Marquis De Sade...

      I was reading the movie reviews in the newspaper a few years ago when I came across a review for Quills. I usually don't read reviews because they always seen to have some kind of a "spoiler" that ruins the movie for me in some way (don't get me started on movie trailers, after seeing some of them you hardly need to see the movie) but glancing over the page the name Marquis de Sade caught my eye. Having heard the name before I had this idea that he was some evil creature from French history but I new little or nothing about him (as with most things). The next day being a rainy dark Saturday (what's new, it's Vancouver)  I decided to go see Quills at a matinee... loved the movie and became instantly fascinated by this historical figure. It turned out he was writer that was unjustly persecuted by the French government and church (what are the odds) for his radical thoughts and ideas. I won't go into any great detail here but his work isn't for the squeamish or faint of heart, he was a philosopher of extreme freedom and the term "sadism" is rooted in his name. Sade has influenced some of the greatest writers of the last century- Baudelaiare, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky and Kafka. 

    Long story short, I went to the store to see if they had any copies of his work (they were banned for a long time) and found them at Indigo. I was amazed at how well these books were presented (sucker for packaging) and bought my first, eventually acquiring all three volumes of his work. It took me a while (two years) to get through them all but I found him to be shocking, enlightening, outrageous and in the end possibly the freest thinker the world has ever known... for me the most fascinating and influential literature I have ever read and no where near as horrifying as the bible...