1/ In some blog post about Don Quixote, I have noted that Shakespeare and Cervantes are both fascinated by disguise, pretence, and manipulation: if Shakespeare’s plays are full of actors (like Viola, Rosalind, Imogen) and playwrights/ theatre directors (like Iago or the Duke in Measure for Measure), Cervantes’s world is populated with storytellers (almost everyone in Don Quixote), who can be self-creators (like Don Quixote) or pranksters.
What about the manipulators in Dangerous Liaisons—Merteuil and Valmont? I would say they are actors (in general, but especially in Merteuil’s handling of Prévan and Valmont’s acting towards Tourvel) and theatre directors (the way Merteuil and Valmont engineer the plot of Cécile and Danceny, especially when Merteuil adds conflict and drama) and self-creators (Merteuil writes in letter 81 “I am what I have created”). The two of them constantly compare their little games to theatre; Merteuil says she’s an actress and a writer.
Here’s Valmont:
“What more does one have in a larger theatre? Spectators? Ha! Just wait, I shall have plenty of them. Though they may not see me at work, I shall show them the finished product. All that will remain for them to do is admire and applaud.” (Letter 99)
(translated by Helen Constantine)
Nobody would want to encounter a Valmont or a Merteuil in real life, but in literature, isn’t it fascinating to watch them?
I especially like that Laclos adds the little Prévan plot. Up to that point, there have been 2 plots going on at the same time—the Cécile and Danceny plot, and the Valmont seducing Tourvel plot—which have started to drag on for a bit—then Laclos gives us the Prévan plot. Now that is fascinating! Before that point, Valmont has dominated the book, utterly thrilling as he switches between different voices for Merteuil, Cécile, and Tourvel. Now is Merteuil’s time to shine. And shine she does.
2/ I would say that over the past few years, the most striking and compelling female characters I’ve come across in novels are Sử Tương Vân (Shi Xiangyun) and Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) in Cao Xueqin’s Hong lou meng (Hồng lâu mộng by Tào Tuyết Cần), Becky Sharp in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, and now Merteuil in Choderlos de Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons. Sử Tương Vân (Shi Xiangyun) is the odd one out, delightful and lovable like Shakespeare’s Rosalind and Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet and Tolstoy’s Natasha.
The other three are manipulative, chameleon-like, immoral, deceitful, and yet utterly bewitching.
Interestingly enough, I note that they’re all written by male writers. When I think of attempts by George Eliot (Middlemarch, maybe Daniel Deronda) and Edith Wharton (The Custom of the Country), I think they don’t quite succeed—those characters seem real enough, but they don’t bewitch. Jane Austen’s Mary Crawford is much better in comparison—so charming that many impressionable readers out there miss the entire point of the book—but she is not on quite the same level as Becky Sharp or Merteuil, is she? Lady Susan is more manipulative, but that’s quite a thin novel—I have always wished Austen had done something more with that character.
To go back to Dangerous Liaisons, Laclos’s other female characters are also very good. One reads War and Peace and wonders how Tolstoy enters the mind of a 16-year-old girl in love (Natasha). One reads Dangerous Liaisons and asks the same question about Laclos and 15-year-old Cécile. He depicts well the pure innocence and naïve enthusiasm of a young girl raised in a convent and without experience, without making her sound sappy.
Tourvel is even better. We don’t even need Valmont’s discovery of her copy of his letter to know—as we read between the lines—that for some time she has fallen for him.
3/ Dangerous Liaisons has a good structure. Two significant things happen around the mid-point of the novel.
One is—shall I be nice and not reveal the spoiler?—what Valmont does to Cécile. He is the devil.
His letters to Merteuil afterwards fill me with disgust, especially when he says he has been telling Cécile false stories about her mother:
“For the girl who does not respect her mother will not respect herself.” (Letter 110)
The other thing is Tourvel’s departure, and the start of her downfall.
Look at Valmont’s immediate reaction upon finding out she has run away:
“What strange power draws me to this woman? Are there not a hundred others clamouring for my attention? […] Why chase after the one who flees from us and neglect those who offer themselves? Ah why? I do not know, but I feel it most grievously.” (Letter 100)
In the first half of Dangerous Liaisons, Merteuil and Valmont pull all the strings; in the second half, they slowly and gradually realise they’re not quite the puppeteers they think they are.
