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Editorial Review Product Description
Les Liaisons Dangereuses, by Peirre Choderlos de Laclos, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influencesbiographical, historical, and literaryto enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Love . . . sex . . . seduction. Of the three, only the last matters. Love is a meaningless word, and sex an ephemeral pleasure, but seduction is an amusing game in which victory means power and the ability to humiliate one’s enemies and revel with one’s friends. So it is for the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, two supremely bored aristocrats during the final years before the French Revolution. Together they concoct a wildly wicked wager: If Valmont can successfully seduce the virtuous wife of a government official, Madame de Tourvel, then Madame Merteuil will sleep with him again. But Madame Merteuil also wants Valmont to conquer the young and innocent former convent schoolgirl, Cécile Volanges. Can he do both?
When Les Liaisons Dangereuses was first published in 1782, it both scandalized and titillated the aristocracy it was aimed against, who publicly denounced it and privately devoured it. Today we still recognize its relevance, for what could be more contemporary than its appalling image of everyday evil small, selfish, manipulative, and mean. Alfred Mac Adam, Professor at Barnard CollegeColumbia University, teaches Latin American and comparative literature. He is a translator of Latin American fiction and writes extensively on art. Customer Reviews (59) 
A Great Book, Better in French
Any translation is going to be less than the original if the writer of the original had any skill with words. Laclos wrote extremely well, so it is inevitable that an English translation runs the risk of being heavy-handed in comparison with the original text. Alas, this translation is indeed a lesser production.But, despite that fact, it's worth reading unless you can come by a better version. Two hundred years ago the epistolary novel was all the rage (in English, Richardon's Pamela was the non plus ultra of the genre, though many including myself far prefer Fielding). Laclos' work stands head and shoulders above all other epistolary novels in any European language. Not only is the device, in his hands, quite believable but the human observation is far more acute and true to life than anything else being written at that time. Far from echoing the conventions of plot and character typical of his era, Laclos writes what he knows to be true.And this is the novel's enduring appeal.
The heart of the story is essentially an emotional chess game played by two well-matched adversaries who formerly were, briefly, lovers. The Marquise de Merteuil, an older woman, is playing against the Vicomte de Valmont, a dashing younger rake. Laclos brilliantly enables us to see the intrinsic egoism of both protagonists and at the same time their emptiness and frailty. Even as Valmont seems to be moving smoothly from one conquest to another, Merteuil is playing his own ego against him, exploiting a weakness he simply doesn't see until too late. Merteuil exhorts Valmont to seduce the most faithful woman in France, telling him that it will be his ultimate triumph. And Valmont, like a proud and vain little boy, does just that - but in the process comes to a vague awareness that this woman (the Madame de Tourvel) can offer him something far greater than a living sheath for his rampant organ. He glimpses an adumbration of true love. Merteuil detects this from his letters and of course is threatened to her core. She gave Valmont only her skills as a seductress; Tourvel could give him so much more. So Merteuil plays her finest move: she plays on Valmont's enormous ego to persuade him to break Tourvel's heart and thus prove himself to be the ultimate rake.Valmont, lacking sufficient emotional resources to be his own man at this crucial point, does as he is bid - and then realizes that he's thrown away the only thing that really mattered in his entire life.
The sub-plots are satisfying and the characters are finely drawn. There are moments of cruel humor and even bawdy pathos, though such a thing sounds improbable in the abstract. The denouement is as awful as it is inevitable, and Merteuil is left the meaningless victor of a game in which all the pieces have been smashed beyond redemption.
This is not a book to appeal to those who want fantasies about human nature, or who require happy endings. But for anyone interested in a surgical examination of human foibles and the degree to which self-deception can go, this is a must-read. And for anyone who can read French, of course it's so much better to go to the original than to have to wade through a fairly insipid translation.
The Kindle Edition is in French - Not English
I purchased this and unfortunately found that in the Kindle edition the text is in French rather than english.Very disappointing.
Delightful
If you thought the movie 'Cruel intentions' had a badly-behaved cast of characters, this book will top it. Such actions might seem tame today, but remember that the morals of 18th-century Europe were rather different than today. It's funny to read about Valmont and de Merteuil egg one another on and write about their naughty deeds. Such is the ennui of the bored, rich folk, alas. But overall a satisfying and enjoyable read, provided that the 18th-century language and writing style doesn't turn you off.
