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Title: Maldoror and the Complete Works by Lautreamont, Alexis Lykiard, Comte De Lautreamont, Lautreamont Chants De Maldoror, Lautreamont Poesies, Conte de Lautreamont, Comte De Lautreamont ISBN: 1-878972-12-X Publisher: Exact Change Pub. Date: July, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: a disturbing, twisted work of absolute genius
Comment: "maldoror" is one of the most intriguing, weird little books i've ever read. every surrealism fiend (like myself) should buy numerous copies of this book. lautreamont advances on every form of authority and convention with an aggressiveness and deadly seriousness that would have made jim morrison shudder, and we find ourselves shivering during parts of this dark but beautiful pearl of a book. maldoror, the outcast monster, is perhaps every alienated person we have scorned and ostracized because of their individuality or uniqueness. he is a furious and vicious being of total revolt, and by the end of this strangely dreamlike, automatic text, we have seen every barrier of civilization and every moral that lays the foundation of society trampled and spat upon. look especially for the scene where maldoror guns down some swimmers in the ocean and then proceeds to have sex with a whale. (i wonder if he wrapped it up!) when andre breton said this book seemed to exceed the limits of human capacity, he wasn't joking. if you're a misanthrope and a disaffected weirdo like myself, you simply cannot miss this. a sometimes startling yet essential celebration of ultimate freedom and absolute rebellion.
Rating: 5
Summary: The best translated edition of this amazing work!
Comment: "The Songs of Maldoror" is not a book--it is a searing, rambling, poisonous "derangement of all the senses" in masquerade. After more than a century it still has the power to shock, startle and repulse. Precisely imagined, "Maldoror" is a fairly obscure classic of late 19th century French literature, and is on par with Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarme, etc. You must read this if you love those writers!
Maldoror is the narrator, and sometime character when the narrative shifts unexpectedly into third person, and the alter ego of the mysterious young Comte de Lautreamont--which was the pen name of Isidore Ducasse. Dead by 24, he left behind this time-bomb. Maldoror is a sadist, a murderer, a philosopher, an outcast from the normal order of life. He encourages readers to kidnap a child and torture it, to taste its tears and its blood--all within the first 30 pages. Right on! You are not dealing with a rational, predictable mind here.
One of the book's most fascinating aspects is its continuous imagery of animals, both everyday and exotic, majestic and absurd: sharks, turkeys, crabs, eagles, octopi, tigers, wovles, insects, serpents. These creatures are presented with the sharp eye of the biologist. By likening humanity to animals, Lautreamont achieves a double effect: man comes off as debased and at the same time, elevated: to be like an animal man must be rid of all his pretensions and vanities. It is this pretense to culture and civilized behavior that sicken Lautreamont/Maldoror.
Many passsages still shock and disgust--and yes, entertain with their feverish intensity, particularly the one in which Maldoror copulates with a man-eating shark. A church lantern turns into an angel, deteriorates into pus when Maldoror licks its face, and is soon only "an enormous loathsome wound."
Maldoror also despises God--ostensibly the creator of all this human stupidity and vice. "My poetry shall consist of attacks, by all means, upon that wild beast, man, and the Creator, who should never have begotten such vermin!" When Maldoror confronts God, Maldoror metamorphosizes into a giant octopus and clamps his monstrous new tentacles around His body...
This anti-theistic viewpoint is startling and refreshing compared to the religious aspects of Rimbaud and Baudelaire. This work is a must-read for those interested in avant-garde, bizarre literature; it is also the springboard for Surrealism (with the passage, "As beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing maching and an umbrella," Andre Breton saw the future of his imagination). This edition contains a good introduction about the work itself, its language, what "Lautreamont" means, earlier mistranslations, etc. Lykiard's translation is fantastic. Don't hesitate, get this book today!
Rating: 4
Summary: minor flaws, but the best translation available
Comment: As English editions of 'Les chants de Maldoror' go, this is the best translation available today. Don't bother with the Wernham- the language is stilted and captures little of the book's fury that is driven equally by content and by its linguistic style. Because I am in the process of a new translation myself, I am perhaps overly critical. That said, avoid the Wernham.. Lykiard has a far better sense of Lautréamont's poetic project and includes appendices that are truly helpful. For the moment, I think that this is the best bet for English readers. (And yes, the book is incredible, the four stars are for the translation not for the book itself, which defies comparison: a contemporary of Baudelaire, Lautréamont/Ducasse is usually given more credit as a ranting eccentric than a prodigious poet. Later cited by the Surrealists as an important influence, I consider this work to be far more complex and original than the majority of the Surrealist's own work. For an interesting theoretical study of the book, try Alex de Jonge's 'Nightmare Culture' or Paul Zweig's "Lautréamont: The Violent Narcissus'.)
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Title: The Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau, Alvah C. Bessie ISBN: 0965104265 Publisher: Juno Books Pub. Date: 31 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.99 |
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Title: The Decadent Reader: Fiction, Fantasy, and Perversion from Fin-de-Siècle France by Asti Hustvedt ISBN: 1890951072 Publisher: Zone Books Pub. Date: 18 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $34.00 |
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Title: Flesh Unlimited by Guillaume Apollinaire, Louis Aragon ISBN: 1840680156 Publisher: Creation Pub Group Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Nadja by Andre Breton, Richard Howard ISBN: 0802150268 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: December, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille, Joachim Neugroschel ISBN: 0872862097 Publisher: City Lights Books Pub. Date: September, 1987 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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