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Maldoror and the Complete Works
Andre Breton described Maldoror as -the expression of a revelation so complete it seems to exceed human potential.- Little is known about its pseudonymous author, aside from his real name (Isidore Ducasse), birth in Uruguay (1846) and early death in Paris (1870). Lautreamont bewildered his contemporaries, but the Surrealists modeled their efforts after his black humor and poetic leaps of logic, exemplified by the oft-quoted line, -As beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella.- Maldoror 's shocked first publisher refused to bind the sheets of the original edition--and perhaps no better invitation exists to this book, which warns the reader, -Only the few may relish this bitter fruit without danger.- This is the only complete annotated collection of Lautreamont's writings available in English, in Alexis Lykiard's superior translation. For this latest edition, Lykiard updates his introduction to include recent scholarship.
340 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1869
About the author
Comte de Lautréamont
39 books448 followersComte de Lautréamont (French pronunciation: [lotʁeaˈmɔ̃]) was the pseudonym of Isidore Lucien Ducasse, a Uruguayan-born French poet. Little is known about his life and he wished to leave no memoirs. He died at the age of 24 in Paris.
His only works, Les Chants de Maldoror and Poésies, had a major influence on modern literature, particularly on the Surrealists (similarly to Baudelaire and Rimbaud) and the Situationists. Comte de Lautréamont is one of the poètes maudits and a precursor to Surrealism.
His only works, Les Chants de Maldoror and Poésies, had a major influence on modern literature, particularly on the Surrealists (similarly to Baudelaire and Rimbaud) and the Situationists. Comte de Lautréamont is one of the poètes maudits and a precursor to Surrealism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 185 reviews
November 12, 2007
Probably one of the most experimental, strange and horrifically beautiful books on the planet. A dream-like monument to man's imagination. One part 'Frankenstein' and one part 'Faust'. Epic in scope. Poetic in form. Gothic in style. Completely surreal.
February 17, 2013
What to say about Maldoror that hasn't been said yet? What to say about the mysterious son of a diplomat who appeared in France, wrote this book and died, vanishing from the world, yet leaving his mark for decades and centuries yet to come?
The first time I had the pleasure of reading this exceptional work, I was taken aback. Barely seventeen, I hungrily swallowed the disturbing images leaping at me from the pages, not to fully comprehend them until years later. This work, over a century old, is believed to be the first work, the foundation stone of the surrealist movement, a movement that penetrated into every aspect of art, life, being; whether we are willing to admit it or not, this work is as important today as it was when originally published in 1868 (well, at least a part of it was). The world was not ready to receive the complete self-awareness of evil Maldoror so fully comprehends, and the world is still not ready. This work is certainly not to be read by a "closed" mind. It is said that to be creative, one must borderline insanity, yet, Lautreamont was playing with genius; a genius of a caliber capable of scaring away even the most immodest of us. But get deeper into his work, walk past the disturbed images, surpass your fears and you shall see the light. This work cannot be ignored, cannot be left to collect dust. I have owned several copies over the past twenty years, and I am still finding new meanings, new passages, and new understanding in this wonderful work. This truly is the one book that will never get old, that will always keep on giving, as long as one is ready to listen.
The first time I had the pleasure of reading this exceptional work, I was taken aback. Barely seventeen, I hungrily swallowed the disturbing images leaping at me from the pages, not to fully comprehend them until years later. This work, over a century old, is believed to be the first work, the foundation stone of the surrealist movement, a movement that penetrated into every aspect of art, life, being; whether we are willing to admit it or not, this work is as important today as it was when originally published in 1868 (well, at least a part of it was). The world was not ready to receive the complete self-awareness of evil Maldoror so fully comprehends, and the world is still not ready. This work is certainly not to be read by a "closed" mind. It is said that to be creative, one must borderline insanity, yet, Lautreamont was playing with genius; a genius of a caliber capable of scaring away even the most immodest of us. But get deeper into his work, walk past the disturbed images, surpass your fears and you shall see the light. This work cannot be ignored, cannot be left to collect dust. I have owned several copies over the past twenty years, and I am still finding new meanings, new passages, and new understanding in this wonderful work. This truly is the one book that will never get old, that will always keep on giving, as long as one is ready to listen.
June 20, 2021
Songs 1 to 6 completed
At a loss to define what these songs are.
Sometimes excruciatingly specific, sometimes fringing on the esoteric, The Songs of Maldoror relate events in the life of a motley half-human half-brute creature with fits of distemper and brooding rage against nature, mankind and himself...
The style is markedly lyrical, with long stretches and surprisingly specific descriptions of themes not traditionally ascribed to lyrical poetry... i.e. medical lexicon, schemes and serial murder, torture.
You feel groggy with ornate descriptions littered with wild apartés from the narrator speaking directly to you... Also, the text simmers with heinous phases against humanity and its supposed Creator.
More often than not, the read was exacting, tiresome and the text unaccountable. The Songs of Maldoror are made to mimic an endless quest for a form and identity. Maybe that is called the search for meaning.
Nevertheless, as unpredicatbable as the text may be, you hit on several constants :
* An overstretched, Huysmans-ish lexicon of biology, biology and medecine.
* The entanglement of the personal history and the present of Lautréamont with fiction, growing overlap between Lautréamont and Maldoror.
* Unrelenting infringements on the plot by Lautréamont, making sure you keep your eye keen and remember this is fiction from his hand.
* Countless turnarounds and treasons. Always reiterated. Every song bears something exactly similar to the previous ones.
* The inflation of natural sizes :
A mighty house-sized glow-worm
A colossal, godlike, fretful, talkative hair...
A surreal lice
A bovine scarab
*And then, here is your daily intake of bloodshed, bestiality and monstrosity.
In the end, head-splitting Maldoror embodies the universal divide and contradiction in mankind, and he is a superhuman, if only because he is stirred by the sting of contradiction even more exquisitely.
That's my guess.
Soundtrack : The Stooges - L.A. Blues
------------------------------
Chants 1 à 6 terminés.
D'une précision monomaniaque par moments, flottant dans le délire verbal le plus abstrus à d'autres, les Chants font la chronique de la vie d'un personnage instable et irréductible, une chimère mi-humaine, mi-bestiale. Maldoror.
Le style d'expression de Lautréamont est résolument lyrique, entrecoupé de longues périodes introspectives, d'adresses directes de l'écrivain-narrateur-personnage au lecteur. Enfin, d'exultation, de périodes d'exécration intense envers l'humanité ou son supposé Créateur.
Honnêtement, la lecture a été laborieuse, le texte inouï.
À nouveau Lautréamont, dans les chants V et VI, attire curieusement en personne l'attention sur lecteur sur l'écriture poétique, et porte le regard le plus critique par rapport à ses chants serrés de près. Au bout du compte, mêlée à une autodépréciation presque masochiste de Maldoror/Lautréamont. Les Chants de Maldoror donnent l'idée d'une recherche perpétuelle de forme et d'identité. En ça, Maldoror, maître des métamorphoses, est très cohérent avec lui même.
Les constantes étonnantes dans ces 6 chants :
- La précision maladive du vocabulaire végétal, zoologique et médical, façon Huysmans.
- Ces étranges pénétrations du réel, de la fiction, cette confusion grandissante du moi qui écrit et du moi qui est écrit... De même, les interventions du narrateur/Maldoror comme un rappel de la fiction qu'est le récit.
- Ces volte-faces et perpétuelles trahisons toujours recommencées. Chaque chant étant comme le précédent, sous une autre forme.
- La distorsion grotesque des proportions naturelles :
Un ver luisant colossal
un cheveu titanesque et très agité
un pou surnaturel
un scarabée bovin
Les collages de plus en plus fréquents dans la prose, qui prend un tour surréaliste.
Puis chant VI, poutre animée, crabe tourteau surmonté d'une enclume et d'un cadavre......
Les scènes sanglantes, bestiales, monstrueuses.
Ce que j'en ai compris : Maldoror en devient le siège des contradictions de l'Homme, surhomme en ce sens qu'il les sent plus vivement.
Pandémonium : The Stooges - L.A. Blues
At a loss to define what these songs are.
Sometimes excruciatingly specific, sometimes fringing on the esoteric, The Songs of Maldoror relate events in the life of a motley half-human half-brute creature with fits of distemper and brooding rage against nature, mankind and himself...
The style is markedly lyrical, with long stretches and surprisingly specific descriptions of themes not traditionally ascribed to lyrical poetry... i.e. medical lexicon, schemes and serial murder, torture.
You feel groggy with ornate descriptions littered with wild apartés from the narrator speaking directly to you... Also, the text simmers with heinous phases against humanity and its supposed Creator.
More often than not, the read was exacting, tiresome and the text unaccountable. The Songs of Maldoror are made to mimic an endless quest for a form and identity. Maybe that is called the search for meaning.
Nevertheless, as unpredicatbable as the text may be, you hit on several constants :
* An overstretched, Huysmans-ish lexicon of biology, biology and medecine.
* The entanglement of the personal history and the present of Lautréamont with fiction, growing overlap between Lautréamont and Maldoror.
* Unrelenting infringements on the plot by Lautréamont, making sure you keep your eye keen and remember this is fiction from his hand.
* Countless turnarounds and treasons. Always reiterated. Every song bears something exactly similar to the previous ones.
* The inflation of natural sizes :
A mighty house-sized glow-worm
A colossal, godlike, fretful, talkative hair...
A surreal lice
A bovine scarab
*And then, here is your daily intake of bloodshed, bestiality and monstrosity.
In the end, head-splitting Maldoror embodies the universal divide and contradiction in mankind, and he is a superhuman, if only because he is stirred by the sting of contradiction even more exquisitely.
That's my guess.
Soundtrack : The Stooges - L.A. Blues
------------------------------
Chants 1 à 6 terminés.
D'une précision monomaniaque par moments, flottant dans le délire verbal le plus abstrus à d'autres, les Chants font la chronique de la vie d'un personnage instable et irréductible, une chimère mi-humaine, mi-bestiale. Maldoror.
Le style d'expression de Lautréamont est résolument lyrique, entrecoupé de longues périodes introspectives, d'adresses directes de l'écrivain-narrateur-personnage au lecteur. Enfin, d'exultation, de périodes d'exécration intense envers l'humanité ou son supposé Créateur.
Honnêtement, la lecture a été laborieuse, le texte inouï.
À nouveau Lautréamont, dans les chants V et VI, attire curieusement en personne l'attention sur lecteur sur l'écriture poétique, et porte le regard le plus critique par rapport à ses chants serrés de près. Au bout du compte, mêlée à une autodépréciation presque masochiste de Maldoror/Lautréamont. Les Chants de Maldoror donnent l'idée d'une recherche perpétuelle de forme et d'identité. En ça, Maldoror, maître des métamorphoses, est très cohérent avec lui même.
Les constantes étonnantes dans ces 6 chants :
- La précision maladive du vocabulaire végétal, zoologique et médical, façon Huysmans.
- Ces étranges pénétrations du réel, de la fiction, cette confusion grandissante du moi qui écrit et du moi qui est écrit... De même, les interventions du narrateur/Maldoror comme un rappel de la fiction qu'est le récit.
- Ces volte-faces et perpétuelles trahisons toujours recommencées. Chaque chant étant comme le précédent, sous une autre forme.
- La distorsion grotesque des proportions naturelles :
Un ver luisant colossal
un cheveu titanesque et très agité
un pou surnaturel
un scarabée bovin
Les collages de plus en plus fréquents dans la prose, qui prend un tour surréaliste.