In other words, as Valmont turns more demonic in the second half, he also becomes more human.
Ooh, I have so many thoughts. But I have work to finish, so, hopefully later.
ReplyDeleteOne quick observation: It took me several readings to notice this, but I think Valmont's actions toward Cecile are very substantially motivated by the need to have a "victory" to counter Merteuil's victory over Prevan. (Obviously, not an excuse!) There are also all sorts of fascinating ways in which the Prevan adventure mirrors other parts of the plot. I'm going to write about it one of these days!
(more later)
Hmm, interesting. I'm going to think some more about it.
DeleteI don't remember the Prévan bit from the films at all. Perhaps it's there and I just forgot.
Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts.
The Prévan episode was not in any of the films! I really think the book needs a miniseries to do it justice.
DeleteRe the connection between the Prévan episode and Valmont's "conquest" with Cécile, I think it's pretty clear if you think about it. Remember that Merteuil triumphantly reports the conclusion of the Prévan affair on September 25; we know letters from Paris reach the château the next day, so the 26th. He doesn't respond until Oct. 1 and even starts with "I bet that ever since your adventure, you've been waiting for my compliments and praises every day; indeed I have no doubt that you've been a little annoyed by my long silence..." And then: "I will even concede, to make you perfectly happy, that on this occasion you have surpassed my expectations. Having said that, let's see if I, on my part, have at least partly lived up to yours." (My translation, I'm looking at the French text online.)
Also, when he gets to recounting his "success" with "the little Volanges," he explicitly compares and contrasts it to Merteuil's success with Prévan: "While, skillfully wielding the weapons of your sex, you triumphed through finesse, I, reclaiming for man his inalienable rights, subjugated by authority."
(By the way, if the story takes place after 1777 or so -- and I think Laclos actually dated a couple of letter 1780 in his MS -- it's entirely possible that "inalienable rights" is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Declaration of Independence. It's not a very common phrase in 18th C France at least according to my search of Google Books, and I think it would be extremely like Valmont to twist the concept of "man's inalienable rights" into a smutty joke about male sexual entitlement. So that's my headcanon, basically.)
Anyway, yeah. I think he waits to write back to Merteuil after he has a "success" of his own to report, especially since she's been zinging him so much about his lack of success with Tourvel. Also notable: he starts putting the Cécile plan into action shortly after Merteuil sends him the long autobiographical letter in which she is absolutely brutal in putting him in his place and affirming her superiority, and which she concludes with, "As for Prévan, I want him, and I'll have him; he wants to tell, and he won't. That is our story." That letter is sent on Sept. 20; Valmont presumably receives it Sept. 21; his letter to Cécile is sent Sept. 24, presumably after he's had a bit of time to come up with the scheme with the second key. So I think he knows by then that Merteuil will succeed and is planning his own "victory" to match hers and maybe even beat her to it (but his plan is delayed because Cécile initially refuses).
(It took me multiple rereadings to notice all this!)
Also, I don't think this is intentional on Valmont's part, but the Valmont/Cécile scene is almost an exact reversal of the Merteuil/Prévan scene. Merteuil tricks Prévan into entering her bedroom in such a way that she can easily make it look like he's there without her consent, and completes her victory by pulling the bell-cord to summon her servants. Valmont tricks Cécile into letting him into her bedroom in such a way that he can easily make it look like she invited him in for sex, and stops her from pulling the bell-cord when she tries.
But there are more parallels/mirrorings! For instance:
Valmont sets out to seduce an unattainable woman (Tourvel). Eventually, it becomes a challenge between him and Merteuil, to whom he promises a full account of the adventure.
Prévan (who, in a sense, is Valmont's "double") sets out to seduce a supposedly unattainable woman (Merteuil) on a challenge with "the two comtesses de B***," to whom he promises a full account of the adventure. (The "double" gets a double confidante!)
Comment was too long so splitting it up:
DeleteEven more interesting if you look at the details: Valmont meets Tourvel at the home of his elderly aunt. Prévan meets Merteuil at the house of the marechale, an elderly woman who seems to be playing a kind of "mommy" to him. And maybe this is a stretch but in both cases a member of the clergy unwittingly aids the scheme: Valmont uses Father Anselme to set up his meeting with Tourvel; Merteuil uses "the bishop of ....", whom she identifies as Prévan's friend, as a respectable witness to her public interactions with Prévan.
