Reading 1001 discussion

Review thread https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Questions from Lit Lovers.

1. How would you describe the characters of the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil (in fact, how does she define herself)? What inspires their games of sexual predation?

2. Describe Cecile Volange and Presidente de Tourvel. Why are they each selected as the objects of Valmont's conquests?

3. How does the Marquise view romantic love? Does she see it as a genuine, selfless emotion...a weakness, a competition... or what?

4. Talk about Valmont's view of love? Is he as immune to sincere feelings as he believes himself to be?

5. How does Valmont manipulate language in his letters to Presidente de Tourvel? In what ways does he play upon, even pervert, her religious beliefs?

6. Madame de Rosemonde claims a difference exists between the ways in which men and women experience happiness. How does she explain the difference...and do you agree with her assessment?

7. Discuss the role of older women in this work, particularly in helping to educate younger women into the ways of society. In fact, how is the term "education" used in this work? Does education refer to scholarly knowledge, tests or trials, loss of innocence...or what?

8. Discuss the distinctions among the classes—the servant class, aristocracy, and the bourgeoisie (the upcoming middle class). How, for instance does Merteuil treat her servant, Victoire.

9. Talk about the ways in which desire and battle are intermingled thematically in this work.

10. What is the role of opera in society and, thematically, in this work itself? For instance, how is the staging of an opera like life? What might de Laclos be saying about artifice or sincerity in the social interactions of his characters?

11. What are Valmont's feelings for Presidente? Why does he decide to abandon her? And why does he agree to sacrifice himself...both through the duel and giving the letters to Danceny?

12. What do you feel about Danceny's abandonment of Cecile at the end? Is he justified or did he betray his own profession of being true and faithful?

13. In this work, how do physical maladies reflect characters' spiritual state?

14. What is with these people? Really.

Spoilers galore - so don't read unless you have read the book:
1. How would you describe the characters of the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil (in fact, how does she define herself)? What inspires their games of sexual predation?

They are handsome, intelligent and ambitious people with absolutely nothing to motivate them to do good with their charms. To the Marquise's credit, she at least realized at an early age that she would have to succumb to society's strict moral strictures or construct a way to live a life that would allow her to develop her intellect and ambitions. Both of them get their only psychological rewards through the manipulations and conquering of both the innocent and the equally wicked. It was clear that, at least in Valmont's case, he was not the only one within his circle to be so engaged in these kind of games as he clearly was striving to be known as the "best".

2. Describe Cecile Volange and Presidente de Tourvel. Why are they each selected as the objects of Valmont's conquests?

Cecile represents the "silly innocent" who is easily swayed to risk everything for love. She is just a pawn in a larger game of revenge against her mother and her fiancé. While Presidente de Tourvel is a mature women with deep obligations to her husband, her religion and her dignity and therefore represents quite a conquest to Valmont, although nothing of interest to the Marquise.

3. How does the Marquise view romantic love? Does she see it as a genuine, selfless emotion...a weakness, a competition... or what?

Marquise sees love as ephemeral and something that largely gets in the way.

4. Talk about Valmont's view of love? Is he as immune to sincere feelings as he believes himself to be?

The book leaves open the possibility that Valmont is capable of remorse and that the Marquise was correct when she accused him of loving the Presidente. However, if that is love, the dear woman would have been better with his hatred.

5. How does Valmont manipulate language in his letters to Presidente de Tourvel? In what ways does he play upon, even pervert, her religious beliefs?

Valmont set up the Presidente by making her think that his very soul was on the line. She had to crumble and admit her love for him to "save" him. Valmont even got the father confessor in on the act.

6. Madame de Rosemonde claims a difference exists between the ways in which men and women experience happiness. How does she explain the difference...and do you agree with her assessment?

I thought this was relatively well differentiated; that a man experiences happiness he feels and that a woman experiences happiness she gives. However, it was simply a reflection of the roles that society had constructed at that time. A woman can certainly feel happiness from her own experiences and I know plenty of men who are made happy by giving. However, at the time that the book was set in, women were trained and judged by what they "gave".