Puis chant VI, poutre animée, crabe tourteau surmonté d'une enclume et d'un cadavre......
Les scènes sanglantes, bestiales, monstrueuses.
Ce que j'en ai compris : Maldoror en devient le siège des contradictions de l'Homme, surhomme en ce sens qu'il les sent plus vivement.
Pandémonium : The Stooges - L.A. Blues
April 30, 2012
Back in the day, when I was young and passionate, I decided I had to read this book, and so I ordered it from our local bookshp and waited 7 weeks until I finally was summoned to come and get it.
That evening when the house was finally quiet,I built up a nice fire and poured myself a glass of wine. Cosy and prepared for an exquisite read,I was surprised to read first the authors note: reader, if you love this life, do not read this book. But I am brave, I thought, continuing.
A few more pages,the author entreats again, gentle souls, do not read on. I considered myself a fierce and not gentle soul, I read another page...and had a vision, prompted by what I was reading, of an old, creaking door closing on the sunshine of day, a shadow zooming over my life.I felt depression looming and when I read yet another warning,I made a desperate choice.In a spontaneous move,I ripped the book in half and threw it in the fire.
That was the beginning of a new direction for me.
That evening when the house was finally quiet,I built up a nice fire and poured myself a glass of wine. Cosy and prepared for an exquisite read,I was surprised to read first the authors note: reader, if you love this life, do not read this book. But I am brave, I thought, continuing.
A few more pages,the author entreats again, gentle souls, do not read on. I considered myself a fierce and not gentle soul, I read another page...and had a vision, prompted by what I was reading, of an old, creaking door closing on the sunshine of day, a shadow zooming over my life.I felt depression looming and when I read yet another warning,I made a desperate choice.In a spontaneous move,I ripped the book in half and threw it in the fire.
That was the beginning of a new direction for me.
July 27, 2018
1) Before reading Rimbaud I thought I would see fireworks; the problem was that I had read Lautréamont first.
(Michel Houellebecq)
2) After reading the last part of "Les Chants de Maldoror" I thought of giving up literature due to embarrassment of my own literary achievements.
(André Gide [in a diary entry, in 1905])
3) Lautréamont has been the biggest influence on my writing career. My books are toys for adults who have read Lautréamont.
(César Aira)
This book embraces both classical rules of art (craft, depth and beauty [beauty whereas in the classic sense, such as when writing about the ocean, or modern one, meaning Picasso's, Baudelaire's, Dalí's... diabolical one) and contemporary ones (modernity, originality and provocation) brillliantly.
It was half a century ahead of its time, after all (surrealists in the 1920's were the first one's to consider it the visionary masterpiece that it is).
It may not be as deep as Rimbaud's A Season in Hell (Caravaggio)
... but it's far more creative (El Greco).
Rimbaud focused on psychological miserability, introspection and analysis, in the work of art as a finished object, marble block, last will... On the other hand, Lautréamont focused on imagination, ideas, surprises, in the work of art in progress, as a process.
Both Rimbe and Isidore were highly intelligent and crazy (in the words of Argentinian author César Aira: So many people write, but so little is worthy… Why? I think it’s because in order to write something valuable one must posses two opposite qualities: you must be as intelligent as possible (because writing is not easy) and, at the same time, as crazy as possible (for the writing to matter).
The gate-master of tomorrow's literature , said Nobel Prize Winner André Gide, this is a book which fans of modernism, postmodernism, metaliterature, etc., should totally savour as one of the precursors of those movements (with its many passages about the very process of writing) that it is (needless to say, a must-read for poetry lovers too).
My review of Lautréamont's "poems":
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(Michel Houellebecq)
2) After reading the last part of "Les Chants de Maldoror" I thought of giving up literature due to embarrassment of my own literary achievements.
(André Gide [in a diary entry, in 1905])
3) Lautréamont has been the biggest influence on my writing career. My books are toys for adults who have read Lautréamont.
(César Aira)
This book embraces both classical rules of art (craft, depth and beauty [beauty whereas in the classic sense, such as when writing about the ocean, or modern one, meaning Picasso's, Baudelaire's, Dalí's... diabolical one) and contemporary ones (modernity, originality and provocation) brillliantly.
It was half a century ahead of its time, after all (surrealists in the 1920's were the first one's to consider it the visionary masterpiece that it is).
It may not be as deep as Rimbaud's A Season in Hell (Caravaggio)
... but it's far more creative (El Greco).
Rimbaud focused on psychological miserability, introspection and analysis, in the work of art as a finished object, marble block, last will... On the other hand, Lautréamont focused on imagination, ideas, surprises, in the work of art in progress, as a process.
Both Rimbe and Isidore were highly intelligent and crazy (in the words of Argentinian author César Aira: So many people write, but so little is worthy… Why? I think it’s because in order to write something valuable one must posses two opposite qualities: you must be as intelligent as possible (because writing is not easy) and, at the same time, as crazy as possible (for the writing to matter).
The gate-master of tomorrow's literature , said Nobel Prize Winner André Gide, this is a book which fans of modernism, postmodernism, metaliterature, etc., should totally savour as one of the precursors of those movements (with its many passages about the very process of writing) that it is (needless to say, a must-read for poetry lovers too).
My review of Lautréamont's "poems":
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
May 16, 2021
La épica del mal
En una entrevista con el periódico español El País, César Aira habló sobre sus lecturas favoritas y dijo lo siguiente:
“Los cantos de Maldoror, para mí, fueron una lectura reveladora. Recuerdo haberle dicho a una poeta que fue mi amiga, Alejandra Pizarnik, que Lautréamont y Los cantos de Maldoror me vuelven loco. Alejandra me dijo: ¡Cuidado! Eso puede hacerse literal con este poeta.”
Exhumar las páginas que la literatura oculta en su bitácora del tiempo es una de las cosas que más me fascinan como lector. Descubrir aquellos libros que habitan en las sombras, esperando relucir su contenido fulgurante y revelador: lo ignoto, aparte de su oscura seducción, siempre tendrá algo que ofrecerle a la literatura.
La primera edición de Los cantos de Maldoror (1869) fue impresa por el editor belga Albert Lacroix, pero su temor a la censura impidió que la distribuya a las librerías de Francia. De esta manera, los cantos quedaron sumergidos en el mutismo de un sótano abandonado, acompañados por su contenido impío y blasfemo.
Su autor, el escritor enigma, fue Isidore Ducasse, bajo el pseudónimo Conde de Lautréamont. Los datos biográficos de este joven poeta, que encontró la muerte a los veinticuatro años, son totalmente escasos y no hacen más que aumentar el misterio de su obra. Nacido en Montevideo e hijo de un diplomático francés, nervioso, ordenado y trabajador. Solo escribía de noche, frente a su piano. Murió en 1870, solo, en una habitación pequeña y por las garras tísicas de la época.
Casi veintidós años después de su muerte, la obra de Lautréamont fue definida por André Breton como la expresión de una revelación total que parece exceder las posibilidades humanas. De esta forma, es considerado el padre del surrealismo.
Los cantos de Maldoror son la prueba de la convivencia equilibrada entre la belleza y lo grotesco: Maldoror, arcángel del mal, enemigo de Dios y héroe de esta Odisea, es el protagonista y por momentos propio narrador de estos seis cantos escritos en prosa y divididos por estrofas. La lectura está plagada por los actos violentos e inhumanos que comete el mismo Maldoror, demostrando su odio contra la especie humana y, especialmente, contra el Creador. En esta marisma sangrienta, las palabras de Lautréamont fluyen con notable misantropía y una musicalidad estrambótica subyugada por un “yo lírico” extraño, sediento de sangre y, por momentos, poseído por el mismo Maldoror.
Desde el comienzo, el libro despliega sus versos ponzoñosos a partir de una invocación o epíteto:
“Plegue al cielo que el lector, enardecido y vuelto momentáneamente feroz como lo que lee, encuentre sin desorientarse su camino abrupto y salvaje a través de las desoladas ciénagas de estas páginas sombrías y llenas de veneno; pues, a menos que aporte a su lectura una lógica rigurosa y una tensión de espíritu igual cuando menos a su desconfianza, las emanaciones mortales de este libro empaparán su alma como el agua el azúcar. No conviene que todo el mundo lea las páginas que siguen: solo unos pocos saborearán este fruto amargo sin peligro.”
Las advertencias se vuelven una constante con el correr de las páginas y esconden cierto carácter satírico, es decir, intimidan al lector, lo desafían a seguir leyendo (si es que tiene el valor) y juzgan su entendimiento ante tanto caos. No está demás aclarar que este libro no es para todxs, su lectura puede resultar chocante debido al nivel de violencia explícita con el que se describen las escenas de asesinato. Maldoror, como artífice de estas ejecuciones rocambolescas, no solo demuestra su capacidad para matar hombres, mujeres o niños, sino también su fetiche por hacerlos sufrir.
”Hay que dejarse crecer las uñas durante quince días. ¡Oh! qué dulce es entonces arrancar brutalmente de su lecho a un niño que aún no tiene nada sobre el labio superior, y, con los ojos bien abiertos, ¡simular que se pasa suavemente la mano por su frente, echando hacia atrás sus hermoso cabellos! Luego, de repente, en el momento en que menos lo espera, hundir las largas uñas en su blando pecho, de forma que no muera; pues, si muriese, más tarde no tendríamos la visión de sus miserias.”
El arcángel del mal es una entidad peligrosa que sobresale en el acto del engaño: sus palabras poseen un encanto siniestro que embelesan los pensamientos de los mortales. De este modo, lo veremos interferir en plegarias, diálogos y en los lugares más íntimos de la mente. La violencia física es tan solo uno de sus infinitos recursos para sembrar el caos; su vasta presencia genera horror y corrupción en el ambiente. Maldoror es, ante todo, sádico y está respaldado por un intelecto sin igual, sumado a una creatividad macabra en el arte de masacrar a la raza humana. Entre ellas, crear un foso de ciento sesenta kilómetros cuadrados repleto de piojos.
”Construí esa mina artificial del siguiente modo: arranqué un piojo hembra de los cabellos de la humanidad. Se me vio acostarme con ella durante tres noches consecutivas, y la arrojé al foso. (...) al cabo de varios días, millares de monstruos bullendo en un nudo compacto de materia nacieron a la luz. Ese nudo repugnante se volvió, con el tiempo, cada vez más inmenso, a la vez que adquiría la propiedad líquida del mercurio, y se ramificó en varios brazos, que actualmente se nutren devorándose entre sí (el nacimiento es mayor que la mortalidad), cuando no les arrojo como alimento un bastardo que acaba de nacer y cuya muerte deseaba su madre, o un brazo que voy a cortar alguna muchacha, de noche, gracias al cloroformo.”
Más allá de la repugnancia que pueden generar estos párrafos, Los cantos de Maldoror rozan lo absurdo y lo irónico, es decir, la devoción que manifiesta este engendro del mal por los animales y la naturaleza se traduce en una hipérbole cómica que no pierde su elevado encanto literario. La aparición de animales bestiales y las metamorfosis insólitas son un punto álgido en esta épica. Por ejemplo, el primer amor de Maldoror fue un tiburón.
”Dos muslos nerviosos se adhirieron estrechamente a la piel viscosa del monstruo, como dos sanguijuelas; y los brazos y las aletas entrelazados alrededor del cuerpo del objeto amado que rodeaban con amor, mientras sus gargantas y sus pechos no tardaron en formar únicamente una masa glauca con exhalaciones de fuco
[...]
