Awhile ago, I told you that I found Samuel Richardson's “Clarissa” infuriatingly difficult to read because the characters were either too good to be believed or too villainous to tolerate. Here we have a counter-example. In “Dangerous Liaisons”, published over 30 years later, the two primary characters are truly horrible people, but the novel is a joy to read.
Not that the story is pleasant, although it's been made into several good movies. Some of those movies, such as the one starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich, take place like the novel in 18th century France, and some in the present day. Either way, these characters are more interested in using people for their own pleasure than almost anything else.
Those two main characters, the Marquese de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, concentrate their time and energy on seducing (or as their society calls it, “ruining”) young people, and then sending those young people away once they have won them. And “winning” is the correct word. They often talk about their affairs as though they were games, or worse, wars. The two of them were once lovers and still seem to retain some affection for each other, though it can be hard to tell.
Madame Merteuil starts the story by instructing Valmont to seduce the daughter of an acquaintance of theirs. This daughter, named Cecile, was raised primarily in a convent. She is therefore quite an innocent, and her mother has arranged for her marriage to a man who was previously another one of Merteuil's lovers. For the crime of leaving her before she could dump him, she wants his future wife deflowered, and thinks Valmont is the perfect man for the job. Unfortunately for her, Valmont considers Cecile far too easy to interest him; he has his sights set on a Madame de Tourvel, a virtuous, religious, and married woman who is staying with an aunt of his. This, Valmont says, will be a much greater and more interesting challenge. He comes right out and says in one of his letters that he wants her to know perfectly well that sleeping with him is a dreadful sin, and yet be unable to stop herself. Meantime, Cecile has fallen head over heels in love with another visitor to her mother's house named the Chevalier Danceny, and he's in love with her too. You can probably guess that this is not going to end well for anybody.
I admit that I usually don't much care for the epistolary form, used here by author Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos. In that form, we learn the story by reading a collection of letters from various characters to others. Here, though, the form has several advantages. Valmont and Merteuil, in addition to advising each other on their current affairs, correspond with Danceny, Cecile, and various of their relatives. Their letters to these youngsters provide a lot of advice that reads as very useful, as if it came from great friends with the best interests of the youngsters in mind. It's only in their letters to each other that we see what vicious liars they are.
The youngsters in question and their parents, while not quite as unpleasant as the two conspirators, are not real prizes either. Their generous, loving impulses do not prevent them from maneuvering each other around in order to get their own way. Only Madame de Tourvel has any moral sense to speak of, which does not keep her from falling for Valmont. Not a good idea.
So what can we expect with a setup like that? A virtuous woman is in the sights of a practiced, experienced libertine, determined to get her into bed regardless of her wishes, all so as to feed his vanity and enhance his reputation as a seducer in Paris. A young, innocent girl finds herself in a similar situation, in the name of another woman's revenge on her fiance. The girl's mother learns that she has been exchanging letters with a young man who seems to think his feelings are virtuous simply because they're his, so the mother sends him away and secludes her daughter, forcing her to sneak around behind her mother's back. And the two puppet-masters behind the scenes make no secret, at least to each other, of the fact that they are prepared to publicize the embarrassing details if they might get a little pleasure out of doing so. What do you think is going to happen to these people? Trust me, whatever you expect, it's going to be worse.
It must be admitted that Madame de Merteuil has motives for her behavior that feminists of today might find pretty convincing, though I hope they would not find her behavior to their liking. Like most women of her time, she spent her girlhood and youth being pushed around and her own needs and desires ignored. Unlike her contemporaries, though, she's too smart to go along with it. If the men in her life think they can dispose of her as they please, she seems to think, why shouldn't she get what she wants by any means necessary? It's a good question, but it doesn't apply to Valmont, for whom there is no excuse whatsoever, at least until the novel's last incidents. And even though we might sympathize with Merteuil's anger and determination to live as she pleases, the way she and Valmont treat each other (and everyone else in their orbit) leaves them without a leg to stand on. Literally.
As I said, not a pleasant story. So why read it? Because, for one thing, it's written very well indeed, even in translation. For another thing, there's something to be said for watching these people get their comeuppance. And for a third thing, Laclos had a reputation in his day as an immoral writer that was little short of the reputation for immorality of the Marquis de Sade and people like that. Sounds like fun, and so it is.
Benshlomo says, Like the arc of the universe, the arc of literature often bends very slowly, but it bends toward justice.
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