No Tomorrow The Ethics of Pleasure in the French Enlightenment

"In this ambitious book, Cusset reframes the often misunderstood genre that celebrates what Casanova calls "the present enjoyment of the senses." She contends libertine works are not, as is commonly thought, characterized by the preaching of sexual pleasure but are instead linked by an "ethics of pleasure" that teaches readers that vanity and sensual enjoyment are part of their moral being. Developing Roland Barthes's concept of "the pleasure of the text," the author argues that the novel is a powerful vehicle for moral lessons, more so that philosophical or moral treatises, because it conveys such lessons through pleasure." (Midwest).