Wyndham Lewis on de Sade

Thu, Jan 31, 2008

I gave a talk on Wyndham Lewis yesterday, and as I was reviewing his always provoking Time and Western Man, I noticed this quite-apt passage on de Sade:

Whatever the Marquis de Sade said about life or things in general, you could be in no doubt as to what his remarks would come back to in the end; you know that they all would have the livery of the voluptuary, that they would all be hurrying on the business of some painful and elaborate pleasure of the senses, that they would be devising means to satisfy an overmastering impulse to feel acutely in the regions set aside for the spasms of sex. (133-34)