Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Which Was More Painful: Justine's Abuses or Reading Justine?

Ultimately, I did not care about what agonies Justine was subject too. Centuries of distance made all her inflicted atrocities seem mundane and believable, if still distasteful and against the moral majority's view of sex. Justine is more than wimpy. She never learns from her experiences which dooms her, almost rightly so, to repeat them.

My only lodestar for plodding through the 300 interminable pages of the story was to see if there was any redemption for virtue. Or any morale that de Sade appears to promise to his dedicatee. I'm roundly disappointed.

But the context is universal ... what with the IMF head being charged with rape, A-nold getting kicked out by JFK's niece and the Vatican commissioning a John Jay study that concluded that the Age of Aquarius was the root cause of pedophile priests. Justine is as real, or more so, today than ever. Unpleasant, but all too human.

No comments:

Post a Comment