In addition to being shocking and controversial, Marquis de Sade's novel " The 120 Days of Sodom" was the first attempt by a writer to portray, in an absolutely raw way, many of the philias that can emerge from a human being. It tells the story of four rich libertine men who decide to experience ultimate sexual gratification in orgies. To do this, they lock themselves up for four months in an inaccessible castle with a harem of forty-six victims, most of them teenagers of both sexes, and recruit four pimps to tell the story of their lives and adventures. The women's narrative becomes inspiration for sexual abuse and torture of the victims, which gradually escalates in intensity and ends in a surprising way. Right at the beginning of "The 120 Days of Sodom" the author Marquis de Sade warns: "I advise the excessively modest reader to immediately put my book aside, so as not to be scandalized, as it is already evident that there is not much chaste in our plan, and we dare to guarantee that there will be even less of it in the execution... And now, dear reader, prepare your heart and your mind for the most impure narrative ever written since our world began, a book without parallels among the ancients, or among us, moderns..."

サドが獄中で綴った本作は、単なる猥雑な記録ではなく、人間の理性が生み出す「絶対的自由」への恐るべき問いかけです。閉鎖された城塞という実験場において、権力と暴力が論理的に組織化されていく過程は、文明の皮を剥いだ先にある剥き出しの本性を突きつけます。 文学的価値は、欲望を冷徹に分類するサド特有の構造美にあります。物語と共に加速する狂気は、啓蒙主義的な理性が持つ暴力性を逆説的に暴き出し、美徳が崩壊する瞬間の凄惨な美を浮かび上がらせます。これは読者の倫理観を揺さぶる、人類史上最も過激で冷徹な人間解剖の記録なのです。