Les Liaisons dangereuses: Revenge is best served cold, in a corset

This 1782 novel of scandalous lettres by Pierre Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos came to me in xeroxed fragments. I read every salacious word under the pretext of studying the Ancien Regime in my advanced French classes. I suspect my professeur thought it was a jolly good read anyways - and sought to break up the boredom of dissecting Rabelais and re-enacting Mollere (which, admittedly, wasn't boring at all) with the story of the famous literary libertine Valmont. I couldn't help feel a thrill of finally inhabiting a language I've studied for over a decade. Yes, there were constant journeys through my trusty Robert Micro - bought in Paris with a triumphant "hellyeah!" that shocked the chic bookseller - as well as a shit-ton of questions about certain archaic expressions.

Most people know the story via the 1988 film starring a deliciously evil Glenn Close and John Malkovich (though you should check out Valmont, a 1989 film starring Colin Firth as the oversexed aristo villain - deliciously camp!) - or through the teen drama version Cruel Intentions with post-Buffy Sarah Michelle Gellar and the preppy innocent, Reese Witherspoon. It's a tangle of calculated deductions orchestrated by the indomitable Marquise de Merteuil, who uses the rake Valmont to accomplish her fiendish plots. The fact that this story is still a viable screenplay vehicle to this day makes me think how clever de Laclos was as a social satirist. Hindsight made it an important reference work for the zealots of the French Revolution, but even at the time of its publication, even the most conservative members of Marie Antoinette's court took to disreputable characters like bees to honey.

La belle Marquise is always my favorite character - she leaps off the pages, stage, and screen as a strong, cultured woman despite her devilish machinations. She is always in control - until her downfall at the very end, the full devastation rarely brought to life in the glittering celluloid versions. She is the general of relationships - her strategies are mind-bogglingly heartless. There is no love here - it is action-reaction, a series of erotic formations designed to fulfill her ambitions. The Marquise's actions are pure Hell's fury from a woman scorned: she schemes for an innocent girl's ruin, just because the doe-like creature is about to marry her former lover. How awful! How cold! How deliciously decadent! This cold dish of revenge is served up with a series of plots carried out under the sheets. The intricacies are so delightfully Baroque, the descriptions like soft-lit photographs of Versailles in the afternoon light. These are aristocrats with too much money and time on their hands, with Marquise at the very helm of these cruel games of the heart.

However, I must say - I prefer her action to the malleability of the other characters. On my slappable list: the virgin-turned-wanton Cecile de Volanges and the prudish Madame de Tourvel. Maybe I just can't stand passive aggressive creatures - in fiction or real life. They make me want to scream at their simpering. Cecile and Marie are the good girls, but they never seem to have any of the great lines. They are pale female phantoms next to La Marquise - in modern times, they would be serving her coffee and walking her dogs while she takes over Wall Street, Washington AND Bryant Park. Ah...and there is her evil partner, Valmont, her glittering snake - the ultimate emotional vampire. He only grows weak when he falls for Marie - letting his heart take over the reins away from his calculating intellect. Ah - but what a waste! The convent girl and semi-virtuous wife doth protest too much, even in the original French. And the hapless Danceny reminds me of the calf-like Charles Hamilton in Gone with the Wind, one of my top ten "goodie-goodie" idiots of all time.

Like any translation, there are certain subtle nuances best read in the original language. However, it would do your library (and certainly your historical collection) a load of good to have this cautionary tale built on lace, lies, and forbidden love in your shelves. Valmont as sexual mercenary is an interesting paradox. Making war through love didn't die at the guillotine - it merely festered into other incarnations. There is a Marquise in all of us, if we are not careful...just as there is a stupid Cecile or a hopeless Marie. While this is a tale of revenge, constant re-readings and re-watchings of the various adaptions has taught me one thing: you have to fall in love with your heart, soul AND mind. It is a dangerous liaison without trust, understanding, and mutual respect.