Did She Fall Or Was She Pushed? Dangerous Liaisons Readalong 2024

[BishyBarnyBee]

Following a series of successful Fallen Women readalongs - War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Ruth - we continue our exploration of desire, hypocrisy, disgrace and redemption with the earlier (and even more scandalous) Dangerous Liaisons.

Widely adapted in text, film, opera and even ballet, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is an epistolatory novel comprising 175 letters.

Author Chodelos de Laclos "resolved to write a book that would be quite outside the ordinary trend, which would make a sensation and echo over the world after I left it." His book was a succès de scandale on its 1782 publication, reviewed as "diabolique" while becoming an instant bestseller. Marie Antoinette commissioned a blank cover copy for her library, and Virginia Woolf later read it with "great delight".

Readalongs are Mumsnet's best kept secret - a quiet corner of the site where we tackle the books we might not manage alone, sharing our thoughts and reactions, and encouraging each other to keep going when life - or the book - are challenging. It's fine to dip in and out as life permits, very few of us manage to keep up consistently.

We've only heard good things about DL, so do join us for a cracking good read. We start 1st May, 1 letter a day:

1 - 31 May Letters 1 - 31
1 - 30 June Letters 32 - 61
1 - 31 July Letters 62 - 92
1 - 31 August Letters 93 - 123
1- 30 September 124 - 153
1 - 22nd October 154 - 175

There are summaries of each letter at shmoop.com. I'll post them when I can, but anyone is welcome to start us off if you are first here on the day.

Looking forward to it!

Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) Summary

Free summary and analysis of the events in Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos's Les Liaisons dangereus...

Just checking in to see where we are up to. I have been away on my holidays and forgot to pack the book. Back now and wanting to catch up. Letter 45! I think I left it on Letter 23! Will have to read that and put down my other books tonight.

I have to catch up too. I'm finding the French more challenging than I expected. 🙄

Letter 46: Le Chevalier de Danceny gets the cold shoulder and feels unloved.

Whinge alert! He does feel sorry for himself.

The footnote at the end made me laugh.
Seems rather sarcastic!

He's seriously annoying, isn't he?

• Letter 47: The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de MerteuilValmont spends an evening with his friend Émilie, a courtesan.
• Émilie had promised to sleep with another guy, but they got him drunk and sent him off in a carriage.
• Now Valmont has her all to himself for the night.
• He tells her about his plot to seduce Tourvel, even using her body as a desk on which to write a letter to her.
• He's sending the letter to the Marquise so she can mail it to Tourvel postmarked Paris.
• On second thought, he decides to come and visit the Marquise and join her in visiting Madame de Volanges, his sworn enemy.

So much to loathe in this episode of utterly brazen and unscrupulous hedonism.

Interesting, though, that Emilie is very much a partner in crime rather than a victim. Even when he performs the iconic, and potentially misogynistic act of using her as his writing desk, she is in on the act and finds it hilariously entertaining.

What a villain!

Yes! It illustrates who he is. We have only heard of his antics to date. Poor Cécile! He's on his way...

Letter 48: The Vicomte de Valmont to the Présidente de Tourvel

• Valmont writes to the Présidente about his love.
• In the floweriest language imaginable, he goes on about his joys and suffering, how the air he breathes is ecstasy thinking about his love.
• But he's tormented because he can't convince her of his sincerity.
• He begs for a reply to his letter.

Letter 49: Cécile de Volanges to the Chevalier Danceny

• Seems Cécile is having second thoughts.
• She confesses her love, but says she can't act on it and shouldn't be writing to Danceny anymore.
• She's asked God to help her forget him.
• If he writes her again, she'll have to tell her mother.
• If she could love anyone, it would be him, but that's all she can say.

There was a cheeky line in Letter 48.

Valmont referred to the table on which he was writing this letter as 'the sacred altar of love, dedicated for the first time for this purpose' and then 'elle' replaces 'la table' which could also signify his lover, Émilie. Nice word play there.

Oh nice, thanks @FuzzyCaoraDhubh!

Letter 50: Madame de Tourvel to the Vicomte de Valmont

• Tourvel reprimands Valmont for breaking his promise to send her only friendly letters.
• She shouldn't, as a married woman, be receiving passionate letters from a man who isn't her husband.
• Why would Valmont want to make himself miserable by continuing this kind of correspondence? He has access to plenty of other women that could make him happier than someone like her.
• So just cool it, already.

I missed that - thanks @FuzzyCaoraDhubh

Thanks for the summaries and comments. I’d read ahead to this point a week or 2 ago so back on schedule now.

I thought the letter where VdV writes to MdM about Madam de Tourvel’s emotion on him leaving - ‘leave me, monsieur, in the name of God leave me’ was the most powerful - she’s fallen for him, he knows it, and we see the difference between what she writes in her letters and how others see her.

Agreed Cornish. That was a powerful moment.
It was definitely a mistake allowing him to write to her!

Sorry, had a busy few days and not got to post the summaries. Will catch up now.

The joy of this thread is having other people notice things which probably should be obvious but have passed me by. I think sometimes doing the daily post means I can't see the wood for the trees. @CornishLizard, you're so right, she's doomed now isn't she?