¡se unieron en una larga, casta y horrenda cópula! [...]”
La historia mantiene la estructura propia de un poema épico, es la “Odisea del mal”: Maldoror encarna la piel de un héroe, y Lautréamont juega a ser Homero. Nosotros, los humanos, somos el enemigo que perecemos ante la protervia de un ser imparable, una maldad que hace dudar hasta al mismo Dios. A medida que avanzamos con la lectura, encontraremos que el nivel de blasfemia aumenta significativamente, y el nombre de Maldoror se eleva con preponderancia por encima de la figura del Creador. Mediante esfuerzos inútiles, los arcángeles celestiales intentan poner fin a la crueldad de este campeón del mal manifestándose a través de objetos mundanos o animales salvajes. Las escenas de combate tienen el nivel trascendental de una epopeya griega. En el siguiente apartado del canto número dos, Maldoror se bate a duelo con un arcángel del Señor, el cual había tomado la forma de una lámpara con mechero de plata.
”[...] Maldoror no sale del templo, y permanece con los ojos clavados en la lámpara del santo lugar… Cree ver una especie de provocación en la actitud de aquella lámpara, que le irrita en sumo grado por su inoportuna presencia. [...] Coge la lámpara para llevarla afuera, pero ella se resiste y crece. Le parece ver unas alas en sus costados, y la parte superior reviste la forma de un busto de angel.
[...]
Sin embargo, se prepara para la lucha con valor, porque su adversario no tiene miedo. [...]Con sus músculos estrangula la garganta del ángel, que ya no puede respirar, [...] se inclina, y lleva la lengua llena de saliva sobre aquella mejilla angélica que lanza miradas suplicantes.”
Lo cantos de Maldoror es uno de los libros más enigmáticos de todos los tiempos, se requiere paciencia y valor para atravesar sus páginas cenagosas. Si podemos entender el carácter artificioso en la creación de una héroe malvado, y el valor literario para crear una oda al mal, apreciaremos la belleza con la que está escrita esta obra. Cada estrofa esgrime una definición o una metáfora para deleitarse. Es cierto que Maldoror "desentraña" a sus víctimas y lo disfruta, pero nosotros, como lectores, debemos desentrañar sus palabras tan bien elucubradas en cada estrofa. Allí encontraremos lo maravilloso de este libro, entre la sangre y la poesía.
No debemos olvidar que el Conde de Lautréamont es considerado el padre del surrealismo, su escritura no está censurada por los límites morales que impone la conciencia, es una marisma roja que ahoga al lector de manera grotesca y sin piedad. Los cantos de esta epopeya no siguen un orden específico respecto al narrador, por momentos es Lautréamont, por momentos Maldoror o, incluso, una combinación de ambas voces que convergen en una polifonía demencial.
Las cartas que Ducasse envió a críticos de la época revelan información valiosa acerca de su obra. En ellas, el autor afirma que los sentimientos son la forma de razonamiento más incompleta que se pueda imaginar, por eso decide cantarle al mal y no hablar del bien.
Su poesía, por otra parte, es un híbrido entre la crítica literaria y los pensamientos farragosos de su yo lírico; difícil, enrevesada y filosa. Al igual que los cantos, también están escritas en prosa y, si bien Maldoror no ocupa el protagonismo de estas composiciones, Ducasse desenfunda una pluma afilada que no titubea al momento de herir a escritores importantes y de renombre.
Esto no solo demuestra la capacidad increíble de este franco uruguayo para romper los esquemas de la literatura, sino el inmenso bagaje cultural que poseía con una edad tan prematura (tan solo veintidós años), y su valiente atrevimiento para ganarse un lugar entre los escritores más grandes. El canon literario, lejos de ser un lugar pacífico, es una guerra constante y él tenía en su poder las armas para combatir y, quizás, ganar.
Hay dos cosas que son ciertas: Isidore Ducasse era un genio y abandonó este mundo demasiado pronto.
En una entrevista con el periódico español El País, César Aira habló sobre sus lecturas favoritas y dijo lo siguiente:
“Los cantos de Maldoror, para mí, fueron una lectura reveladora. Recuerdo haberle dicho a una poeta que fue mi amiga, Alejandra Pizarnik, que Lautréamont y Los cantos de Maldoror me vuelven loco. Alejandra me dijo: ¡Cuidado! Eso puede hacerse literal con este poeta.”
Exhumar las páginas que la literatura oculta en su bitácora del tiempo es una de las cosas que más me fascinan como lector. Descubrir aquellos libros que habitan en las sombras, esperando relucir su contenido fulgurante y revelador: lo ignoto, aparte de su oscura seducción, siempre tendrá algo que ofrecerle a la literatura.
La primera edición de Los cantos de Maldoror (1869) fue impresa por el editor belga Albert Lacroix, pero su temor a la censura impidió que la distribuya a las librerías de Francia. De esta manera, los cantos quedaron sumergidos en el mutismo de un sótano abandonado, acompañados por su contenido impío y blasfemo.
Su autor, el escritor enigma, fue Isidore Ducasse, bajo el pseudónimo Conde de Lautréamont. Los datos biográficos de este joven poeta, que encontró la muerte a los veinticuatro años, son totalmente escasos y no hacen más que aumentar el misterio de su obra. Nacido en Montevideo e hijo de un diplomático francés, nervioso, ordenado y trabajador. Solo escribía de noche, frente a su piano. Murió en 1870, solo, en una habitación pequeña y por las garras tísicas de la época.
Casi veintidós años después de su muerte, la obra de Lautréamont fue definida por André Breton como la expresión de una revelación total que parece exceder las posibilidades humanas. De esta forma, es considerado el padre del surrealismo.
Los cantos de Maldoror son la prueba de la convivencia equilibrada entre la belleza y lo grotesco: Maldoror, arcángel del mal, enemigo de Dios y héroe de esta Odisea, es el protagonista y por momentos propio narrador de estos seis cantos escritos en prosa y divididos por estrofas. La lectura está plagada por los actos violentos e inhumanos que comete el mismo Maldoror, demostrando su odio contra la especie humana y, especialmente, contra el Creador. En esta marisma sangrienta, las palabras de Lautréamont fluyen con notable misantropía y una musicalidad estrambótica subyugada por un “yo lírico” extraño, sediento de sangre y, por momentos, poseído por el mismo Maldoror.
Desde el comienzo, el libro despliega sus versos ponzoñosos a partir de una invocación o epíteto:
“Plegue al cielo que el lector, enardecido y vuelto momentáneamente feroz como lo que lee, encuentre sin desorientarse su camino abrupto y salvaje a través de las desoladas ciénagas de estas páginas sombrías y llenas de veneno; pues, a menos que aporte a su lectura una lógica rigurosa y una tensión de espíritu igual cuando menos a su desconfianza, las emanaciones mortales de este libro empaparán su alma como el agua el azúcar. No conviene que todo el mundo lea las páginas que siguen: solo unos pocos saborearán este fruto amargo sin peligro.”
Las advertencias se vuelven una constante con el correr de las páginas y esconden cierto carácter satírico, es decir, intimidan al lector, lo desafían a seguir leyendo (si es que tiene el valor) y juzgan su entendimiento ante tanto caos. No está demás aclarar que este libro no es para todxs, su lectura puede resultar chocante debido al nivel de violencia explícita con el que se describen las escenas de asesinato. Maldoror, como artífice de estas ejecuciones rocambolescas, no solo demuestra su capacidad para matar hombres, mujeres o niños, sino también su fetiche por hacerlos sufrir.
”Hay que dejarse crecer las uñas durante quince días. ¡Oh! qué dulce es entonces arrancar brutalmente de su lecho a un niño que aún no tiene nada sobre el labio superior, y, con los ojos bien abiertos, ¡simular que se pasa suavemente la mano por su frente, echando hacia atrás sus hermoso cabellos! Luego, de repente, en el momento en que menos lo espera, hundir las largas uñas en su blando pecho, de forma que no muera; pues, si muriese, más tarde no tendríamos la visión de sus miserias.”
El arcángel del mal es una entidad peligrosa que sobresale en el acto del engaño: sus palabras poseen un encanto siniestro que embelesan los pensamientos de los mortales. De este modo, lo veremos interferir en plegarias, diálogos y en los lugares más íntimos de la mente. La violencia física es tan solo uno de sus infinitos recursos para sembrar el caos; su vasta presencia genera horror y corrupción en el ambiente. Maldoror es, ante todo, sádico y está respaldado por un intelecto sin igual, sumado a una creatividad macabra en el arte de masacrar a la raza humana. Entre ellas, crear un foso de ciento sesenta kilómetros cuadrados repleto de piojos.
”Construí esa mina artificial del siguiente modo: arranqué un piojo hembra de los cabellos de la humanidad. Se me vio acostarme con ella durante tres noches consecutivas, y la arrojé al foso. (...) al cabo de varios días, millares de monstruos bullendo en un nudo compacto de materia nacieron a la luz. Ese nudo repugnante se volvió, con el tiempo, cada vez más inmenso, a la vez que adquiría la propiedad líquida del mercurio, y se ramificó en varios brazos, que actualmente se nutren devorándose entre sí (el nacimiento es mayor que la mortalidad), cuando no les arrojo como alimento un bastardo que acaba de nacer y cuya muerte deseaba su madre, o un brazo que voy a cortar alguna muchacha, de noche, gracias al cloroformo.”
Más allá de la repugnancia que pueden generar estos párrafos, Los cantos de Maldoror rozan lo absurdo y lo irónico, es decir, la devoción que manifiesta este engendro del mal por los animales y la naturaleza se traduce en una hipérbole cómica que no pierde su elevado encanto literario. La aparición de animales bestiales y las metamorfosis insólitas son un punto álgido en esta épica. Por ejemplo, el primer amor de Maldoror fue un tiburón.
”Dos muslos nerviosos se adhirieron estrechamente a la piel viscosa del monstruo, como dos sanguijuelas; y los brazos y las aletas entrelazados alrededor del cuerpo del objeto amado que rodeaban con amor, mientras sus gargantas y sus pechos no tardaron en formar únicamente una masa glauca con exhalaciones de fuco
[...]
¡se unieron en una larga, casta y horrenda cópula! [...]”
La historia mantiene la estructura propia de un poema épico, es la “Odisea del mal”: Maldoror encarna la piel de un héroe, y Lautréamont juega a ser Homero. Nosotros, los humanos, somos el enemigo que perecemos ante la protervia de un ser imparable, una maldad que hace dudar hasta al mismo Dios. A medida que avanzamos con la lectura, encontraremos que el nivel de blasfemia aumenta significativamente, y el nombre de Maldoror se eleva con preponderancia por encima de la figura del Creador. Mediante esfuerzos inútiles, los arcángeles celestiales intentan poner fin a la crueldad de este campeón del mal manifestándose a través de objetos mundanos o animales salvajes. Las escenas de combate tienen el nivel trascendental de una epopeya griega. En el siguiente apartado del canto número dos, Maldoror se bate a duelo con un arcángel del Señor, el cual había tomado la forma de una lámpara con mechero de plata.
”[...] Maldoror no sale del templo, y permanece con los ojos clavados en la lámpara del santo lugar… Cree ver una especie de provocación en la actitud de aquella lámpara, que le irrita en sumo grado por su inoportuna presencia. [...] Coge la lámpara para llevarla afuera, pero ella se resiste y crece. Le parece ver unas alas en sus costados, y la parte superior reviste la forma de un busto de angel.