7. Discuss the role of older women in this work, particularly in helping to educate younger women into the ways of society. In fact, how is the term "education" used in this work? Does education refer to scholarly knowledge, tests or trials, loss of innocence...or what?

The older women no longer have to worry about their looks and they have managed to weave their way through life with their dignity intact. They followed the rules and are able to demonstrate what is possible to the younger generation. They understand something of the nature of human emotions and are there to guard against "falling". They also, in theory, are there to demonstrate the rewards such an education can contribute. However, the older women are also left largely alone with their dignity so the reward doesn't seem so wonderful.

8. Discuss the distinctions among the classes—the servant class, aristocracy, and the bourgeoisie (the upcoming middle class). How, for instance does Merteuil treat her servant, Victoire.

The servants are often in on the "game". There was a moment when Cecile tells Danceny that she can trust her servant to lie for them because he is honest. The aristocracy appears to have nothing to do other than enjoy themselves with too much folly. The bourgeoise class appears to be simply a better paid class of servants to the rich. However, one can see how this book would have promoted a rebellion against the aristocracy.

9. Talk about the ways in which desire and battle are intermingled thematically in this work.

The two monsters often speak of risks, strategies and positions and their results are articulated as ruin or triumph. As a game, it is essentially a war game.

11. What are Valmont's feelings for Presidente? Why does he decide to abandon her? And why does he agree to sacrifice himself...both through the duel and giving the letters to Danceny?

The slight implication is that Valmonte truly loved the Presidente and sacrificed for her but really that makes so little sense in light of everything else he wrote.

12. What do you feel about Danceny's abandonment of Cecile at the end? Is he justified or did he betray his own profession of being true and faithful?

Well, Danceny was in love with love. He delighted in his own emotions and Cecile was just an excuse for those emotions. I think that he could no longer believe in love after Cecile happily slept with Valmont while being in love with Danceny and after Danceny himself realized how fickle love is when his emotions switched to the Marquise. It would have been nice if Danceny and Cecile had found a way to accommodate a true friendship and grown a true love but not likely to happen in that societal atmosphere.

13. In this work, how do physical maladies reflect characters' spiritual state?

Our Presidente loses her mind when she loses her honor and the ultimate revenge is visited on the Marquise when she becomes ill in the end. However, there is a great many other references to illness. Madame Rosemonde loses her ability to communicate (a paralysis of the arm) and Cecile suffers a miscarriage before she even knows that she is pregnant which reflected the core of her ignorance.

14. What is with these people? Really.
Decadent to the core and ripe for everything that would happen seven years later.

Finally getting around to doing the questions here: I listened to the librivox audio for this one earlier in the month and quite enjoyed it,

) I would describe the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil as horrible idle rich people that create drama and games for themselves because they have no real aims or struggles.

2. Cecile comes across as naïve and innocent until it is too late, which makes her a prime candidate to be manipulated by the above baddies. Tourvel is likewise not discerning enough to their machinations, but is more pulled into their games as she is a 'forbidden' conquest as an older, upstanding married woman.

3. She doesn't really seem to believe in it as a serious pursuit, and seems to understand it either transactionally or has gamified it into a pastime to relieve her boredom.

4. Agree with Gail that is suggested that he may be capable of remorse and actual feelings for her, but also seems to be someone who would not know what to do with genuine love if he could accept his propensity for it.

5. He presents himself as one of those pathetic men who claim he needs a woman's love to 'save' him in some way. Sadly, a ruse still used by some men (including secular ones that now frame it as women being responsible for improving their mental health or desire to live, or ability to succeed). It makes sense, given the time period and culture, that he uses religion as the pretext.

6. Completely agree with Gail's answer here: well said!

7. I think that one of the main things that the older women 'educate' about in this book is ironically being the enforcers/teachers of the gender roles of the time, and their 'helpful advice' while perhaps does make the lives of younger women easier in this time/place, essentially teaches them what their limitations and restrictions are as women.

