An analysis of the (nihilism and power)? The history of how the original scroll was recovered? A comparison between the book and the Pasolini film ?
The novel is structured like a diary, spanning four months of debauchery. It follows four wealthy, powerful French libertines who lock themselves in the remote Silling Castle with a group of victims and storytellers.
If you choose to read it, do so with an understanding of its history and a readiness for its uncompromising brutality.
Sade intended to document 600 different sexual "perversions." Because he never finished the manuscript, the later sections are written as a series of clinical, brutal notes.