 First edition | |
| Author | Alice Thompson |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Max Ernst "The Robing of the Bride" (1940) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Canongate Books |
Publication date | 1996 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 135 |
| ISBN | 0-86241-603-5 |
Justine is the debut novel of Scottish author Alice Thompson. Published in 1996 by Canongate Books it was the joint winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize that year.
Described as a postmodern, feminist variation on Marquis de Sade's book of the same name, [1] it is set in contemporary London where the narrator, an opium-smoking art collector living in Kensington Gardens, becomes obsessed by "Justine", a portrait. Later he sees the woman herself at his mother's funeral, but she disappears and he begins a desperate search for her. He finds her twin sister Juliette who promises to aid him in his increasingly desperate search for her elusive sister...
In The New York Times , Jennifer Kornreich writes, "This successor to the Marquis de Sade's identically titled novel says nothing new about the nature of pleasure and pain. What it more ably accomplishes is a depiction of the ghoulish transformation of a nameless London art collector from creepy predator to humble captive after he meets twin sisters who bear an uncanny likeness to the portrait of his ideal woman" and she concludes "Ultimately, however, he discovers that the dainty object of his unhinged affection is even more depraved than he is. Justine's pseudo-feminist rationale for her cruelty isn't convincing, but it is amusing, particularly when directed toward a narrator whose moral compass, guided by esthetics alone, is so horrible that we can't regret his violent end." [2]
Kathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trauma, sexuality and rebellion. She was influenced by the Black Mountain School poets, William S. Burroughs, David Antin, Carolee Schneeman, Eleanor Antin, French critical theory, mysticism, and pornography, as well as classic literature.
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Gertrude Stein was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. She hosted a Paris salon, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art, such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Matisse, would meet.
Euphemia Chalmers Millais, Lady Millais was a Scottish artists' model and writer who was married to Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. She had previously been married to the art critic John Ruskin, but she left him with the marriage never having been consummated; it was subsequently annulled. This famous Victorian "love triangle" has been dramatised in plays, films, and an opera.
The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage is an unfinished novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, written in 1785 and published in 1904 after its manuscript was rediscovered. It describes the activities of four wealthy libertine Frenchmen who spend four months seeking the ultimate sexual gratification through orgies, sealing themselves in an inaccessible castle in the heart of the Black Forest with 12 accomplices, 20 designated victims and 10 servants. Four aging prostitutes relate stories of their most memorable clients whose sexual practices involved 600 "passions" including coprophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, incest, rape, and child sexual abuse. The stories inspire the libertines to engage in acts of increasing violence leading to the torture and murder of their victims, most of whom are adolescents and young women.
Quills is a 2000 period film directed by Philip Kaufman and adapted from the Obie award-winning 1995 play by Doug Wright, who also wrote the original screenplay. Inspired by the life and work of the Marquis de Sade, Quills re-imagines the last years of the Marquis's incarceration in the insane asylum at Charenton. It stars Geoffrey Rush as de Sade, Kate Winslet as laundress Madeleine "Maddie" LeClerc, Joaquin Phoenix as the Abbé de Coulmier, and Michael Caine as Dr. Royer-Collard.
The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1969 postmodern historical fiction novel by John Fowles. The plot explores the fraught relationship of gentleman and amateur naturalist Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff, the former governess and independent woman with whom he falls in love. The novel builds on Fowles' authority in Victorian literature, both following and critiquing many of the conventions of period novels.
Juliette is a novel written by the Marquis de Sade and published 1797–1801, accompanying de Sade's 1797 version of his novel Justine. While Justine, Juliette's sister, was a virtuous woman who consequently encountered nothing but despair and abuse, Juliette is an amoral nymphomaniac murderer who is successful and happy. The full title of the novel in the original French is L'Histoire de Juliette ou les Prospérités du vice, and the English title is "Juliette, or Vice Amply Rewarded". As many other of his works, Juliette follows a pattern of violently pornographic scenes followed by long treatises on a broad range of philosophical topics, including theology, morality, aesthetics, naturalism and also Sade's dark, fatalistic view of world metaphysics.
Alice Thompson is a Scottish novelist.
A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf, first published in September 1929. The work is based on two lectures Woolf delivered in October 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College, women's colleges at the University of Cambridge.
Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue is a 1791 novel by Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade. Justine is set just before the French Revolution in France and tells the story of a young girl who goes under the name of Thérèse. Her story is recounted to Madame de Lorsagne while defending herself for her crimes, en route to punishment and death. She explains the series of misfortunes that led to her present situation.
Justine may refer to:
Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell was a British writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet.
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Justine, published in 1957, is the first volume in Lawrence Durrell's literary tetralogy, The Alexandria Quartet. The tetralogy consists of four interlocking novels, each of which recounts various aspects of a complex story of passion and deception from differing points of view. The quartet is set in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in the 1930s and 1940s. The city itself is described by Durrell as becoming as much of a complex character as the human protagonists of the novels. Since first becoming available to the public and reviewers in 1957, Justine has inspired what has been called "an almost religious devotion among readers and critics alike." It was adapted into the film of the same name in 1969.
Austryn Wainhouse was an American author, publisher and translator, primarily of French works and most notably of the Marquis de Sade. He sometimes used the pseudonym Pieralessandro Casavini.
Marquis de Sade: Justine is a 1969 drama film directed by Jesús Franco. The film is based on the 1791 novel Justine by the Marquis de Sade. The film is set in 1700s France where Justine and her sister Juliette are orphans in Paris. Juliette becomes a prostitute and marries a rich noble. Justine is falsely arrested and sentenced to death, then escapes from prison to become a fugitive.
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, was a French writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. Some of these were published under his own name during his lifetime, but most appeared anonymously or posthumously.
The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography is a 1978 non-fiction book by Angela Carter. The book is a feminist re-appraisal of the work of the Marquis de Sade, consisting of a collection of essays analyzing his literature, particularly the tales of sisters Juliette and Justine.
The River Ophelia is an Australian novel by Justine Ettler first published by Picador in 1995. The story moves between first-person narrative to an unnamed observer. It was highly controversial in Australia upon its publication, with some prominent critics dismissing it as pornographic, though Ettler herself has strongly denied this.