8. I thought the novel did a great job at portraying that bizarre allegiance many servants had to their employers, in their involvement in the machinations and their 'absolute honesty' to their masters. In turn, it also did a great job displaying how unreturned that care and consideration is. The Bourgeois characters, while not able to be fully idle and still somewhat subservient to the aristocrats, have their own servants who they also seem to feel above to. It's a realistic and still sadly relevant commentary on (the lack of) class consciousness, that the bourgeoisie will much sooner align themselves with the upper class against the working class rather than more accurately seeing themselves as more equal to each other than true aristocrats.


9. Through Valmont and Merteuil we see this theme as desire being about competition, victory over others, and possession and acquisition (in the same ways military leaders often speak about battle). I felt this made room for some interesting points about some of the more toxic elements of Western romanticism culture that would have flourished during the period the book was written in and continues to this day from "alpha men win the best women" to "you aren't complete until you get a significant other".

It can also be read as speaking to how absolutely everything becomes commodified in a capitalist or landed-gentry society with an idle aristocracy class (the late 18th century sadly would have counted as both).

10. I felt like he was making a point about the planned artifice (including the dramas) of upper class social life. It reminded me of how many reality tv star drama, even outside of tv, is fabricated to generate the attention of drama (I remember reading that an ex-PR team member for the Kardashians had a planted protester throw something at Kim on a red carpet before they were super famous to put them in the headlines). I guess very little has changed.

11. Once again with Gail here: it seems to speak to some real feelings or sincerity on his part, but, I'm not sure it was set up enough previously to be entirely believable.

12. Also agree that he was in love with being in love, not Cecile herself, and specifically got himself into the fallacy that if he loved her it meant she felt the same way the extent she would never desire or consider another. When she does get seduced by Valmont, it shatters his illusion that Cecile is a vessel for him to feel special and cherished about, and is rather a real person with her own desires and autonomy.


13. It does seem to do that very 1700s thing of portraying emotional turmoil as causal to or inseparable from physical illness that is a bit too 1:1 ratio and dramatic compared to the effect of stress on physical health in real life.

14. LOL! They are awful and see everyone as pawns in their fabricated struggles because they are so idle and rich that they can see everything and everyone in terms of commodities for them in trying to relive their existential boredom when they can buy their way out of every other problem.

I found this novel to be very effective in portraying the evil of a society that allows this to occur, and how an out of touch ultra-rich class will drag other people into petty machinations at the detriment to everyone else (in modern terms I think of Elon Musk giving and then revoking internet aid to Ukraine when a Ukrainian official criticized him).

I can see how this book helped add flames to already existing revolutionary sentiment.

1. These are people who are so rich but have done nothing to earn it. They have little to fill their time and the exploits that they both take part in (and it is hinted that such exploits are much more widespread by including the character of Pravan) are not to experience the joys of love or even pleasure. Success is the most important thing to them both. The Marquise is the ultimate puppet master until she miscalculates at the end and informs Danceny and ultimately loses everything due to bad luck. Both of them view themselves as superior to most of the people around them but both are charming, intelligent and sophisticated. You would invite them to your party because you would not know who they really are.

2. Cecile is used by the author to attack the tradition of leaving aristocratic women in convents and bringing them out solely for an arranged marriage. They are vulnerable to predators like Valmont and the Marquise. She is young, silly, innocent and in way over her head. She ends up running back to the convent because she knows no way to cope with her actions. The Presidente de Tourvel is a worthy married woman with genuine principles and who is held in high esteem. She also loves her husband. She is a challenge to the Vicomte as she is not an easy conquest.

3. Love? She believes in success and nothing can get in her way.

4. The Vicomte is willing to ruin Cecile because he wants to win back the Marquise. He therefore spends the entire book with a flawed view of love and is probably deluding himself. I think he probably does love the Presidente as the Marquise thinks, but he is manipulated by her into repudiating it and is never given the opportunity for redemption. But I am not sure he is capable of accepting his real feelings.

5. The Vicomte, as is mentioned in other comments, portrays himself as someone needing to be saved. When he is "caught" arranging for an act of charity it is done solely to seduce the Presidente not as an act of goodness in its own right. His values do not match what we would consider good ones. Getting her confessor involved was a great master stroke though!

