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...

Yes @Buttalapasta that's why I hesitated buying them. I'll see!

The book is quite a lot more lesbian than you might imagine.

That's what I assumed, and originally wrote that it was great they had centre staged the two women, then edited my post when I saw the bigger image and thought I'd misread it and it was a man.

Can I join? I'm a long-time fan of the film and never read the book. I've downloaded a Kindle sample from Amazon and it goes up to letter 21.

@Brie2001 of course! Will be great to have you on board. We start on Wednesday, I'm really looking forward to it.

A few more covers to keep us ticking over until we start. I thought this one from Barnes Noble was quite elegant and not offensive!

Also inoffensive, but not sure what Brooding Hero is doing here - opening the curtains?

Brooding Heroine from Penguin Classics.

Very much a Mills and Boon vibe here:

Here's my boring but elegant copy.

Quick heads up to beginners that while you can skip the introduction if your edition gives you one, you shouldn't skip the "Publisher's Note" or "Editor's Preface": they are part of the novel.

Doing more research on the Kindle editions and this came up 😄noooo.....

That's a lovely hardback @ViscountessMelbourne

That's so helpful, @ViscountessMelbourne. I hadn't realised that when I wrote the schedule for the opening post. I don't want to muddy the waters by changing the dates now, so I guess I need to post the summaries of the Publisher's Note and Editor's Preface before Wednesday. Shall I do one tomorrow and one on Monday? Hope this won't mean some people feel they are behind before we even get started.

Ew....

Publisher's note doesn't really count, it's only half a page. But Editor's preface is 4 pages, and as long as several of the letters.

I'll stick them both up over the weekend and hope everyone gets chance to get up to speed for the start proper. Thanks @ViscountessMelbourne

Loving that there are so many different covers. This is my ancient copy from my uni days

The 'publisher's note' and 'editor's preface' are both important IMO! Partly because both of them are voices made up by Laclos (and therefore not to be taken at face value as 'genuine' prefaces by a publisher and editor.

Buffy, that was my uni undergrad one too! Looking back through it, I seem to have made very few notes in it, ahem.

Here are my current two copies. The first is a French one with a remarkably restrained cover (the words say, 'Ainsi va le monde' and 'Ce n'est pas ma faute').

The second one is an oldish (1961) Penguin translation by P. K. W. Stone: one of the editions you showed above, Bishy. I don't think the man is pushing the woman in the cover, though. He's multitasking: embracing her with one hand and bolting the bedroom door with the other. It's a painting by Fragonard in the Louvre called 'Le Verrou' (The Lock or The Bolt), and it was painted in 1777, so very close to the time LD was published in 1782. Also, the image fits the book well since there is a scene when someone forgets to bolt the bedroom door and bad consequences ensue... No spoilers though! 😂

I should say that I love looking at all the different covers -- thank you!

Thanks cassandre for the information about the Fragonard painting. Fascinating!
Also, a man that can multi-task 🤔😄

Edit: inability to multi-task on a Friday night.

We start officially on Wed 1st May, but we have a little homework to do first.

Luckily, @ViscountessMelbourne has read DL before and knew that the Publisher's Note and Editor's Preface are very much part of the text. So it's highly recommended to read them before we start.

Here are the Shmoop summaries - and lot's of intriguing hints about what is to come.

Publisher's Note

• The publisher feels he must warn the reader that he can't vouch for the fact that these are real letters; it could well be just a novel using letters as its structure.
• He feels this way because he thinks the letters are extremely unrealistic because the kind of evil people who are supposedly writing these letters couldn't possible exist in the present day.
• After all, it's the age of reason, and everyone is enlightened and virtuous.
• Plus there are some very unlikely scenarios in the letters.
• For example, a rich girl would never become a nun; pretty young married women just don't die of grief.
• So reader beware, this is probably all fiction.

Editor's Preface

• The "Editor" says that he would've liked to edit the letters to make their grammar and diction more correct and to shorten some he thought were way too long.
• But people objected that these were real letters and should be left as is. He disagrees, but the final decision wasn't up to him.
• Despite the literary faults of the letters, he thinks they do have advantages.
• First, he thinks that the different styles and concerns of the various letter-writers offer variety and will keep the reader from being bored.
• Most importantly, these letters are a public service
• By showing the most immoral people who corrupt the most innocent, it's a moral warning to people, especially women, to stay away from "unprincipled" people offering "friendship."
• The editor gives the book an NC-17 (US equivalent of an 18) rating ; young people should be kept away from it until they absolutely need it.
• He quotes one mother who thinks that her daughter would find the book very helpful, but not until her wedding day. He'd be happy if everyone felt it would be so useful.
• Regardless, he knows that everyone's going to find something to criticize.
• Promiscuous people won't like it because it criticizes promiscuity, and devout folks won't like it because it suggests that religion and virtue won't protect you in the end.
• Literary types will think it's too conversational; general readers might think some of the letters are too formal and suspect they're not real.
• The editor knows he can't please everyone, but if he didn't think the racy letters weren't worth reading as a moral lesson, he wouldn't have published them.

I've never managed a read along because I always spot them half way through. I would like to join you on this one if I may. Will go find a copy ASAP.

You're very welcome @Hoolahoophop Glad you spotted us just in time.

So - before we start officially tomorrow, any thoughts on the Publisher's Note and Editor's Preface?

I enjoyed the humour and the sense of the author gently teasing his audience. The faux deprecation from both the "publisher" and the "editor" pre-empts any potential criticism, and pretends to distance them from the intentions and quality of the ensuing novel.

Having never read the novel before, I feel we are probably in good hands and are in for a witty and knowing treat.

Looking forward to our first lettre tomorrow.