[...]
Sin embargo, se prepara para la lucha con valor, porque su adversario no tiene miedo. [...]Con sus músculos estrangula la garganta del ángel, que ya no puede respirar, [...] se inclina, y lleva la lengua llena de saliva sobre aquella mejilla angélica que lanza miradas suplicantes.”
Lo cantos de Maldoror es uno de los libros más enigmáticos de todos los tiempos, se requiere paciencia y valor para atravesar sus páginas cenagosas. Si podemos entender el carácter artificioso en la creación de una héroe malvado, y el valor literario para crear una oda al mal, apreciaremos la belleza con la que está escrita esta obra. Cada estrofa esgrime una definición o una metáfora para deleitarse. Es cierto que Maldoror "desentraña" a sus víctimas y lo disfruta, pero nosotros, como lectores, debemos desentrañar sus palabras tan bien elucubradas en cada estrofa. Allí encontraremos lo maravilloso de este libro, entre la sangre y la poesía.
No debemos olvidar que el Conde de Lautréamont es considerado el padre del surrealismo, su escritura no está censurada por los límites morales que impone la conciencia, es una marisma roja que ahoga al lector de manera grotesca y sin piedad. Los cantos de esta epopeya no siguen un orden específico respecto al narrador, por momentos es Lautréamont, por momentos Maldoror o, incluso, una combinación de ambas voces que convergen en una polifonía demencial.
Las cartas que Ducasse envió a críticos de la época revelan información valiosa acerca de su obra. En ellas, el autor afirma que los sentimientos son la forma de razonamiento más incompleta que se pueda imaginar, por eso decide cantarle al mal y no hablar del bien.
Su poesía, por otra parte, es un híbrido entre la crítica literaria y los pensamientos farragosos de su yo lírico; difícil, enrevesada y filosa. Al igual que los cantos, también están escritas en prosa y, si bien Maldoror no ocupa el protagonismo de estas composiciones, Ducasse desenfunda una pluma afilada que no titubea al momento de herir a escritores importantes y de renombre.
Esto no solo demuestra la capacidad increíble de este franco uruguayo para romper los esquemas de la literatura, sino el inmenso bagaje cultural que poseía con una edad tan prematura (tan solo veintidós años), y su valiente atrevimiento para ganarse un lugar entre los escritores más grandes. El canon literario, lejos de ser un lugar pacífico, es una guerra constante y él tenía en su poder las armas para combatir y, quizás, ganar.
Hay dos cosas que son ciertas: Isidore Ducasse era un genio y abandonó este mundo demasiado pronto.
December 30, 2014
The Count wrote this despicable (and I mean that as a compliment) poetic novel when he was 22 and it shows. It burns with the passion of someone who still believes in absolutes, believes he is cursed forever, has given up trying to reclaim what is already lost (innocence, faith), renounces the world and refuses to repent. In this sense it is both a nice reminder and a grim memory of that turbulent time in life.
Many of the sections read like black metal lyrics, which is cool, but also means they are way over the top. He makes his points early (some good, some debatable or forgettable) and drives them home with blow after blow of vivid misanthropy. This isn't light reading and it isn't accessible. Granted, some sections floored me with their awesomeness, but all in all many were too long and at their worst, even emo.
If I were 22 I would probably give this bad boy 4 or 5 satanic stars. I hesitate to call it "immature," because its best quality is how it harnesses the raw emotion of a young poet filled with hate. At this point in my life, however, it isn't as mind-bottling as it might once have been.
Many of the sections read like black metal lyrics, which is cool, but also means they are way over the top. He makes his points early (some good, some debatable or forgettable) and drives them home with blow after blow of vivid misanthropy. This isn't light reading and it isn't accessible. Granted, some sections floored me with their awesomeness, but all in all many were too long and at their worst, even emo.
If I were 22 I would probably give this bad boy 4 or 5 satanic stars. I hesitate to call it "immature," because its best quality is how it harnesses the raw emotion of a young poet filled with hate. At this point in my life, however, it isn't as mind-bottling as it might once have been.
Read
April 25, 2021🖤 Малдоророва певања ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
☠ Лотреамон је био висок, мршав и повучен младић, са косом која му је падала преко чела, како га је шездесетак година после преурањене смрти описао његов школски друг. Сећа се да је волео Поа, поседовао бујну машту и испољавао интересовање за зоологију. Његови школски састави били су морбидни, попут Малдорорових певања које ће касније створити. Овај осамљеник у Певањима тражи сродну душу, али је никада не проналази. Одаћу вам тајну. 143 године након Лотреамонове смрти, Осоре Мизантроп, који умногоме одговара пређашњим описима, запутио се у библиотеку у потрази за том душом. Речено му је да немају ниједну Лотреамонову књигу. Можда му се тада не би свидела, јер је за њу потребно мало веће читалачко искуство од онога у деветнаестогодишњака; тачније, потребна је отвореност ка експерименту, натуралистичкој грубости, прашњавој мелодрами.
🕸 Лотреамон је у Певањима мизантоп, мизотеиста, романтичар, симболиста, готичар, надреалиста, постмодерниста, песимиста, проклетник, путописац/хроничар, лиричар, забављач... Његову црнохуморну, поспрдну, надреално-шокантну, метајезичку садржину оправдава фрагментарна, поетско-прозна, химерна форма, из чега произилази да конвенције таквог колажно-пастишног жанра, односно поигравање истим, диктирају реципијенту другачија очекивања у односу на роман (попут Oгњеног анђела), а отуда се и критеријуми за оцењивање разликују.
💀 Следи одломак из студије (Pantović, Bojana Stojanović. Pesma u prozi ili prozaida. Službeni glasnik, 2012.):
Following excerpts are taken from: Jäger, Frank. "Evolution and Time in the Chants de Maldoror." Biological Time, Historical Time. Brill Rodopi, 2018. 196-206:
The following sentence from Jäger contains a factual mistake: ’’In evolutionary biology, this struggle for life does not take into account individual sorts, it only considers life in a general sense, aiming towards progression through adaption and selection of genera.’’ Natural evolution is not always ’’progressive’’ nor it has any ‘’aims’’ or goals; natural evolution is not a will or plan, neither inherent to living beings nor external (design). Artificial selection, on the other hand, is often intentionally designed, planed and performed by people.
Poésies ⭐⭐
Постоје спорења око праве намене есеја Поезије у коме се прокламује насупрот Певањима и тадашњим писцима, а кроз плагирање појединих филозофа. Три су могућности у оптицају:
1) Лотреамон је нагло променио светоназор (мало вероватно);
2) Поезије су травка спаса за коју се писац хвата јер је прво штампање Малдорорових певања заустављено (изашло је само неколико примерака које је Лотреамон добио на руке), а истовремено му понестаје новца и мора нешто написати како би одобровољио не само оца да настави да га финансира, већ, још важније, публику;
3) Поезије су дубоко субверзивне у свом цинизму, оне су подсмех, пародија, а не истинско морално стајалиште (Haac, Oscar A. "Lautréamont's Conversion: The Structure and Meaning of Poésies." Modern Language Notes (1950): 369-375).
Омиљено у Малдороровим певањима
Писма, Поговор и квалитет превода ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
☠ Лотреамон је био висок, мршав и повучен младић, са косом која му је падала преко чела, како га је шездесетак година после преурањене смрти описао његов школски друг. Сећа се да је волео Поа, поседовао бујну машту и испољавао интересовање за зоологију. Његови школски састави били су морбидни, попут Малдорорових певања које ће касније створити. Овај осамљеник у Певањима тражи сродну душу, али је никада не проналази. Одаћу вам тајну. 143 године након Лотреамонове смрти, Осоре Мизантроп, који умногоме одговара пређашњим описима, запутио се у библиотеку у потрази за том душом. Речено му је да немају ниједну Лотреамонову књигу. Можда му се тада не би свидела, јер је за њу потребно мало веће читалачко искуство од онога у деветнаестогодишњака; тачније, потребна је отвореност ка експерименту, натуралистичкој грубости, прашњавој мелодрами.
🕸 Лотреамон је у Певањима мизантоп, мизотеиста, романтичар, симболиста, готичар, надреалиста, постмодерниста, песимиста, проклетник, путописац/хроничар, лиричар, забављач... Његову црнохуморну, поспрдну, надреално-шокантну, метајезичку садржину оправдава фрагментарна, поетско-прозна, химерна форма, из чега произилази да конвенције таквог колажно-пастишног жанра, односно поигравање истим, диктирају реципијенту другачија очекивања у односу на роман (попут Oгњеног анђела), а отуда се и критеријуми за оцењивање разликују.
