Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:18:32 EST
Subject: Re: de Sade and de Grad-school


Another point about reading Sade -- he seems to appeal to readers whose 
orientation toward reading is heavily biased toward ideas -- modern "figure it out" 
people who primarily seek to construct rules and symbol-systems and tend to 
undervalue emotion and charm when reading. This may be a professional 
disadvantage of scholars and thinkers in that they can discuss and evaluate ideas, but 
may stumble, get tongue-tied, and fall silent discussing numinous things like 
"charm" or "beautiful literary effect." Plus students may think they're 
flakes, asking for appreciations instead of explications.

Besides the wicked chic that spawned a cottage industry near his old chateau, 
Sade may appeal to people who fear the non-idea aspect of art. They may want 
ideas from literature for reasons of their own personal identity. These 
imaginary ideaholics can see Sade pre-Freuding Freud, pre-Nietzsching Nietzsche, 
pre-Jarrying Alfred Jarry, and so on. They can overlook the boring and the gross 
because -- oh boy! -- thar's some of them thar ideas in that thar dirty book!

Maybe Sade the libertine is popular because, paradoxically, postmodern 
readers live too much in their heads.

Eric
NYC


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