This Will Hurt

D. KEITH MANO

AS Albert Camus wrote in The Rebel: “The history and tragedy of our era really begin with [Sade].. . . Our times have blended, in a curious manner, his dream of a universal republic and his technique of degradation” (ellipses provided by Francine du Plessix Gray). Sade’s technique was predominantly theatrical. He had always wanted to be a playwright, not a lowly pornographer, and, as a result, his erotic fantasies never seem quite real, being