💀 Следи одломак из студије (Pantović, Bojana Stojanović. Pesma u prozi ili prozaida. Službeni glasnik, 2012.):
„[I]dealni čitalac“ pojavljuje se kao neka vrsta pesnikovog dvojnika, što je naročito došlo do izraza u Lotreamonovim Maldororovim pevanjima, delu u kojem se čitalac ili sutvorac teksta svesno dovodi u zabunu u vezi s njegovim žanrovskim pretpostavkama (lirska proza, horor roman, parodija, poema, filozofsko-poetski spev zasnovan na pesmi u prozi). (…) Vratimo se sada još jednom Lotreamonovim Maldororovim pevanjima, jednom od najzagonetnijih i najbriljantnijih dela francuskog simbolizma, koje je otkriveno tek tri do četiri decenije kasnije, sa konstituisanjem nadrealizma. Ova „produžena pesma u prozi“ će svojom jezičkom eruptivnom snagom, violentnom naracijom, žanrovskom višepolnošću i radikalnim tematsko-motivskim sklopom sastavljenim od tamnih senki podsvesti, bizarno-pervertiranih snova i prizora, kao i bestijalnim cinizmom i crnim humorom, postati, pored Remboovih tekstova, legitimno nasleđe francuskih nadrealista, kako pisaca (Breton, Supo, Aragon, Mišo, Ponž, Žid), tako i avangardnih slikara (osobito Dalija). Zasnovan na bajronovskom tipu junaka, Maldoror, koji se oglašava i u prvom i u trećem licu, neumoljivo je napustio i boga i ljudsku vrstu, slaveći zlo do paroksizma. Anarhična struktura dela, koje upošljava jezik na način dotada neviđen u francuskom i evropskom pesništvu ujedno, kako je već naglašeno, „tera čitaoce da svet ne uzimaju zdravo za gotovo. On dovodi u pitanje kompletno prihvatanje realnosti zasnovane na postojećim kulturnim tradicijama i zahteva od njih da je vide onakvom kakva ona jeste: jedna nestvarna noćna mora koja se sve više produžava, jer usnuli misli da je budan“ (de Jonge 1973: 1). Lotreamonova polarizacija dobra i zla, lepote i ružnoće koja je praćena bolom, patnjom i konačno – smrću, nadovezuje se na Bodlerovu „Pesmu o hašišu“ iz Veštačkih rajeva, pitajući se da li su dobro i zlo iste, ili pak dve različite stvari (Lautreamont 1984: 50). I da li je taj „satanistički duh“ izazvan opijatima u stanju da izvede „ekstrakciju sublimnog (uzvišenog) zla“ na isti onaj način na koji je to činjeno sa dobrotom, odnosno lepotom? Zanimljivo je da je u pismu svom izdavaču Lotreamon naglasio da je poput drugih pisaca (Bajrona, Mickijeviča, Miltona, Bodlera) pevao o zlu, te ponešto „preuveličao njegov dijapazon, da bi rekao nešto novo [...] jer se očajanje pojavljuje kao znak ugnjetavanja čitalaca i primorava ga da žudi za dobrom kao za lekom [...]“ (Guerlack 1990: 125). Otuda su dva temeljna principa Maldororovih pevanja njegova borba sa Svemogućim, sa bogom, odnosno – na drugom nivou sa ljudima, koji su zapravo potencijalni čitaoci njegovog dela. U tom smislu, čitalac je apsorbovan i asimilovan „stranicama njegovog srca“ na opasan i smrtonosan način, kako ga na početku upozorava sam pisac. Zbog toga čitalac biva uvučen u neku vrstu „vampirske strukture teksta“ (Guerlack 1990: 126), pa se od njega očekuje da postane agresivan i kriminalan kao i sam Maldoror, te da se između njih uspostavi performativna veza koja podrazumeva uključivanje u zločine, perverzije i ostale blasfemije kojima pribegava Lotreamon na svom nihilističkom putu, vođen apoteozom okeana, a zapravo sveprisutnim osećanjem smrti. U Maldororovim pevanjima prikazana je, dakle, agresivna volja čoveka koji pliva, a potom i revanš vode – plima i oseka besa koji grmi i odjekuje. Čitalac Maldororovih pevanja je svedok posebne dinamike koju ljudsko biće stiče kada je u neposrednom i učestalom dodiru sa silovitim vodama. To je primer suštinskog organizma imaginacije. U Pevanjima se sreće ona mišićava imaginacija o kojoj je maločas bilo reči povodom Lotreamonove energetske metapoetike. To je nesumnjivi primer neposrednosti simbola koje „materijalna imaginacija stvara kada posmatra elemente“ (Bašlar 1998: 23–24). Vampirizam, nasilja i zločini nad decom, prostitucija, silovanje, sodomizacija, pripadaju tradiciji tzv. crnog romantizma (Prac 1974: 399–400), ali nagoveštavaju i morbidne vizije nemačkih ekspresionista, osobito, kako ćemo videti, pesme u prozi Georga Trakla. Jedna od napoznatijih scena jeste ona iz šestog pevanja o susretu i ljubavnom činu između Maldorora i ženke ajkule. Ona pokazuje kako se ritam i slikovnost pesme prenose na lirsko-ciničan način u prozni iskaz, koji pritom ostaje pesma u prozi sa narativnom funkcijom, ali izrazito simboličkim završetkom. Takav tip diskursa u mnogo čemu podseća na pojedine tekstove srpskog avangardiste Rastka Petrovića. Zanimljivo je to što Maldoror, zapravo, traži srodnu dušu među živim bićima (ne nužno ljudima), koja ukazuje na simbolistički duhovni princip, naglašavajući najpre da su on i ajkula poleteli jedno drugom u zagrljaj kao brat i sestra. Da li je našao saputnicu koja je strašnija i više zla od njega? Posle naglašene duhovne privlačnosti između mišićavog, lepog mladića i ljigave ribe-ubice dolazi i do čulno-seksualnog spajanja koje je opisano gotovo romantično („u bračnoj ložnici zapenjenih talasa“), iako „u dugom, čednom i gnusnom sparivanju“. Maldoror je na kraju ove scene nekako prevladao svoju ubitačnu samoću i poverovao da neko može imati „isti pogled na svet kao on“. Potraga Lotreamonovog junaka za „čistom dušom“ u mnogome nagoveštava ekspresionističku idealizaciju nevinosti faunalnog sveta (Georg Trakl, slikar Franc Mark), nasuprot izopačenosti ljudske rase koja se odrekla boga i zbog toga ne zaslužuje njegov povratak (Mönig 1996: 24–35).Pantović, Bojana Stojanović. Pesma u prozi ili prozaida. Službeni glasnik, 2012.
Following excerpts are taken from: Jäger, Frank. "Evolution and Time in the Chants de Maldoror." Biological Time, Historical Time. Brill Rodopi, 2018. 196-206:
’’The almost encyclopaedic, zoological occurrence of animals or animal-related themes in the Chants de Maldoror not only suggests an intrinsic fascination with the variety and diversity of life, but it also goes along with the idea of the evolutionof life itself. Gaston Bachelard has claimed to have found 185 different animals and more than 400 references to animal life in the text. (...)Jäger, Frank. "Evolution and Time in the Chants de Maldoror." Biological Time, Historical Time. Brill Rodopi, 2018. 196-206.
Eugene Thacker even compares the text to a deformed organism, calling it a “teratological anomaly composed of bits and pieces, a corpus left unfinished or untended” (Thacker, 2013: 84). The protagonist of the Chants is no less hybrid, he resembles a hyaena and his numerous metamorphoses allow him to interact with other animals. (...)
This imagined and even wished-for animal descendance of the protagonist proves to be one of the most constant themes of the Chants as Maldoror’s encounters with animals of all kind by far outnumber his encounters with human beings. (...)
The feeling that what makes human life so special and at the same time so frightening for Maldoror is its hybrid form, constituted by sheer animalistic vitality on the one hand and rational reflection on the other. It also contains the announcement of scientific discovery which is still but a mere presentiment but which pays tribute to the inspiring dynamics of an emerging science that is about to reveal the secrets of human life, often bringing about shocking realizations such as in the field of anatomy. (...)
Maldoror’s destructive attitudes towards life spring from his thinking and reflecting mind, a reflection which has some difficulty coping with the brutal and ultimately pointless conditions of the ever-regenerating circle of life. His hybrid nature can thus be considered a mirror of the human condition, which has time and again been torn apart by the realization of its material, animal-like nature and its ideal spiritual self-reflection. (...)
The question thus remains: what is the role and the function of this seemingly almighty but destructive character? Taking into account the entire text, a lot of evidence suggests that Maldoror’s role is indeed a transcendental one and that he could be considered a personification of the abstract idea of natural selection or evolution itself which of course includes the circle of life and death. However, one of the central contradictions of the text and for the character of Maldoror himself is the tension created by the fascination for life on the one hand and the will to destroy it on the other. There is more to this than a mere variation of the old dichotomy of life and death, although it obviously plays a role when discussing the problem of natural history and evolution. Maldoror’s untamed lust for destruction of life suggests that he might be considered an embodiment of the idea of evolution itself which forms, filters, and eliminates life according to the indispensable and often cruel laws of nature. In this way, Maldoror’s metamorphoses could be seen to embody both the potential diversity of nature with its numerous ramifications and the decay of weak, non-viable life at the same time. Indeed, more often than not does Maldoror’s encounter with other living creatures resemble a testing game of resistance, mirroring some of nature’s own methods of trial and error when it comes to natural selection. Supportive of this thesis is the fact that Ducasse depicts not only the encounter with sharks, lions and other animals which are commonly associated with strength and brutal violent animality, but he also comes up with some of the more inconspicuous, however not less resistant and adaptable forms of life. By making Maldodor a vector of diseases like the gangrene, Ducasse brings into play contamination, demonstrating that the resistance of germs and diseases is central to both the creation and the destruction of life. The destructive methods used by Maldoror, ranging from outward physical violence to the infection with contagious diseases, covers the whole spectrum of natural-biological contingencies which ultimately determine the development of life. (...)
Maldoror carries the burden of all living beings past and present and, even more important, that he carries them since the beginning of all life for eternity. His is an eternal combat against the never-ending and seemingly pointless struggle to pass on the germ of life onto each and every generation. The vague intuition according to which life is the result of a complex chain of metamorphoses which have taken place over the course of thousands of years is associated with a somewhat prophetic outlook into the future of scientific discoveries, especially within the field of natural history. (...)
His character therefore represents a kind of general mould of life itself which symbolizes the potential of the diversity of life whose exploration had only just begun in the 19th century. (...)
[A]ny strive for individual life is barely significant when considered in the global picture of the struggle of the race. (...)
Ecstasy of living and the will to destruct are closely intertwined and are a direct result of this exuberant, aspiring character, which can ultimately be considered as an abstract representation of the paradox principles of life itself. The hybrid collage form of the text is a consequent result of this.’’
The following sentence from Jäger contains a factual mistake: ’’In evolutionary biology, this struggle for life does not take into account individual sorts, it only considers life in a general sense, aiming towards progression through adaption and selection of genera.’’ Natural evolution is not always ’’progressive’’ nor it has any ‘’aims’’ or goals; natural evolution is not a will or plan, neither inherent to living beings nor external (design). Artificial selection, on the other hand, is often intentionally designed, planed and performed by people.
Poésies ⭐⭐
Постоје спорења око праве намене есеја Поезије у коме се прокламује насупрот Певањима и тадашњим писцима, а кроз плагирање појединих филозофа. Три су могућности у оптицају:
1) Лотреамон је нагло променио светоназор (мало вероватно);
2) Поезије су травка спаса за коју се писац хвата јер је прво штампање Малдорорових певања заустављено (изашло је само неколико примерака које је Лотреамон добио на руке), а истовремено му понестаје новца и мора нешто написати како би одобровољио не само оца да настави да га финансира, већ, још важније, публику;
3) Поезије су дубоко субверзивне у свом цинизму, оне су подсмех, пародија, а не истинско морално стајалиште (Haac, Oscar A. "Lautréamont's Conversion: The Structure and Meaning of Poésies." Modern Language Notes (1950): 369-375).
Омиљено у Малдороровим певањима
Писма, Поговор и квалитет превода ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
February 26, 2014
There's a certain way to approach this book.
If you try to read it like a normal book, like a regular piece of prose, you'll have to get out a notebook, and then reread the same paragraphs over and over again. It took me a long time to get through this work, because of the nature in which this was written.
This book is extremely beautiful, and very well crafted. However, when you read it, you need to look at it like you would a piece of abstract art. See the whole picture first, then look closer, move away and look at it from far away again, move closer and begin to inspect the smaller working parts.
Looking at abstract art is a lot like meditation for me, which is what this piece felt like. I had to let go of my preconceived notions as a reader. Often you go into a book, trying to guess ahead what will happen, what it all means. I tend to do this a lot, and because of that, I had to work slower towards it's completion.
If like me, you MUST find meaning in things, then this will be slow progress for you as it was for me. And one reading is nowhere near enough. I will be reading this book for a long time. Just as I would meditate on a painting.
Parts of this book are revolting to look at. Horrifying even. I felt like it was staining my soul as I read it, but the narrator warns us of this before we even begin. It's one of the reasons that I see genius running through this piece.
It reminds me of House of Leaves in the sense that it's construction is very much psychological, and a lot of careful thought went into how things were placed in this book.
Highly recommended, but not an easy, quick, or happy read.
If you try to read it like a normal book, like a regular piece of prose, you'll have to get out a notebook, and then reread the same paragraphs over and over again. It took me a long time to get through this work, because of the nature in which this was written.
This book is extremely beautiful, and very well crafted. However, when you read it, you need to look at it like you would a piece of abstract art. See the whole picture first, then look closer, move away and look at it from far away again, move closer and begin to inspect the smaller working parts.
Looking at abstract art is a lot like meditation for me, which is what this piece felt like. I had to let go of my preconceived notions as a reader. Often you go into a book, trying to guess ahead what will happen, what it all means. I tend to do this a lot, and because of that, I had to work slower towards it's completion.
If like me, you MUST find meaning in things, then this will be slow progress for you as it was for me. And one reading is nowhere near enough. I will be reading this book for a long time. Just as I would meditate on a painting.