"I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world."
That is one of Oscar Wilde's many famous quotes, and if it was true, then Oscar would have been delighted to meet the main characters of LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES. I certainly was.
The Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont are wicked, possibly evil, and yet (and this can be attributed to Laclos's literary genius) they will probably become the characters you end up rooting for. Laclos, during his life, continued to insist that this novel was written for instructional purposes, a sort of this-could-happen-to-you type thing, but I'm not so easily fooled. Laclos, throughout the story, points out which characters are good and upstanding or plainly innocent (Tourvel, Rosemonde, Volanges) but he really wants you to hate these characters, and he uses the subtle language in their letters to achieve this. On the other hand, he makes the 'bad' characters (Valmont, Merteuil) more charming using the same technique. In other words, I believe that Laclos was trying to test his readers' principles. You know that what the Vicomte and the Marquise are doing is wrong... but you can't help wanting them to succeed and get away with it. You are bending your own morals because--while their victims are annoying and gullible--you find them to be witty, clever, and charming. And these are just fictional characters. What would happen if you met such people in real life?, Laclos seems to be asking.
Clever though they may be, Valmont and Merteuil eventually reach a point in their twisted game where they cannot control it, and though they were once unholy allies, they become sworn enemies out of spite. They have already ruined so many other people, and now the time has come to ruin each other. [SPOILER WARNING] However, Merteuil, probably the more wicked of the two, gets away with her life, which is more than can be said for Valmont. There is even a note in the back of the book which suggests that she even overcame her deformities (caused by smallpox) and continued her way of life in Amsterdam. [END SPOILERS] They are not the only ones to suffer. Their victims are all brought down by their scheme, in different ways and in varying degrees of disaster. Again, Laclos uses his deceptive writing skill to make it seem like these characters deserved their fates because of their stupidity or naivete, without actually saying this at all. The reader ends up feeling worse for Valmont and Merteuil, who undoubtedly deserved their punishments. It is almost impossible to describe what Laclos has done in a review. You must read the actual novel in order to feel the sheer genius in it, the way he conveys meaning between the lines, without actually writing anything out to that effect. It really is like nothing I've ever seen before.
If I could give this masterpiece more than five stars, I would. This is the art of literature at its finest, and Laclos will have you under his spell the whole way through.
Dangerous Liasons is a epistolary novel on seduction and adultery from the time of Louis XVI and decadence in French aristocracy
Dangerous Liasons was published in 1782 in France just seven years before the French Revolution toppled the aristocratic world in depicts with slicing irony and wit. It is an epistolary novel meaning that it contains nothing but letters written by the characters. In these letters De Laclos reveals the characters of the novel in their most intimate moments of literary labor. The epistolary novel was popular in the eighteenth century as is manifested by such works as Samuel Richardson's Clarissa and Pamela. The form was much loved by Miss Jane Austen.
This novel tells the sordid story of two arch monsters in the high reaches of the French aristocracy. Valmont and Madame Merveuil are erstwhile lovers who enjoy playing amorous games with the foolishly naive characters they seek to trap in their nefarious net. Merveuil seeks to have Valmont seduce young Cecile who is about to be married to a rich soldier who has been jilted by Merveuil. Valmont also plans on seducing a married woman who resides on an estate in the French countryside. Valmont ends us seducing both women with tragic consequences for all concerned.
Valmont is killed in a duel by another lover of Cecile. Cecile enters a convent while her young lover goes to Malta. Madame Merveuil is banished by Paris society, becomes ill, loses an eye and is forced to flee to Holland. Justice is served as the cruel characters meet their fate though they do irreparable harm to those innocents who have been the mice to their cattish plots.
The novel is divided into four parts with almost 200 letters included. It is as if the reader is allowed to open the mail of these characters!
The book deals strictly with the romantic entanglements of the major figures. Social and political concerns are not discussed; it is clear, howevere, that the society in this novel is topheavy with lazy and amorous aristocrats who have nothing better to do than engage in sexual imbroglios.
De Laclos holds your attention as we sink into the depths of moral depravity with the odious Valmont. The book has been made into an excellent film with Annette Benning and John Malkovich in the title roles. This is an excellent French classic novel.
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