Letter 51: The Marquise de Merteuil to the Vicomte de Valmont

• The Marquise is miffed because Valmont has been ignoring her. She wants him to work on keeping things going with Cécile and Danceny.
• Cécile has told everything to a priest in confession.
• The Marquise can't go against the advice of the priest without compromising herself, so she tells Valmont to push Danceny to continue his pursuit of Cécile regardless of what the priest has said.
• Danceny still loves Cécile and she loves him back.

Letter 52: The Vicomte de Valmont to the Madame de Tourvel

• Valmont asks Madame de Tourvel whether or not she believes in the sincerity of his love.
• He claims that his enslavement to love is not wrong but the calling of his heart.
• He's been a drifter without a purpose in life—until he learned to love.
• Now all he wants is to be virtuous. How can she refuse him?

Letter 53: The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil

• Danceny is less confiding than Cécile. He won't reveal the name of his girlfriend to Valmont, but Valmont hope to get more info when he takes Danceny on a trip to Versailles.

Letter 54: The Marquise de Merteuil to the Vicomte de Valmont

• The Marquise's plot is put into action. She leaves with Madame de Volanges so that Cécile and Danceny can have a rendezvous.
• Trouble brews when Madame de Volanges becomes ill and needs to return home.
• Merteuil delays leaving, knowing what's going on at home.
• When they arrive back home, the young ones have kissed and made up.
• The Marquise thinks that Danceny is a terrible boyfriend because he hasn't forced Cécile to go far enough
• But she's confident that she'll be able to influence Cécile to get what she wants.

Letter 51: I liked the comment by Merteuil that she hated arriving late at the soirée and having to make up to the older ladies to keep them happy because they are the ones who can make or break your reputation.

Letter 54: It sounded sinister to me how she toyed with Cécile (trying to find the right words here!) and played on her feelings to test her self control. I'm not entirely sure what this involved. It's a bit obscure I think or is it me... This is following Danceny's departure when the two young ones had a chat by themselves and she was annoyed that nothing happened.

Also, the way she kept Mme Volanges from returning home when she wasn't feeling well was unkind.

I have finally caught up, phew! Only two weeks after I said I was going to... 😳

I've also read all the comments on the thread as I was going along. So many interesting insights!

Letter 51: Fuzzy, I agree that Merteuil's comment about the power of the older ladies is chilling. It also reminds me of how much more effort Merteuil has to put into preserving her reputation than Valmont does, because although they are both libertines, everyone knows he sleeps around, but Merteuil must preserve the appearance of chastity at all costs. Society's double standard for men and women...

I also note the footnote to this letter, where the editor expresses a virtuous horror at Merteuil's lack of respect for religion . Ha!

Letter 52: Valmont weaves an interesting narrative to Tourvel in this letter. It's a sort of conversion narrative, likely to play on Tourvel's religious faith: the man he is now isn't the man he used to be. And speaking of the man he used to be: poor him! Young and inexperienced, he was thrown into society, and women all surrounded him and expected him to seduce them, so what else could he do? Some crazy women-blaming here, and then he flatters Tourvel by implying that she's completely different to all other women. That's something that Tourvel herself is very keen to believe, and it's a big part of her downfall: she's so intent on repressing her sexual desires, and convincing herself that she's too virtuous and rational to succumb to extramarital love.

Letter 53: So now Valmont is working on Danceny, and we have the 'education' of Danceny and Cecile unfolding in parallel.

Letter 54: Fuzzy, I'm pretty sure that the encounter between Merteuil and Cecile here is homoerotic. She's testing Cecile to find out how susceptible she is to pleasure, and Cecile seems VERY susceptible. Merteuil is contemplating the possibility of 'educating' her and turning her into another woman libertine. 'I have promised to undertake her education, and I believe I shall keep my word.' Interesting that Merteuil says she has long wanted to confide in another woman. She is very isolated from all other women; no one but Valmont knows what she is really like.

To me, Merteuil is easily the most interesting character in this text. She receives more letters than anyone else, and this is a novel where the number of letters you receive (as well as the number of letters you write) is an indication of how powerful you are.

Thank you Bishy for keeping this thread going!

It's great to have you along with us again cassandre. I always enjoy reading your observations.

Thanks Fuzzy, I always appreciate your insights too. This is such a brilliant novel.

Letter 55: Cécile de Volanges to Sophie Carney

• Cécile confides in Sophie that she's secretly back with Danceny.
• She justifies the relationship on the basis of love, telling Sophie that she'd understand if she was in love herself.
• She wishes she weren't engaged to Gercourt.
• In closing, Cécile tells Sophie that their friendship is a childhood one, whereas her friendship with Merteuil is an adult friendship.
• But she still loves Sophie anyway.

Letter 48, written on a lover's naked back, is the defining letter of the book for me, in terms of sexiness and duplicity. The Hampton film uses it pretty much word for word as I remember.

I like the bit where he breaks off mid letter to have another shag, then comes back and says "right at this moment you'd be completely safe from me".

Yes I agree @ViscountessMelbourne. I remember that scene very clearly from the film (despite seeing it a long time ago).