Parts of this book are revolting to look at. Horrifying even. I felt like it was staining my soul as I read it, but the narrator warns us of this before we even begin. It's one of the reasons that I see genius running through this piece.
It reminds me of House of Leaves in the sense that it's construction is very much psychological, and a lot of careful thought went into how things were placed in this book.
Highly recommended, but not an easy, quick, or happy read.
Read
July 28, 2022It will not be original on my part to assert that reading Maldoror in an attempt to understand what is happening is an exercise in futility, and a disservice to a text which, undoubtedly, stood at the vanguard of a moment of rupture in literature. It is in how Lautréamont uses language that lies the true pleasure of engagement with this work. Multiplicity and evasion (and I mean this in the best sense) pervades Les Chants de Maldoror. The text is a living, breathing, pulsating tentacled monster, consisting of discrete patches of cladistically nonconforming tissue: slime, skin, fur, scales. It grows in size and changes in form, as volatile as the fabled creatures it describes, in constant metamorphosis; as if the dynamic flux and flow of the natural life that inhabits many pages of the book bleed into its very binding. In the second canto, Lautréamont describes the 'carnal embrace' of Maldoror (the character) with a female shark amidst a bloody shipwreck in third-person, and as the union between human and shark becomes literal, transforming into an oozing mass in the water, so dissolves the boundary between author and protagonist, the narration mutating to first-person. These utterly gothic crumblings of human subjectivity and corporeality, the shattering of fixed identities, as well as transfiguration into different animals with rebellious abandon and passionate longing abound in the book. Nothing is safe from such liquidating assaults: Neither the reader, writer, narrator or hero. Every form is fluid. Maldoror blends prose poem, roman noir and confession at the same time as it breaks through their conventions. It takes up narrative stability in one section and throws it out of the window in the next. It pulls on the —rather fashionable— revolting romanticism of Baudelaire and Musset to the point of tearing it apart and birthing something new. The language is so anarchic, so liberated, so constantly blurring the line between metaphor and reality as to become infinite. There is no closure, there is only the chase, among the forests in one moment, among the stars the next, of the tentacled monster. There is only surrendering your subjectivity, your corporeality, your very truth and identity, becoming one with the monster as tenderly as does Maldoror with a female shark.
August 11, 2014
Isidore Ducasse nacque a Montevideo, studiò in Francia, pubblicò i Canti di Maldoror e le Poesie, scomparve. L'introduzione a questa edizione riporta una testimonianza di chi seguì con lui i corsi di retorica e filosofia al Lycée impérial di Pau: «La sua immaginazione si rivelò compiutamente in un discorso francese in cui aveva colto l'occasione per accumulare, con un terribile lusso di epiteti, le più spaventose immagini della morte: tutto un susseguirsi di ossa spezzate, viscere penzolanti, carni sanguinanti o ridotte in poltiglia».
Maldoror è surreale, malvagio, infernale: i suoi canti sono sacrileghi, blasfemi; descrivono con passione le peggiori crudeltà: omicidi, stupri, torture, mutilazioni, rapimenti. Si tratta dell'opera ancora acerba di un autore giovanissimo, il cui stile è spesso smodatamente ricercato; senza dubbio intendeva confondere e infastidire i suoi lettori, ma questo proposito non può giustificare un'incoerenza che - specialmente in un genere difficile e misconosciuto come quello della poesia in prosa - tradisce un'ambizione eccessiva. Tuttavia i più attenti sapranno riconoscere e apprezzare la sua ironia; il modo in cui, quando sembra interamente rapito dalla descrizione di un crimine, si diverte ad annientarne l'effetto con battute rapide e imprevedibili: un espediente efficacissimo, forse merito della sua età.
Nonostante le tante bestialità, la scriteriata iconoclastia e l'abbondanza di dettagli ripugnanti, proseguendo la lettura si avverte una crescente, silenziosa sete di pietà e affetto; imprecisa, perché mai dichiarata, eppure - forse proprio perché lasciata all'intuizione del lettore - davvero commovente. Un sentimento tanto delicato non è precluso all'artefice di allucinazioni così violente, né vietato ai suoi lettori: Maldoror non è velenoso; è solitario e scortese, ma sincero. Gli aggettivi comunemente associati a questo libro ("maledetto", "disgustoso", "spaventoso") sono certamente appropriati se ci si limita a considerarne l'argomento, la superficie; del tutto insufficienti se si vuole provare a valutarne l'effetto, il mistero, la capacità poetica.
Maldoror è surreale, malvagio, infernale: i suoi canti sono sacrileghi, blasfemi; descrivono con passione le peggiori crudeltà: omicidi, stupri, torture, mutilazioni, rapimenti. Si tratta dell'opera ancora acerba di un autore giovanissimo, il cui stile è spesso smodatamente ricercato; senza dubbio intendeva confondere e infastidire i suoi lettori, ma questo proposito non può giustificare un'incoerenza che - specialmente in un genere difficile e misconosciuto come quello della poesia in prosa - tradisce un'ambizione eccessiva. Tuttavia i più attenti sapranno riconoscere e apprezzare la sua ironia; il modo in cui, quando sembra interamente rapito dalla descrizione di un crimine, si diverte ad annientarne l'effetto con battute rapide e imprevedibili: un espediente efficacissimo, forse merito della sua età.
Nonostante le tante bestialità, la scriteriata iconoclastia e l'abbondanza di dettagli ripugnanti, proseguendo la lettura si avverte una crescente, silenziosa sete di pietà e affetto; imprecisa, perché mai dichiarata, eppure - forse proprio perché lasciata all'intuizione del lettore - davvero commovente. Un sentimento tanto delicato non è precluso all'artefice di allucinazioni così violente, né vietato ai suoi lettori: Maldoror non è velenoso; è solitario e scortese, ma sincero. Gli aggettivi comunemente associati a questo libro ("maledetto", "disgustoso", "spaventoso") sono certamente appropriati se ci si limita a considerarne l'argomento, la superficie; del tutto insufficienti se si vuole provare a valutarne l'effetto, il mistero, la capacità poetica.
October 31, 2017
Perhaps there's a reason why Lautréamont's celebrity never reached the heights achieved by his contemporary Athur Rimbaud. Les Chants are uneven and sometimes of suspect quality: this is especially seen in the second section of Canto II, where, after giving a typically Ducassian, abandon-all-hope warning diatribe, Ducasse devotes a few pages to the horrors of... writer's block. These are the "poison-filled pages" I've been warned about? A horrific description of Lautréamont's stalled creative process? Later in Canto III a lay is devoted to the supreme evils of... mathematics. And it's about as interesting as a high school Algebra class. Hoo boy.
On the other hand, there are times when Ducasse makes good on his promise of debauchery and some truly disturbing prose is presented. Ducasse has the most success here with his Sade-like depictions of sexual perversion, rape and body horror. To witness the cool nonchalance with which Maldoror cuts a bloody grin from ear to ear on his own face, just to see himself smile, is a revelatory moment.
Ducasse also finds success on a technical level. His successful elimination of an established narrative perspective anticipates Joyce's by 50 years. A simple look at the title of the work reveals how twisted his web is: the book is in praise of Maldoror, a fictional demon, and is supposedly written by a man named Lautréamont, who is never mentioned in the work itself. The name-game web is further complicated upon learning that the real author's birth name is Isidore Ducasse- or "I.D.".
Les Chants also anticipate a very 20th century phenomena among novelists: the obsessive and morbid cataloging of arcane myths and old prophecies from various sources. The same subjects that fascinated Ducasse (Biblical accounts of demons, gothic poetry, existential ruminations on birth and death) would inspire H.P. Lovecraft, Dylan Thomas, Jorge Luis Borges, William S. Burroughs and Philip K. Dick a century later.
Les Chants de Maldoror, despite its warts, is a highly entertaining and nourishing work.
On the other hand, there are times when Ducasse makes good on his promise of debauchery and some truly disturbing prose is presented. Ducasse has the most success here with his Sade-like depictions of sexual perversion, rape and body horror. To witness the cool nonchalance with which Maldoror cuts a bloody grin from ear to ear on his own face, just to see himself smile, is a revelatory moment.
Ducasse also finds success on a technical level. His successful elimination of an established narrative perspective anticipates Joyce's by 50 years. A simple look at the title of the work reveals how twisted his web is: the book is in praise of Maldoror, a fictional demon, and is supposedly written by a man named Lautréamont, who is never mentioned in the work itself. The name-game web is further complicated upon learning that the real author's birth name is Isidore Ducasse- or "I.D.".
Les Chants also anticipate a very 20th century phenomena among novelists: the obsessive and morbid cataloging of arcane myths and old prophecies from various sources. The same subjects that fascinated Ducasse (Biblical accounts of demons, gothic poetry, existential ruminations on birth and death) would inspire H.P. Lovecraft, Dylan Thomas, Jorge Luis Borges, William S. Burroughs and Philip K. Dick a century later.
Les Chants de Maldoror, despite its warts, is a highly entertaining and nourishing work.
Want to read
December 8, 2015Free download in French available at Project Gutenberg.
Read
September 3, 2022Somewhat obscure surrealist masterpiece. Useful reference for making passionate love to a shark—
June 13, 2007
I read this because Vollmann talks about it so much, and this book itself is filled with "beautiful sentences," as William T likes to talk about, plus it's published by Exact Change, AKA Damon & Naomi, formerly of Galaxie 500.
November 5, 2020
Maldoror is a bizarre work, to say this least; this is the second time I’ve read it and I still don’t feel like I have much of a grasp on it. Surreal, brutal and beautiful. The inclusion here of all known works by the author, as well as a wealth of notes and biographical information, make this book a treasure.
October 30, 2021
Another one of those writers that died young and left behind little, but made a mark. Maldoror is a masterpiece. Combining surrealism, violence and misanthropy it creates something completely unique, is this a novel, a poem? Or a transgressive steam of consciousness nightmare. Tarantulas, giant glow worms, sex with sharks, violence against children, blasphemy, prostitution, homosexuality, it's a ride and it pulls no punches.
September 28, 2016
This volume is excellent for studying the small volume of works by Lautreamont/Ducasse (who I shall henceforth refer to as L/D; the shifting displacement of identity is central to these works).
In a sense these works are at the heights of literature, dissolving in their very creation or unfolding. As well, they seem to have consumed their writer to the point of his non-existence. Having left no memoir (as he says in the Poésies), all that is left of him, all that remains, are these two short works. For L/D, creation is intimately bound up with destruction; this makes him a writer par excellence.
Destruction, that is, not only of biography, but of tradition, form, and language itself. The Surrealists adored L/D for his writing's ability to obscure and dissolve reality and reason, law and humanity. Le Chants destroys any sense of continuity, of sequential time, of all previous narrative forms. Through these destructions the space is opened for the creation of the work that we may read, that opens with the strange statement of the Noli me legere, which exists as an expiriment in writing which opens us up to the experience of the vacuous void that is at the heart of writing. L/D's destructions attempt to claw us back to the origins of all writing.
A similar though different attempt is made through the later Poésies. Here the destruction of Romanticism and language is saught as a way out, a way forward, towards the infinite. Writing is here viewed as an infinite motion. L/D distorts and destroys tradition through his plagiarism, though harnessing it to "correct" these writings, in order to say something different. He taps into the into the infinitely shifting motions of language, the vacuous depths of iterability.