6. I think it is valid for how people in her time were supposed to act and still has its echoes, particularly that women have to "give".

7. They are there to perpetrate the societal norms.

8. The servants close to the master/mistress by and large seem devoted to those they serve. The Vicomte manipulates his by the threat of displeasure. But they largely feature in the book as tools with many being bribed to further the schemes of the main characters. The aristocracy are not portrayed very well being idle, easily bored and hypocrites.

9. Success needs strategy and therefore it is comprised of battles, retreats, strategy. When the Marquise and Vicomte fall out she openly tells him they are now at war.

10. Opera - dramatic and staged... but you also went more to be seen than to see.

11. I think it is cunning on the part of the author that we don't get letters from the Vicomte at this point (not even a "last" letter to the Presidente). I think however that he was in love with her, as the Marquise thought, and the delusions he was suffering from with regards to them both made him sacrifice for her. I don't think he could have been expected to ignore the challenge of the duel but the giving of the letters was also his revenge against his former friend as Danceny said that he wanted one of the letters made public. But the author leaves us hanging about how much was revenge and how much, if much at all, was due to love.

12. Agree with previous answers. They both became disillusioned and retreated to convents.

13. Agree with Gail. Also, the Vicomte feigns illness to further his plans.

14. Off with their heads!

I read this a few months late but still want to comment

1. I think it is a dangerous mixture that the privileged have of power and boredom. They have the resources to do whatever they want but have no purpose in life so it leads them to seek purpose through cruel games. There is also, however, definitely a sense of competition between the two and I think neither would have gone as far as they did if not spurred on by the other.

2. They are both seen as pure but for different reasons, Cecile because of her youth and Tourvel because of her self imposed piety. It feels like more of a conquest to win over someone who is resistant so adds to the competition element for Valmont

3. I think her experiences of men have hardened her to not allow herself romantic thoughts and she therefore has a very cynical view of love. I don't think she displays love for anyone in the novel but merely possession.

4. In contrast to Marteuil, Valmont is not immune to romantic feelings and this comes out in his intense jealousy. This is the only time when he loses his cool. He can't help but develop affection for his conquests despite how he portrays himself as a rake.

5. Valmont is manipulative in that he adapts his personality, mannerisms and speech based on who he is speaking to. He is a very good actor and has learned exactly what Tourvel wants to hear so that she can justify her feelings for him despite her initial reservations.

6. I just reminded myself of the quote

Man enjoys the happiness he feels, woman that she gives

I think at the time this was very much the view and women were not expected to advocate for their own happiness. I hope now that times have moved on but it is still often conditioned in women to people-please and not advocate for themselves, I think this is hard wired over generations and is going to be difficult to break.

7. I don't think the older women do a particularly good job. They are so wrapped up in society and image that they can't see what is happening under their noses and are not their as a support system for the younger characters but to give them lofty lectures that they can't apply to their actual lives.

8. It would have been fun to hear more from the servant class in this book. I like how Valmont's servants are just as conniving as he is, has he chosen them for this conniving spark or has his behaviour rubbed off on them? I think it also plays into how Danceny was treated as he, although just as wealthy as the aristocrats, if of a lower class and therefore seen as expendable.

10. I learned the distinction between Italian and French opera from this book and how the Italian is seen as light hearted fun while the French is serious and tragic. The characters in this book have the same dichotomy with Valmot and Merteuil playing their life as if it was a comedic farce and the other characters (especially Tourvell) as if it was a very serious romance and tragedy

11. I think the book still leaves it very open to interpretation. I think their were some feelings but in the end Valmonts main purpose was to bring down Merteuil for the wrongs she did to him and that superseded anything else.

12. I think this is realistic to how someone would feel at the time and even now. Although it wasn't Cecile's fault, the innocence that drew him to her has been forever tarnished and he can never go back to how they were.

13. I think back then a lot of what we now see as bouts of depression and other mental illness manifested in vague physical illness. On the other hand you have the poetic corruption of beauty through evil in the case of Merteuil, this reminded me of Dorian Grey

14. I am horrified but can't look away! At the end of the day, we all love a dasterdly villain.