Journal · Dangerous Liaisons

How to read Dangerous Liaisons: five habits for a novel in letters

Choderlos de Laclos told his whole story in letters: 175 of them, written by schemers, their targets and the people who never see it coming. It's easy to lose the thread early on, when the names and the plots pile up. These five habits, from the introduction to our edition, keep you on it.

1. Always check the heading

Each letter tells you who is writing and to whom, and that is the most important information on the page. The Vicomte de Valmont writing to the Marquise de Merteuil sounds nothing like Valmont as described by the woman he is pursuing. The same summer afternoon can be told three different ways by three different people, and the gaps between their versions are where the story lives.

2. Ask what each writer is hiding, and from whom

Merteuil and Valmont are frank with each other, or seem to be, but even their letters are full of boasting, testing and point-scoring. The virtuous Madame de Tourvel is honest, but she may not fully understand her own feelings. The useful question is always: what does this writer want the reader of this letter to believe?

Try it on Letter XI. Madame de Tourvel defends Valmont to a worried friend: he has never spoken a word of love, she says, and she would like a brother just like him. Now put it beside Letter VI, Valmont's own account of the same days, including the episode of the ditch, which he staged so he could hold her in his arms. The note before Letter XI in our edition sends you straight back to Letter VI. Dozens of notes do the same.

3. Look at the dates

The dates sit at the end of each letter, with the year blanked out as "17—", a custom of the period that pretends to protect real people. The days matter a great deal: they tell you how fast events are moving, which letters answer which, and when two people are writing about the same moment. The Editor's Preface says the letters are arranged in an order that is "almost always" that of their dates. Take the word "almost" seriously: now and then a letter appears slightly out of sequence, and it pays to notice when.

4. Read the footnotes

Notes signed "C. de L." belong to Laclos himself, speaking as the fictional editor who claims to have gathered this correspondence. They explain what has been cut, supply background, and sometimes add a sly comment of their own. Laclos also tells us that many letters were left out, so we hear only one side of certain conversations.

5. Listen to the voices

Madame de Tourvel writes with careful, courteous formality. Madame de Volanges sounds like the worried, well-meaning mother she is. Merteuil's letters sparkle and cut. One of Laclos's great achievements is that each writer sounds distinctly like a person, and some readers find the book comes most alive when they imagine each letter read aloud by its author.

A bonus habit: follow the money

In Letter XXI Valmont pays a poor family's tax debt of fifty-six livres in front of a crowd, with a spy watching, then hands them ten louis on top. What's ten louis? A louis d'or was a gold coin worth twenty-four livres: two hundred and forty livres, more than four times the debt. It was never charity. It was a performance, staged for the one reader who mattered, and our glossary lets you see the size of it.

Or let the book do it for you

Our edition of Dangerous Liaisons puts a note of about 100 words before every letter: who is writing, to whom, and what they're really after. The introduction's "How to Read a Novel in Letters" gives you these habits in full, a who's who keeps the correspondents and their circle straight, and the glossary covers the titles, the coins and the customs, from Marquise and Présidente to rouerie and whist.