(written by Terry MacNeil, on May 30 – June 3, 2026)

Having recently read the Marquis de Sade’s novel The 120 Days of Sodom (unabridged), I say it amounts to little more than vague (and repetitive) descriptions of four French libertine male psychopaths (in the 18th century) committing near-constant sexual assaults against people – often children. But Sade’s readers can count themselves lucky he did not go into more detail than he did (though I assume he would have, if he knew how to do so). That said, as a writer – Sade was certainly a trailblazer.

Also, Sade did not get to finish writing The 120 Days of Sodom – though he did write fairly detailed outlines of the remainder of that novel. And those outlines clearly reveal the horrors he had in store for the reader. So Sade infused his work with incest, humiliation, bestiality, farting, necrophilia, mental torture, physical torture, mutilation, murder, piss-drinking, shit-eating, blasphemy, child rape, and the rape of adults. Also, some of the instances of bestiality result in “monsters” (aka mutants) being born – something I presume Sade did not know is biologically impossible. That makes Sade seem more hilariously “innocent” than he was.

So Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom is intended to be the ultimate sadomasochistic fantasy – featuring cartoonishly/absurdly submissive victims. And these victims are routinely abused by cartoonishly sadistic psychopaths (who are incredibly wealthy, elitist, bisexual, and turned on by just about every depraved sexual kink imaginable). Well, the psychopath known as “The Bishop” is technically more homosexual than bisexual (no surprise there). But that’s beside the point.

As for (committed Marxist) Pier Paolo Pasolini’s (fairly faithful) movie adaptation of Sade’s novel, titled Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, this film (taking place during WWII) centres on four libertine male psychopaths (who are also Italian fascists). So I imagine there aren’t many fascist fans of this movie. And everyone says Pasolini was criticizing “consumerism” in the Western World – though as I watched the movie, it never seemed he was doing that. Sade’s novel had WAY more shit-eating, and Sade certainly wasn’t concerned with “consumerism” – so I consider Pasolini’s criticism to be WEAK. Though I would argue that to properly appreciate this movie – it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to read Sade’s novel first. Although, I also hear I ought to have read The Divine Comedy before seeing this movie – as well as certain works by Friedrich Nietzsche, Ezra Pound, and Marcel Proust. Oh well. Someday…

In closing, as someone who tries to write novels that SEEM to have been written by a psychopath – I will say that in terms of horrifying content, I will never top the Marquis de Sade. And props to that guy, since he was writing hundreds of years before I was born. I admire The 120 Days of Sodom, though it’s so relentlessly unpleasant and dour – I only enjoyed a few brief parts of that LONG novel (when the psychopaths are unintentionally hilariously explaining why committing virtually every crime under the sun is so great). But I am glad to have read his novel!

Also, I’ve heard it said the novel Naked Lunch is horrifying – though I say The 120 Days of Sodom is WAY more horrifying. I’m convinced Sade wanted his novel to be MORE horrifying than it was – but lacked the imagination/talent to pull that off. And I say Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom is rightly regarded as a horrifying movie – but if you’ve already read Sade’s novel, you’ll be desensitized. Put simply, Pasolini was way less daring than Sade – in terms of what they presented. But it’s usually unreasonable to expect a movie to be more explicit than a novel. Ⓐ