Strictly Good and Evil

Since I can't help reading whatever happens to be in front of me, yesterday morning was spent devouring Marquis de Sade's Eugénie de Franval. Disturbing as though it was, at least it wasn't graphic or terribly upsetting, that is not in the way that makes you randomly burst out crying at the supermarket or swear off sex. The collection of the marquis' writings was lying around because my fiancé has to read Philosophy in the Bedroom for class, which surely is a different story altogether.

Back to Eugénie. She is the daughter of Monsieur and Madame de Franval. The latter is only fifteen years old at the time of her marriage, and the former is a terrible bastard, the narrator kindly informs us from time to time. Not that we need to be told - the fact that Franval already has formed the plan to seduce his own daughter at the time of her birth is quite the telltale sign.

Franval keeps Eugénie away from her mother from the very beginning, and brings her up in a way to make her disregard norms, laws and morals. At the very least he does have the decency to wait until she reaches the age of fourteen to seduce her... Then, annoyed by the interference of Madame de Franval, he proceeds to frame his wife, forging letters and the like to make her out to be having an affair, and supporting her lover with her husband's money. Somewhere on the side of screwing his daughter, literally, and screwing his wife, figuratively, he manages to find the time gets a holy man imprisoned.

There is nothing balanced or nuanced about this novella. Franval is the most evil creature to ever grace the pages of fiction. The fact that he repines (after his wife and daughter both died, he got mugged down to his underwear and basically had lost pretty much everything) doesn't really alter that fact. His wife on the other hand is the purest of the pure. Despite her husband's evildoings, she never stops loving him - in fact her dying wish is that he be forgiven. The daughter is just a lost lamb, pure at heart but led astray by the inherent evil of crime, or perhaps more to the point, by her freaky father.

Despite this very black and white picture, there is something of very lucid insight into the human mind, and even of compassion. Dostoevsky's social pathos springs to mind. Marquis de Sade may have been a lot of things, and a captivating writer is one of them.