Lastly, the scene Merteuil describes to Valmont in which, when they're at her house after she goes to the theater with Prévan and the marechale, she reclines on a couch in front of Prévan, supposedly in a "tender reverie" -- which both makes him think she's smitten with him and turns him on (and it's subtly suggested that at one point she checks out his erection, lol) -- is almost certainly a parallel to/parody of the scene in which Valmont watches Tourvel reclining on a lounge chair in a reverie, and catches her looking at him. I'm pretty sure the parallel is intentional on Laclos's part, but it may also be Merteuil intentionally parodying Valmont.
The amount of fascinating subtle stuff in this novel is amazing.
Very good catch about Valmont becoming both more diabolical (with Cécile) and more human (with Tourvel) after midway through the novel.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I think I already gave you the link to my Liaisons essay on Twitter but here it is again -- not to be pushy with this :p but I think you may find it interesting now you've finished the book!
Oops, forgot to add the link https://www.thebulwark.com/p/love-and-libertinism-the-endless-fascination-of-dangerous-liaisons
DeleteWow, this is brilliant. That's a good point.
ReplyDeleteI actually haven't finished the book, as I have a stupid habit of blogging whilst still reading. On Part 4 now. I'm having some thoughts about Valmont, so I'll think about what you wrote.
2 things:
1/ Do you think Merteuil would have been seduced by Prévan if she hadn't been warned by Valmont?
2/ Could you tell me how Laclos wrote about Prévan's erection? In my edition, Helen Constantine writes in the note that Merteuil notices his erection, but I cannot see how anyone can be sure from those words in the letter. It could be a problem with the translation though.
Oh, re Prévan's erection, it's these words:
ReplyDelete"You may judge that my timid glances dared not seek out my conqueror's eyes; but directed toward him in a more humble manner, they soon revealed to me that I was achieving the effect I wanted to produce."
When I first read that passage, I thought, probably like most people, that she means she was looking at him surreptitiously and able to tell from his facial expression that he's turned on by her; but one researcher, Anne-Marie Jaton, suggested (back in 1980) that it means she's keeping her eyes low and at the level where she would see ... other evidence of arousal. (Remember that male breeches are pretty tight in that era.) I think that's now the consensus. What's interesting (having just reread the passages where Valmont describes his eye play with Tourvel, he also mentions being aroused ("this sight [i.e. of Tourvel stretched out on the lounge chair "in a pose of delicious abandon"] roused my desire and animated my gaze") and mentions Tourvel lowering her eyes several times. Sooo is Merteuil hinting that maybe Tourvel is checking him out in a less prudish way than he thinks?
Oh, and interesting question about how the Prévan adventure would have turned out if Merteuil hadn't been warned. I'm sure she would have managed to protect herself so that whatever he said about her couldn't harm her reputation, but she wouldn't have set him up the way she did.
And don't worry about blogging while still reading! By the way, Helen Constantine mistranslates a key passage from Letter 125, the one where Valmont reports his "conquest" of Tourvel and where he's trying to understand the "unfamiliar delight" he feels (actually it's not really "delight," more like "enchantment"). At one point he wonders if it's because of her virtue, and then dismisses that thought:
"Do we not nearly always come across some resistance, more or less well-feigned, at the first surrender? Have I not found the delights I am speaking of with other women?"
It's actually the opposite! It should be: "And have I found anywhere else the enchantment of which I speak?"
Oh I see. So it's like Helen Constantine's translation. I was like, how do we know???
DeleteI have finished the book so I'll reread your article today or tomorrow, Cathy.
Just to say, rather late again I am afraid, great post Di and amazing work by Cathy on the parallels between Valmont-Tourvel and Merteuil-Prevan.
ReplyDeleteAlso worth observing that as Valmont becomes more human (as well as in some ways more demonic) during his affair with Tourvel, Tourvel also becomes more human. She too is something both more and less than the persona she presents to the world.
Yeah.
DeleteAll the characters are well-written. Tourvel could be annoying, talking about her virtue or whatever like Pamela, but she isn't.