It would seem that L/D's destructions are always aimed at a further creation, reaching towards an infinite outside. How we are to understand the radical shift between the two works cannot be definitively said, however. Was the shift premeditated, a mere act or ruse? Did something occur that caused L/D to transform his life and views? A disillusionment? We can never know for certain, for with L/D there is never any certainty. Death encircles all his writings. Lautreamont died writing Les Chants, disappeared to allow it to come forth. Ducasse died writing the Poésies, leaving them ever but a fragment, ever unfinished. In a sense the work itself has yet to even begin.
All is shrouded in question. Death exudes from these pages. They open onto the unique space that is at the heart of writing; a space that is nowhere amd nothing at all. The void of creatiin at the heart of destruction.
They must be read, thought through again, creating yet another shift. These works are the (un)working of difference.
In a sense these works are at the heights of literature, dissolving in their very creation or unfolding. As well, they seem to have consumed their writer to the point of his non-existence. Having left no memoir (as he says in the Poésies), all that is left of him, all that remains, are these two short works. For L/D, creation is intimately bound up with destruction; this makes him a writer par excellence.
Destruction, that is, not only of biography, but of tradition, form, and language itself. The Surrealists adored L/D for his writing's ability to obscure and dissolve reality and reason, law and humanity. Le Chants destroys any sense of continuity, of sequential time, of all previous narrative forms. Through these destructions the space is opened for the creation of the work that we may read, that opens with the strange statement of the Noli me legere, which exists as an expiriment in writing which opens us up to the experience of the vacuous void that is at the heart of writing. L/D's destructions attempt to claw us back to the origins of all writing.
A similar though different attempt is made through the later Poésies. Here the destruction of Romanticism and language is saught as a way out, a way forward, towards the infinite. Writing is here viewed as an infinite motion. L/D distorts and destroys tradition through his plagiarism, though harnessing it to "correct" these writings, in order to say something different. He taps into the into the infinitely shifting motions of language, the vacuous depths of iterability.
It would seem that L/D's destructions are always aimed at a further creation, reaching towards an infinite outside. How we are to understand the radical shift between the two works cannot be definitively said, however. Was the shift premeditated, a mere act or ruse? Did something occur that caused L/D to transform his life and views? A disillusionment? We can never know for certain, for with L/D there is never any certainty. Death encircles all his writings. Lautreamont died writing Les Chants, disappeared to allow it to come forth. Ducasse died writing the Poésies, leaving them ever but a fragment, ever unfinished. In a sense the work itself has yet to even begin.
All is shrouded in question. Death exudes from these pages. They open onto the unique space that is at the heart of writing; a space that is nowhere amd nothing at all. The void of creatiin at the heart of destruction.
They must be read, thought through again, creating yet another shift. These works are the (un)working of difference.
October 10, 2016
A poetic tale in prose, laying out evil in the character of Maldoror, this book is certainly a very different and special ride through murder, sadism and extremely odd and often very surprising images of nature. From the smallest (flees) to the biggest (sharks), it plays around with metaphors and hallucinations of all kinds and no critic has been able to pigeonhole it so far. What is certainly known is that it served as a kind of manifesto for the French surrealists and went way beyond the conventions of its time. In the tradition of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, Ducasse (the author's real name) dared to go where very few creatures venture: the bottom of the human soul, the difference between Good and Evil in all its layers. Highly recommended for the brave readers who seek out a confrontational reading experience. But beware of the monsters!
September 29, 2010
Lautreamont is an aesthete of the highest order - the most grotesque, sadistic or revolting images will as often as not serve to counter some prior helping of the innocent or exquisite. The result is always something incisive, revelatory, profound. Maldoror's devotion to evil and continuous violations of the good seem to answer an underlying amorality in the universe at large - his philosophy is one of impious disgust at the hypocrisy of a God (represented as a guilt-ridden incontinent syphilitic drunkard) that would leave its creations at the mercy of one so perverse as he.
In short this deserves its reputation, it is a foul book, yet sublime. I read the Lykiard translation, which is excellent.
In short this deserves its reputation, it is a foul book, yet sublime. I read the Lykiard translation, which is excellent.
January 2, 2023
“Siento no poder mirar a través de estas páginas el rostro del que me lee”
Siendo esta frase introductoria de lo que redactare, el resultado recogido en el Canto V de este libro del precursor del surrealismo, del psicoanálisis, de la escritura en busca de la escritura, Isidore Ducasse, mejor conocido como el Conde de Lautreamont. El poeta de la conciencia, y también del límite de la conciencia. Nacido en Montevideo, pero formalizado bajo la escuela francesa cuando fija su residencia en 1867 en Francia. Un inicio para los arriesgados a leerle su violencia, sus blasfemias, sus perversiones, su “sordo de inmensa ironía”, su rebeldía contra el orden establecido, el grito contra el lenguaje carcelario “RUEGO al cielo que el lector, animado y momentáneamente tan feroz como lo que lee, encuentre, sin desorientarse, su camino abrupto y salvaje, a través de las desoladas ciénagas de estas páginas sombrías y llenas de veneno, pues, a no ser que aporte a su lectura una lógica rigurosa y una tensión espiritual semejante al menos a su desconfianza, las emanaciones mortales de este libro impregnarán su alma lo mismo que hace el agua con el azúcar. No es bueno que todo el mundo lea las páginas que van a seguir; sólo algunos podrán saborear este fruto amargo sin peligro”
Los cantos de Maldoror esta compuesto por seis cantos y poesías, fue uno de esos textos que por la crudeza de sus palabras sufrió el olvido, como bien dirían algunos es un vomito del mal, el mal impreso donde se conjugan voces liricas, temas escabrosos, pederastia, el robo, violación, asesinato, pero aun más motivada por la temprana ida de su autor cuando apenas contaba con veinte tres años. Este texto que estaba en el olvido cayó en manos de Andrés Breton, quien hizo nueva vez darle vida y atraer más lectores, al punto que el mismo Salvador Dalí le hiciera algunas ilustraciones de lo narrado en el texto.
Es un excelente libro, que no se lee una o dos veces, sino varias veces, y te darás cuentas, que lo que dice por más grosero, por los más ruidoso que suenen sus palabras y hechos del principal personaje y el mismo narrador, en ningún momento escapa a los hechos de actualidad, que nos hace recordar de donde venimos, de la ira, la rabia, que “Luchar contra el mal es hacerle demasiado honor.” que “Para conocer las cosas, no es necesario conocer el detalle.” que “Las palabras que expresan el mal están destinadas a tomar una significación de utilidad. Las ideas mejoran. El sentido de las palabras participa en ello.”. Que las múltiples provocaciones del texto, su lirismo, su realismo paradójico y su fervor te hacen sentar pies. Analizar al personaje de Maldoror es cruzarse a través del velo del misterio, en momento es humano, en momento es amorfo, misántropo, humilde y terriblemente arrogante a la vez, Arcángel del Mal, que comete asesinatos por pura diversión, sadismo y perversión. El ultimo Canto y Poesías son las dos mejores partes, que en términos indignados y sangrientos destila su odio a los hombres, su amor por la muerte y la naturaleza, da voz a animales y quimeras. Estamos ante un héroe malvado, satánico en franca lucha con Dios y las concepciones de los hombres.
Siendo esta frase introductoria de lo que redactare, el resultado recogido en el Canto V de este libro del precursor del surrealismo, del psicoanálisis, de la escritura en busca de la escritura, Isidore Ducasse, mejor conocido como el Conde de Lautreamont. El poeta de la conciencia, y también del límite de la conciencia. Nacido en Montevideo, pero formalizado bajo la escuela francesa cuando fija su residencia en 1867 en Francia. Un inicio para los arriesgados a leerle su violencia, sus blasfemias, sus perversiones, su “sordo de inmensa ironía”, su rebeldía contra el orden establecido, el grito contra el lenguaje carcelario “RUEGO al cielo que el lector, animado y momentáneamente tan feroz como lo que lee, encuentre, sin desorientarse, su camino abrupto y salvaje, a través de las desoladas ciénagas de estas páginas sombrías y llenas de veneno, pues, a no ser que aporte a su lectura una lógica rigurosa y una tensión espiritual semejante al menos a su desconfianza, las emanaciones mortales de este libro impregnarán su alma lo mismo que hace el agua con el azúcar. No es bueno que todo el mundo lea las páginas que van a seguir; sólo algunos podrán saborear este fruto amargo sin peligro”
Los cantos de Maldoror esta compuesto por seis cantos y poesías, fue uno de esos textos que por la crudeza de sus palabras sufrió el olvido, como bien dirían algunos es un vomito del mal, el mal impreso donde se conjugan voces liricas, temas escabrosos, pederastia, el robo, violación, asesinato, pero aun más motivada por la temprana ida de su autor cuando apenas contaba con veinte tres años. Este texto que estaba en el olvido cayó en manos de Andrés Breton, quien hizo nueva vez darle vida y atraer más lectores, al punto que el mismo Salvador Dalí le hiciera algunas ilustraciones de lo narrado en el texto.
Es un excelente libro, que no se lee una o dos veces, sino varias veces, y te darás cuentas, que lo que dice por más grosero, por los más ruidoso que suenen sus palabras y hechos del principal personaje y el mismo narrador, en ningún momento escapa a los hechos de actualidad, que nos hace recordar de donde venimos, de la ira, la rabia, que “Luchar contra el mal es hacerle demasiado honor.” que “Para conocer las cosas, no es necesario conocer el detalle.” que “Las palabras que expresan el mal están destinadas a tomar una significación de utilidad. Las ideas mejoran. El sentido de las palabras participa en ello.”. Que las múltiples provocaciones del texto, su lirismo, su realismo paradójico y su fervor te hacen sentar pies. Analizar al personaje de Maldoror es cruzarse a través del velo del misterio, en momento es humano, en momento es amorfo, misántropo, humilde y terriblemente arrogante a la vez, Arcángel del Mal, que comete asesinatos por pura diversión, sadismo y perversión. El ultimo Canto y Poesías son las dos mejores partes, que en términos indignados y sangrientos destila su odio a los hombres, su amor por la muerte y la naturaleza, da voz a animales y quimeras. Estamos ante un héroe malvado, satánico en franca lucha con Dios y las concepciones de los hombres.
August 10, 2023
I feel that I will re read this one day and this will become a five star book.
I feel like your first reading is meant to wash over you like a hallucination and disappear like a dream.
I'm eager to read it again and try find out more of its mysteries.
Also, when he has sex with the shark - incredible
I feel like your first reading is meant to wash over you like a hallucination and disappear like a dream.
I'm eager to read it again and try find out more of its mysteries.
Also, when he has sex with the shark - incredible
April 16, 2022
It took me a while to work out what I thought about this one. It is so difficult and different and old that much of it was a struggle. I thought maybe I'm missing something. It reminded me of attempting to read the metaphysical poetry of John Donne at school and not really getting it. Or maybe Paradise Lost, that kind of thing. Not really understanding the references or how people used to think back then.
A book written by an obviously intelligent idiot. As dumb as engraving swastikas into school desks. Drawing upside down crosses and writing 666 in marker on a toilet door. As sweet as painting your nails black and lining your eyes in black whilst wearing a black charity shop trenchcoat in the hope it will transport you back to a later medieval, more fiendish more interesting darker edgier alternative to certainly anyone else in your class. Written by obviously a gifted individual, who though he is an expert on how the writing of others is dull, or predictable, or hackish fails in his grand attempt to do the opposite, because he himself hasn't yet learnt how to write.
The writing is bad. And odd. Odd and bad writing. Like not as bad is the writing you read if you are in a writing group of complete beginner writers, he's really great for someone who has just started, and I get the impression he will be really great, but he isn't yet. But it is memorable. And original.
