120 Days of Sodom novel - most extreme horror fiction?

This is an infamous novel by Marquis de Sade which is still banned in several countries. From what I've heard of him, he was an actual sexual predator and psychopath (his name is where the word "sadist" comes from) who wrote most of it while he was locked up in prison for raping and torturing servant girls and prostitutes.

He also came from a nobility background and tried to present his works as nihilistic "philosophy" (vaguely along the lines of Nietzche or Ragnar Redbeard, but much more extreme and sexually deviant). Though he basically admitted when he wrote this he just wanted to create "the most sordid tale that was ever written".

(Interestingly his book was apparently used by psychiatrists in the early 1900s as one of the first catalogues of sexual deviancies or paraphilias; apparently he also influenced the medical acceptance of induced abortion in the West - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6990001; though he isn't very well known for the most part, in fact I think the film version of 120 Days of Sodom is better known today than him or his books).

---
Anyway, I've watched films like Hostel, A Serbian Film, and the low-budget Japanese horror film "Flowers of Flesh and Blood", and this book still disgusts me enough that I haven't made myself read it in its entirety. Basically nearly every sexual perversion or torture method (including plenty of stuff involving children) seems to be somewhere in the book; it's available to read for free online (though if your area has strict laws on the definition of 'child porn' I'd recommend doing it anonymously).

Was curious myself if anyone's read it, and if they know of anything which is worse or more disturbing, because if there is I'd be interested in knowing about it.

Here's a few excerpts (the whole thing is basically 400 pages of stuff like this and worse):

Spoiler

"There, you see, that way, my little one, while one hand is busy there, let one finger of your other hand gradually work its way into this delicious crack...."

He adjusted my hands.

"That's the way, yes... Well! Don't you feel anything?" he asked, keeping me to my task.

"No, Father, I truly don't," I answered most naively.

"Ah, that's because you are still too young, but two years from now you'll see the pleasures it gives."

"Wait," I interrupted, "I think something's happening."

And with all imaginable vigor I rubbed the places he had pointed out.... Yes, sure enough, a few faint titillations convinced me that what I'd begun was worth continuing, and the extensive use I have made ever since of this relief-providing exercise has more than once persuaded me of my master's competence.

"And now 'tis my turn," said Etienne, "for your pleasures arouse my desires, and I simply must share them, my angel. Here we are; take this," he said, inviting me to grip a tool so monstrous my two little hands were scarce able to close around it, "take this, my child, 'tis called a prick, and this movement here," he went on, guiding my wrists in rapid jerks, "this action is called frigging. Thus, by means of this action you frig my prick. Go to it, my child, put all your strength to it. The more rapid and persistent your movements, the more you will hasten a moment which, believe me, I cherish. But bear one essential thing in mind," he added, all the while directing my flying hands, "be careful at all times to keep the tip uncovered. Never allow this skin, we call it the prepuce, to cover it over; were this prepuce to happen to cover this part, which we call the glans, all my pleasure would vanish. That's it; we're shortly going to see something, my little one," my teacher continued, "watch me do on you what you did on me."

And pressing himself against my chest as he spoke and as I kept in motion, he placed his hands so adroitly, he wriggled his fingers with such high art that pleasure rose at last to grip me, and it is without a shadow of a doubt to him I owe my initiation. And then, my head reeling, I abandoned my task, and the reverend, not yet ready to complete it, consented to forget his pleasure for a moment in order to devote himself exclusively to cultivating mine; and when he had caused me to taste it all, he had me resume the work my ecstasy had obliged me to interrupt, and very expressly enjoined me to keep my mind strictly on what I was about and to care for naught but him. I did so with all my soul. It was only just: I surely owed him my thanks. I went so merrily to work, and I observed all his instructions so faithfully that the monster, vanquished by such rapid vibrations, finally spewed forth all its rage and covered me with its venom. Thereupon Etienne seemed to go out of his mind, borne aloft in the most voluptuous delirium; ardently he kissed my mouth, he fondled and frigged my cunt, and the wildness in his speech still more emphatically declared his disorder. Gross expressions, mingling with others of the most endearing sort, characterized this transport, which lasted quite a while, and whence at last the gallant Etienne, so unlike his piss-swallowing colleague, emerged to tell me that I was charming, that he greatly hoped I would come back to see him, and that he would treat me every time as he was going to now: pressing a silver coin into my hand, he conducted me back to the place he had brought me from and left me wonderstruck, thrilled and enchanted with this latest good fortune. Feeling much better about the monastery, I decided to return to it often in the future, persuaded that the more I advanced in age, the more agreeable adventures I would meet with there. But destiny called me elsewhere; more important events awaited me in a new world, and upon returning to my house I learned news which was soon to sober the elation produced in me by the happy outcome of my latest experience.

