[In] conception and execution ["Virginie"] has a certain grandeur and an impressive flaw…. "Virginie" is an ambitious enterprise, an eclectic anthology of erotica, a reckless attempt to embrace irreconcilable forms, from medieval love poetry to modern pornography. The resulting flaw is forgivable. So many "sources and influences" have been assembled here like pearls on a narrative string that even as the author strains to close the clasp, his necklace comes apart. But it would be swinish to complain.

The author tells us in a prefatory note that the book was "conceived in a reverie about de Sade." Immediately thereafter, before the novel opens, we come upon a longish poem, an ancient and pleasant debate on the game of love, triumphantly asserting that love is revealed, not through touches or glances, but through love letters. No great ingenuity is required to understand that the book that follows is itself...