Review: Dangerous Liaisons (Les Liaisons Dangereuses) - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Bienvenue; today I shall be reviewing Dangerous Liaisons, or, in the native French, Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, which forms my 'L' for my A-to-Z Challenge 2015. It is a classic French epistolary novel written in the 18th century, scandalous and controversial upon its release, and highly rated! And for good reason, I enjoyed it immensely, scoring it 5 stars on Goodreads.

The premise of the novel intrigued me before I had even started: duplicitous characters manipulating others as pawns in their own entertainment, the 'dangerous liaisons' which ensue bringing disastrous consequences along with it. How very risqué for a novel from this era! So compelling! The exhilaration did not halt during its reading either! I was interested from the very start. The style the novel is written in, a collection of letters, allowed for a multilateral overview of events, giving in depth descriptions of emotions, feelings and agendas of the many characters as things happen around them. The way the correspondence was written also greatly tickled my humour: I enormously enjoyed the sassy remarks from the characters, especially the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, who I found to be the most entertaining (which, I suppose, was the aim). Their interactions were what drove the narrative, with the supplementary letters between them and other characters and between other characters themselves, added depth and increased the intrigue towards the plot.
The novel is essentially a celebration of libertinism in the aristocracy of Pre-revolutionary France, although apparently not noticed at the time considering Marie Antoinette enjoyed it! I felt bad about it, but the manipulation, salacity and eventual unadulterated malice demonstrated by some of the characters was very fascinating to witness, and left me sneering in congratulations towards their escapades. Madame de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont were two-faced, insidious and nefarious, seeming to revel in their own contriving debauchery, and yet I savoured every drop of evil they rained down on the social circles they frequented. I smirked as they worked on all their wicked schemes, tapping into their radiating aura of malevolence. It truly was a magnificent sensation
As well as this, the numerous love triangles, which could be referred to as love webs considering their complexities, were some of the most well-developed of any I have read about. This is a perfect analogy in fact, like a spider's entanglement, because eventually those who trespass into it will be destroyed by its master. The novel is masterfully crafted by Laclos, causing sympathies to waver between the characters as it reaches its dramatic and intense climax at the end.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys classic novels as I do, especially those who like France, its history or books which originate in the French language. My next challenge is to read this novel in the native language, which will sure be a challenge, but I hope I can do it... at some point in the future.

Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed it or have read this book and either agree or disagree with my thoughts, leave a comment below and inform me! I would love to hear your opinions! Like, comment and follow, and until next time, ciao!