
• ISBN 13: 9780151003525
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 84