Overblown, grandiose, hideous, cringworthy, confusing.
This is the adolescent writing. The horror story that is basically just gore and dismemberment with no build up to it, that the weird kid who wants to be a writer passes you in the hope of I don't know, encouragement?
Maybe if he had gotten older and continued on.
The cantos is a bunch of unconnected scenes of the most evil of evils, doing all manner of terrible things. The concept is: What if I made the most shocking character ever? Well, that is a new idea, probably not actually, but anyway, isn't that just creating a character without any nuance? Without any dimensions?
The writer is fascinated by vicious animals, killer crabs, spiders, sharks, snakes, he keeps coming back to those as well as angels and dragons. I'm sure all these things had deeper meanings for him. I can feel his awe and excitement at these devilish things!
The essays at the end show him to be the typical elitist young intellectual, hates almost everything, wants to make something great. Is so full of angst and pent up frustration. Is so cringingly earnestly a dong.
Adorable.
Dumb.
Probably a little too like my own faults for my liking.
Probably influenced a lot of things that came after. Surrealists, absurdists, grotesques, subversive literature.
Right, but it seems most like things I remember well from about the eighties that I'm almost certain were not inspired by him but spontaneously generated by the same, angry acned adolescent outbursts. Gore. Death Metal and Freddie Kruger, cheap rings in the shape of terminator skulls and swapping bullshit stories while drinking snakebite in a suburban garage about Marilyn Manson smoking ground down bones dug up from the cemetery or Ozzy biting the head off a bat.
It's not worth reading to be honest. I know it might sound like it might be. But it's not.
A book written by an obviously intelligent idiot. As dumb as engraving swastikas into school desks. Drawing upside down crosses and writing 666 in marker on a toilet door. As sweet as painting your nails black and lining your eyes in black whilst wearing a black charity shop trenchcoat in the hope it will transport you back to a later medieval, more fiendish more interesting darker edgier alternative to certainly anyone else in your class. Written by obviously a gifted individual, who though he is an expert on how the writing of others is dull, or predictable, or hackish fails in his grand attempt to do the opposite, because he himself hasn't yet learnt how to write.
The writing is bad. And odd. Odd and bad writing. Like not as bad is the writing you read if you are in a writing group of complete beginner writers, he's really great for someone who has just started, and I get the impression he will be really great, but he isn't yet. But it is memorable. And original.
Overblown, grandiose, hideous, cringworthy, confusing.
This is the adolescent writing. The horror story that is basically just gore and dismemberment with no build up to it, that the weird kid who wants to be a writer passes you in the hope of I don't know, encouragement?
Maybe if he had gotten older and continued on.
The cantos is a bunch of unconnected scenes of the most evil of evils, doing all manner of terrible things. The concept is: What if I made the most shocking character ever? Well, that is a new idea, probably not actually, but anyway, isn't that just creating a character without any nuance? Without any dimensions?
The writer is fascinated by vicious animals, killer crabs, spiders, sharks, snakes, he keeps coming back to those as well as angels and dragons. I'm sure all these things had deeper meanings for him. I can feel his awe and excitement at these devilish things!
The essays at the end show him to be the typical elitist young intellectual, hates almost everything, wants to make something great. Is so full of angst and pent up frustration. Is so cringingly earnestly a dong.
Adorable.
Dumb.
Probably a little too like my own faults for my liking.
Probably influenced a lot of things that came after. Surrealists, absurdists, grotesques, subversive literature.
Right, but it seems most like things I remember well from about the eighties that I'm almost certain were not inspired by him but spontaneously generated by the same, angry acned adolescent outbursts. Gore. Death Metal and Freddie Kruger, cheap rings in the shape of terminator skulls and swapping bullshit stories while drinking snakebite in a suburban garage about Marilyn Manson smoking ground down bones dug up from the cemetery or Ozzy biting the head off a bat.
It's not worth reading to be honest. I know it might sound like it might be. But it's not.
June 4, 2022
Lautréamont è probabilmente uno degli autori più strani e malati che abbia mai letto. Ed I Canti di Maldodor uno dei testi più surreali che abbia mai incontrato. Maldodor, incarnazione e cantore del male, impersonificazione della malvagità umana e divina, investe la sua esistenza millenaria per combattere contro Dio e gli uomini, commettendo crimini ed atrocità a tutto spiano. Se dal punto di vista tematico l'opera, per ammissione stessa dell'autore all'interno delle proprie lettere, è ispirata fortemente dai temi del grande romanticismo francese, ed in particolare per quel che riguarda il sentimento del nero e della rivolta, è dal punto di vista stilistico che si rivela una gemma: nel corso dei 6 canti che formano l'opera, Lautréamont intrattiene un rapporto diretto col lettore, lo educa e lo sostiene ad una scrittura che nel corso del tempo diviene sempre più rarefatta, criptica, aggrovigliata in metafore ed immagini difficilmente comprensibili, fitta di periodi lunghissimi, in cui lo stesso autore talvolta scherzando ci si perde, elucubrazioni mentali infinite... Un qualcosa di davvero unico. Le Poesie invece le ho apprezzate non molto: sono il tentativo teorico di negare non soltanto la tematica dei Canti, ma anche di negare l'intera produzione poetica 800sca, fatta di lamenti, lacrime, affanni, gemiti, a favore di una poetica che possa essere incentrata sulla verità pratica, e che possa scoprire assieme alla filosofia le leggi dell'animo umano. Un tripudio naturalista, insomma. Anche da un punto di vista stilistico non mi hanno entusiasmato: la cervellotica prosa dei Canti cede il passo ad una prosa molto più lapidaria ed incentrata sulla forma dell'aforisma, mentre nel secondo libro perlopiù Lautréamont riscrive lunghi passi di Pascal, Vauvenargues e La Rochefoucauld volgendoli verso le proprie teorie. Il voto, in fine, è la media tra l'eccezionalità dei Canti e la mediocrità delle Poesie.
May 28, 2022
Comte de Lautréamont has to be the single most perplexing yet obviously talented author I've discovered since Louis-Ferdinand Céline. (why are these types almost always French?) Since he died at the age of 24, his complete works fit into less than 400 pages the bulk of which is taken up by a bizarre gothic novel titled "The Songs of Maldoror".
The title character is an Antichrist-like figure who does not just oppose the Judeo-Christian god, depicted here as a cross between the less moral gods of Greco-Roman antiquity and a decadent aristocrat, but also shuns all conventional morality in favour of what might be called a more bestial set of values. Maldoror actually reminds me quite a bit of Friedrich Nietzsche's archetype of the Übermensch, though I can't find any hard evidence that either author read the other's work. His adventures are written in absolutely beautiful prose, yet so extreme in structure and content that much of it reads less like what any normal Earthling might consider literature than the inner monologue of a brilliant sociopath.
Adding to further confusion are the author's poetic writings and letters to his editors, written under his real name Isidore Ducasse, which suggest that "The Songs of Maldoror" might be meant as an aggressive satire of the type of novel it purports to be... if one played with utmost deadpan. This is some very weird stuff even by the standards of what's basically post-modernist literature written a century early, as in before modernism itself had the chance to form, but definitely an impressive literary achievement.
The title character is an Antichrist-like figure who does not just oppose the Judeo-Christian god, depicted here as a cross between the less moral gods of Greco-Roman antiquity and a decadent aristocrat, but also shuns all conventional morality in favour of what might be called a more bestial set of values. Maldoror actually reminds me quite a bit of Friedrich Nietzsche's archetype of the Übermensch, though I can't find any hard evidence that either author read the other's work. His adventures are written in absolutely beautiful prose, yet so extreme in structure and content that much of it reads less like what any normal Earthling might consider literature than the inner monologue of a brilliant sociopath.
Adding to further confusion are the author's poetic writings and letters to his editors, written under his real name Isidore Ducasse, which suggest that "The Songs of Maldoror" might be meant as an aggressive satire of the type of novel it purports to be... if one played with utmost deadpan. This is some very weird stuff even by the standards of what's basically post-modernist literature written a century early, as in before modernism itself had the chance to form, but definitely an impressive literary achievement.
Want to read
February 19, 2010Man, where to start? First off, admittedly superficially, I hate the edition of the book: I hate its stupid awkward size, I hate the sleep-inducing font, I hate the snotty and obscure introductions, I hate the David Lynch ripoff cover.
I'll read an entire page and totally forget what I just read completely. Nothing is holding my interest! Very rarely can I not simply ABSORB what I'm reading; here it just washed over me without sinking in. The only other time I can remember this happening is with my other "currently reading" book Wanderer by Sterling Hayden: it's hard to actually formulate an opinion with these two books because for some reason I can't concentrate on them at all!
(Again, superficially, I partly blame the editions, the cover of Wanderer I had looked like a Lulu.com job. Also I learned that the author of Maldoror was only 24 so now I think he's a whiny teenager and I'm furious they published his ramblings because it's "edgy.")
I'll read an entire page and totally forget what I just read completely. Nothing is holding my interest! Very rarely can I not simply ABSORB what I'm reading; here it just washed over me without sinking in. The only other time I can remember this happening is with my other "currently reading" book Wanderer by Sterling Hayden: it's hard to actually formulate an opinion with these two books because for some reason I can't concentrate on them at all!
(Again, superficially, I partly blame the editions, the cover of Wanderer I had looked like a Lulu.com job. Also I learned that the author of Maldoror was only 24 so now I think he's a whiny teenager and I'm furious they published his ramblings because it's "edgy.")
March 19, 2018
i loved this book !! :))) this is easily my favorite book ive read so far in my new lil journey of reading. it is a series of incredibly imaginative, engaging, fascinating, mysterious, sometimes dark and violent, almost always surreal ramblings or little stories, many of which are haunted by the presence of maldoror, a being of evil who seems to take many different forms throughout the book. despite how macabre it is at times, lautreamont's style is often charming and full of personality. i often found the excessiveness of his descriptions quite funny. this book was astounding to me from beginning to end. although i am obviously a reading noob i think it will be very hard for me to find a book i loved as much as this one. it seems incredibly unique. i cant wait to read it again. the other works by lautreamont and the letters and descriptions of the author were really nice additions to the book
April 11, 2019
Souvent, je me suis demandé quelle chose était le plus facile à reconnaître : la profondeur de l'océan ou la profondeur du cœur humain ! Souvent, la main portée au front, debout sur les vaisseaux, tandis que la lune se balançait entre les mâts d'une façon irrégulière, je me suis surpris, faisant abstraction de tout ce qui n'était pas le but que je poursuivais, m'efforçant de résoudre ce difficile problème ! Oui, quel est le plus profond, le plus impénétrable des deux : l'océan ou le cœur humain? Si trente ans d'expérience de la vie peuvent jusqu'à un certain point pencher la balance vers l'une ou l'autre de ces solutions, il me sera permis de dire que, malgré la profondeur de l'océan, il ne peut pas se mettre en ligne, quant à la comparaison sur cette propriété, avec la profondeur du cœur humain.
March 18, 2008
I usually find it hard to believe this author really existed. His strange disappearance would only seem to confirm the possibility that he was some sort of weird literary X-man jumping between dimensions who stopped here briefly.
The works can be ridiculously sadistic and cruel, but are never less than inspired (even if in that total madman way).
The works can be ridiculously sadistic and cruel, but are never less than inspired (even if in that total madman way).
May 7, 2018
Technically I've not read this in its entirety, but I've read the fantastic bits in it over and over for the last 10 years, so, this must count for something..
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