February 17, 2013

Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Thanks to Délaissé's French February event, I've finally read a book I've been interested in for a long time. It looked like a chunkster in the beginning (653 pages of 18th century writing, and this is even without extensive commentary!), but you wouldn't believe what an easy and fast read it is! The trick is that the book is a collection of letters, so although the style is not really very different from letter to letter, the writing is very dynamic, and the POV changing allows the reader to see the events from different aspects.

The book is about two cunning intrigants, Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont who play the game of seduction for fun of sometimes for revenge. Their correspondence is very witty and full of sarcasm, and their plots are quite complicated and full of the most sober view of human nature in its worst aspects. Everything goes well for them while they are allies, but as soon as they have a serious argument, and their forces turn against each other, they both step on the road of complete ruin.

As you can guess, the book is full of spicy episodes, but there's nothing really offensive there. What may be shocking is the attitude of the two main characters towards their prey - they never give a damn about what happen to people after their plot is at an end. All they care about is themselves, and as this book is positioned as a moralistic one, they get punished for this in the end.

I really enjoyed the book, as I've always liked intrigues. And here not only the plot is entertaining, but also the setting (Paris's high society of the 18th century - who doesn't like it?) and the characters, who are very diverse and real. Needless to say, my favourite was Valmont's aunt, who is a really nice old lady, very kind and tolerant. Cute little Cecile is also so charmingly naive, that you can't stop admiring how nicely she was brought to life by Laclos. But sometimes she is just unbelievably stupid: how can a girl NOT understand that she is pregnant even when she already loses a baby? Unbelieveble.

So it was a really nice choice for a February readalong, as it's a very dynamic and entertaining book. Now I'm waiting to read what others think about it in the end of February!


5 comments:

  1. I didn't enjoy the novel as much as I had hoped . . . at first. For some reason, it started growing on me as I kept noticing my thinking back on it time and time again. Unlike many novels I've read after seeing the movie, I did not visualize what I had already seen on the screen. Instead, I found myself immersed in the text itself. I agree with you about how the voices in the various letters are too alike but, like you, this didn't detract from the story altogether.

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    1. Yes, me too. I've seen "Valmont" (Milos Forman's adaptation) quite recently, but I didn't think of the characters as they were in the film at all! I guess the book is just more powerful.

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  2. So interesting to read this right now - I guess I will read into the original book now, too, after reading a new adaptation of an unusual kind: a Manga version, created by Japanese Manga artist Chiho Saito. i just blogged about it, and looked, but it seems they only published it in Japan and Germany so far: http://virtual-notes.blogspot.de/2013/03/current-reads-island-audio-book-walk.html

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  3. I haven't read this one yet. I thought of watching the movie at one point and then decided that I wasn't in the mood. Seems like the type of book you really have to be in the mood for.

    Good review! And one more book checked off our list of 1001! :)

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    1. I had seen Forman's adaptation before I read the book, and it was... well, weird. Although now I see that it was really very close to the book, so it's not the problem of adaptation at all =) Now I'm looking forward to watching another famous adaptation and compare them!

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