---

One of his friends, a man powerful and rich, had formerly had an intrigue with a young noblewoman who had borne him two children, a girl and a boy. He had, however, never been able to wed her, and the maiden had become another's wife. The unlucky girl's lover died while still young, but the owner howbeit of a tremendous fortune; having no kin to provide for, it occurred to him to bequeath all he had to the two ill-fated children his affair had produced.

On his deathbed, he made the Bishop privy to his intentions and entrusted him with these two immense endowments: he divided the sum, put them in two purses, and gave them to the Bishop, confiding the two orphans' education to this man of God and enlisting him to pass on to each what was to be his when they attained their majority. At the same time he enjoyed the prelate to invest his wards' funds, so that in the meantime they would double in size. He also affirmed that it was his design to leave his offsprings' mother in eternal ignorance of what he was doing for them, and he absolutely insisted that none of this should ever be mentioned to her. These arrangements concluded, the dying man closed his eyes, and Monseigneur found himself master of about a million in banknotes, and of two children. The scoundrel was not long deliberating his next step: the dying man had spoken to no one but him, the mother was to know nothing, the children were only four or five years old. He circulated the intelligence that his friend, upon expiring, had left his fortune to the poor; the rascal acquired it the same day. But to ruin those wretched children did not suffice; furnished with authority by their father, the Bishop -- who never committed one crime without instantly conceiving another -- had the children removed from the remote pension in which they were being brought up, and placed them under the roof of certain people in his hire, from the outset having resolved soon to make them serve his perfidious lust. He waited until they were thirteen; the little boy was the first to arrive at that age: the Bishop put him to use, bent him to all his debauches, and as he was extremely pretty, sported with him for a week. But the little girl fared less well: she reached the prescribed age, but was very ugly, a fact which had no mitigating effect upon the good Bishop's lubricious fury. His desires appeased, he feared lest these children, left alive, would someday discover something of the secret of their interests. Therefore, he conducted them to an estate belonging to his brother and, sure of recapturing, by means of a new crime, the sparks of lechery enjoyment had just caused him to lose, he immolated both of them to his ferocious passions, and accompanied their death with episodes so piquant and so cruel that his voluptuousness was reborn in the midst of the torments wherewith he beset them. The thing is, unhappily, only too well known: there is no libertine at least a little steeped in vice who is not aware of the great sway murder exerts over the senses, and how voluptuously it determines a discharge. And that is a general truth whereof it were well the reader be early advised before undertaking the perusal of a work which will surely attempt an ample development of this system.

---

Thérèse was sixty-two; she was tall, thin, looked like a skeleton, not a hair was left on her head, not a tooth in her mouth, and from this opening in her body she exhaled an odor capable of flooring any bystander. Her ass was peppered with wounds, and her buttocks were so prodigiously slack one could have furled the skin around a walking stick; the hole in this splendid ass resembled the crater of a volcano what for width, and for aroma the pit of a privy; in all her life, Thérèse declared, she had never once wiped her ass, whence we have proof positive that the shit of her infancy yet clung there. As for her vagina, it was the receptacle of everything ungodly, of every horror, a veritable sepulcher whose fetidity was enough to make you faint away. She had one twisted arm and limped in one leg.

 

I read on Wikipedia that Sade wrote the manuscript on something the size of a roll of toilet paper. How ironic.

 

If anyone is interested in philosophy he's actually an intriguing character to read about; definitely insane and psychopathic but he was actually intelligent; kind of like a real-life Hannibal Lecter in some ways. Basically he's the ultimate nihilist who puts Nietzsche to shame.

 

There's a movie based on it called Salò.

 

Right, I saw another thread on the movie. Haven't watched it in full but the movie seems to basically be the "G rated" version of the actual book.

(Interestingly I also heard that the director of the movie was a pervert who was murdered by an underage boy he had been molesting).

 

It's a disturbing book. De Sade's interesting to read about though.

Whether this was the actual reason why he was murdered is the subject of much debate.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4529877.stm

 

De Sade was a rather interesting historical character, although I'm too scared to actually read his works.

Salo, as disturbing as that movie is, is the toned-down version of the book though.

