Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #232411 in Books
• Published on: 1997-10-23
• Original language: French
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Customer Reviews

Politics and Perversion
Having read the other reviews on here (and Wildes recommendation!), and being a fan of this type of literature anyway, I decided to give this book a try. Despite having a cover that mimics a bad black lace novel (oh come on, it really does!) I was pleasantly surprised that the old adage is true and you can't, indeed, judge a book by its cover.

The book is divided into two distinct and utterly different parts. The first deals with society as a whole, discussing the various politics, hypocrisies and foibles of the (then) modern 'civilised' life and building up the introduction to the second part. On it's own, this text represents a wonderful and thought-provoking read, the only slight criticism being that it does lean towards being an unnecessarily long introduction to the second part of the book; The Torture Garden itself.

The second part is made up of wonderfully illustrative, creative writing which, when coupled with smatterings of horror and torture, make for a fascinating and interesting read. The 'love interest' in this book takes the form of Clara, a beautiful and wealthy woman with a taste for the unusual. Clara is described beautifully, as are her surroundings, and you read in fascination as she seems to become detached, lustful, unstable, perverse and everything in between throughout this incredible second part.

*Slight spoiler* The main character makes an interesting transition through the book; from a criminal and a rogue, who sees himself as the darkest and most evil of creatures, who becomes what can only be described as a simpering and whining fop who, by the end of the book, seems utterly incapable of controlling his emotions.

It does have to be said, the book is not quite as shocking as some of the other reviewers may have you believe. If you have ever been to Amsterdam, Prague or London etc. and looked at a torture museum, or know anything about historical torture (Dark Ages etc.), then there is nothing in here that you would not have seen before. Perhaps I am somewhat more jaded than others, but I was expecting to be shocked, horrified and disturbed and, when this failed to occur, I was unfortunately left with a feeling of disappointment.

Putting aside the ever-constant problem of over-expectation, this is an exquisitely written book with incredible dialogue, wondrously lush descriptive writing and a rather unique subject matter that is absolutely worth the read.

A wonderful, sometimes horrific but fascinating book....
Torture garden has been compared to the Marquis de Sade. It begins quite normal, a drawing room discussion, the subject however is murderers and their role in society. After this it develops into the most cruel book i've ever read, a decadent story that ends in the Torture Garden, a chinese garden with the most horrific tortures imaginable. Distorted views on beauty, mixed with blood and flowers. Life is as important as death. "Passions, appetites, greed, hatred, and lies; law, social institutions, justice, love glory, heroism, and religion: these are it's monstrous flowers and it's hideous instruments of eternal human suffering" Octave Mirbeau is an original and powerful writer. Underneath the surface of this book lies his motive, to expose the hypocrisies of society; to shock the reader into a realisation that much of what he takes for granted is cruel and ugly. Like Sade, Mirbeau was an atheist, and at that time that was something outrageous. he knew what good and evil was, but what bothered him was that in the so called civilised society, so much evil was portrayed as good, and most people didn't notice or care. In torture garden he set out to show people what their world, behind it's hypocrisies, was really like.

A grey adder
Wilde's beautifully poetic description of this materpiece of decadence is the perfect synopsis of this great work of nineteenth century anarchism. Mirbeau's form and style switch between the comic and caustic, as the narrator continues his Heart of Darkness style journey into the Orient. Set against the background of the opening of China in the nineteenth century by the European powers, Mirebau brilliantly explodes the myth of Western ideas of supperiority and insulaity that imperialism spreads. For many, the vivid metaphors of sado-masochism are difficult to stomach, but the juxtaposition of the depravity and exploitation with the decadence of nineteenth century French high society is perfectly pitched. A seminal, crucial work that firmly establishes Mirebau as one of the great French writers of the nineteenth century with Rimbaud and Zola. In these belligerent times, it is even more apt