Justine or the Misfortunes of Virtue - Marquis de Sade

Justine (1787) By Marquis de Sade (1740 – 1814) Whereas Juliette was Sade’s dear baby doll, Justine was the dummy in which he stuck all his needles. She chooses the “right path” which is for Sade the wrong thing to do in a corrupt world. He calls his novel(la) Justine OR Good Conduct Well Chastised, and in it the heroine refuses to become a sinner, so everybody takes advantage of her. Of course, now you think you know how the book will end, but believe me Sade always manages to shock or at least surprise you. Another significant note here is that although JULIETTE and JUSTINE have the same ending, yet in each book it is told from a different ...  Read the complete review

You can almost hear old man De Sade chuckling as at the very end of the version of Justine I've read (and having read Alkaliguru's review, I have to confess I don't know whether mine is the porn one or not - there's a lot of sex, I know that). After all of the nightmarish stuff she goes through, finally it looks like she's finally going to escape all the depravity and then... It isn't the kind of novel where you're going to be horrified if I give away the ending, but I think the climax (oh, I said climax!) is proof enough that the author's tongue (I said tongue!) is firmly in his cheek. Given that he was locked up when he wrote ...  Read the complete review