 

I read the whole thing and it was pretty agonizing. I expected it to be disturbing so I can hardly complain that I got exactly what I expected and then some, but I wasn't expecing a good 100 straight pages of eating poop. I did learn that I can scream continuously and read at the same time.
I was rather fond of this phrase:

Spoiler: dabes penis euphamism

 

I've read it, and when you know what's coming, it isn't too big a shock imho. As others have mentioned as a person he was really interesting, he just pushed hedonism to it's limits, almost in a very early Hunter S Thompson kinda way. But instead of I'm smoking a joint while I type this, I'll write a story about two guys pissing on my balls kinda way.

I think in ways he was trying to be an OG edge master but as some have theorized, it's also a point out the (and forgive use of this word because it's 99.9% of the time) privilege the upper class had in that era and area. With the whole me and my rich friends are so over fair virgin maidens our only fix is jacking off 5 year old boys, and that just takes us to normal.

I know no one admits it but we all are guilty it's one of those books you want in your library to make people a little nervous about your sanity while looking educated, I personally have it next to "The divine comedy" for the lulz.

 

I started looking up all of the things that was being talked about in the edgy thread this afternoon and I felt a little sick to my stomach, but reading the Wikipedia article on this novel nearly made me gag.

There was a sick, brilliant mind that went behind this book, and I'm not even surprised in the slightest that the author had psychopathic tendencies.

 

A few months ago, my Dad was saying that he wanted the two of us to read a piece of classic literature together.

I sent him this and he still hasn't called me back.

 

So I read the book and only managed to reach halfway through it before I couldn't stand it anymore. Not because it's a despicable piece of filth (it certainly is), but because it is incredibly boring.

Spoiler: If you want to know the basis of the story and the ending

Basically, the four evil sociopaths who are running the debauchery enslavement of all the kids have these four women who are from notorious brothels. Every day, in a ritual, one of the women retells her tales of her life and what fucked up shit her clients made her do. Each day, the stories progress in nastiness, arousing the four sociopaths more and more each night. Each day is recorded in the book.

Rinse and repeat for what feels like an eternity. Constant mention of how the four sociopaths molest their children slaves, who gets punished, who favors who, and the sociopaths rambling about their philosophy of nature and nihilism and sounding all deep and pretentious while farting in each others mouths or eating shit. Then the brothel women storytellers continuing about all of their escapades that eventually blend into this blur of the same gross shit.

It goes from pretty much everything you can imagine: pedophilia, incest, vomit, saliva chugging (this particularly made me queasy), farting, burping, snot, anything and everything to do with shit and buttholes, inflation, torture, and murder.

Eventually each day gets listed - yes, a literal list of how someone fucks someone else in gross ways - because the author couldn't go back and edit since he was in prison. He then list and records how each and every victim is tortured and killed in the end by the sociopaths. It ends with notes to himself to add more torture scenes or trying to remember which characters he's added to make sure everyone's dead and how they died.

The only reason I find this so interesting is because it's from the 1700s and from the man now known through the word "sadist" taken from his last name. Reading this and "The Room" was a chore for me because they just go on and on and on, but at least with the Room I could feel the character's anger and mania. With this you can tell the author is jerking off at his own ego and at all the gross shit happening as he tries to sound clever.

This is basically DeviantArt all wrapped up in a maddeningly long story.


TL;DR - Ya, it's gross

 

Found an audiobook version of it and am now debating whether or not to make a six hour long flight next month even more miserable than it's already gonna be.

 

I wonder if a certain blue bear likes that story?

Spoiler

But seriously, even the Wikipedia summary is quite enough.

 

I agree it is gross and boring because there's next to no plot or characters, just scene after scene of depraved stuff purely for shock value; basically kind of like a low-budget slasher film like "Saw 8" or "Friday the 13th Part 700" though it makes films like that look like a Spongebob cartoon in comparison.

So as literature I would say it sucks; though the one thing I "like" about it is it does provide a good look into the mind of sexual psychopaths and serial killers such as Jeffery Dahmer and sort of illuminate how they view the world.

 

It's kinda aged poorly I think in that respect with torture porn like Saw Hostel etc, but much like Saw freaked so many people out, you can picture how shocking this would be at a time where light bulbs weren't a thing.

The movie Hellblazer mentioned is pretty fun, but like with all hollywood don't expect it to be historically on point. If you aren't versed in the Sade, and want to watch this by all means, just hit the wiki for the film up to see how things strayed.