Customer Reviews

Isidore: A Novel About the Comte de Lautreamont

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I hunted this book down through what seemed virtually every bookstore in Manhattan until I finally found it used at the Strand. Having read Reed's amazing erotic classic, The Pleasure Chateau, & seeing how much Lautremont had influenced his style in that book, I was certain that a book by Reed dealing directly with Lautremont himself would be something extraordinary. I was extremely disappointed to read this dull, minutely over-analyzed fictionalized *report* on Lautremont's not-all-that-interesting comings & goings, relationship with his father, etc. Perhaps if I hadnt had such high expectations for the book I would have liked it better, but somehow I doubt that, for I wasnt even compelled to finish it. For that reason alone, I give it two stars, figuring it would be unfair under the circumstances to give it any less...and on the chance that Reed, who I still admire greatly for The Pleasure Chateau, might have done *something* of interest, eventually, with this book.

The implication here is that in this book--told from the point of view of the brilliant Isidore Ducasse, the future writer of Maldoror--Jeremy Reed will show the reader that he is quite up to the task of reproducing the mad, visionary, surreal style of the original. He isn't. What he does deliver is 144 pages of clotted prose seasoned with hints, guesses, a few facts, a few interesting tropes. Skip this book and go directly to the original, or, if you can't read French, purchase the Complete Works in the Lykiyard translation from Exact Change Publishers. The difference between this book and Maldoror is the difference between watered-down tea and the finest Cognac, no matter what J.G. Ballard says on the back cover.

Biographical information about the elusive Isidore Ducasse, a writer whom Andre Breton referred to as "a contemporary, one who was among us, yet we know less about him than we do about Dante, Shakespeare or Homer," is sketchy at best. This makes Reed's novel a risky venture, while at the same time leaving him a great deal of imaginative freedom. His writing is so compelling, and the voice of Ducasse, also known as le Comte de Lautreamont, so strong, that at times you'll find yourself thinking, This is the way it must have happened.

this fictitious yet engrossing and beautifully written biography of young isidore ducasse, the comte de lautreamont, author of the bizarre and slightly twisted "maldoror" and surrealist precursor par excellance (perhaps even surpassing rimbaud?), will keep the imaginative reader riveted and glued to it from start to finish. reed has an uncanny ability to 'hit the nail on the head', and we (or at least I) always get the sense that his portrayals of his poetic idols and heroes are not that far off the mark, although there is no way to know this to a certainty. we do know that lautreamont was a withdrawn, odd youth who frightened his classmates, very rarely spoke, and had virtually no companions either at the lycee or in paris, where he was to die at age 24. reed's ducasse is a rebellious, brilliant, and poetic genius with lofty feelings of contempt for humanity and a love for the creative imagination, which allows man to transform the banality and monotony of dull everyday reality into something more beautiful and aesthetic. and all of it comes off smoothly, never becoming pretentious or too fanciful. the only weakness lies in reed's botched attempts to explore 'the duality of identity', and explore lautreamont's supposedly schizophrenic nature. to my mind this assists in perpetuating false myths about the author which cannot be verified in any way whatever. from ducasse's letters to his father, his banker, etc, we see not the dionysian monster maldoror but a young man quite capable of being cool, rational, socially interactive and charming. not one word betrays even a touch of mental disturbance or inadaptability. it occasionally seems like reed is trying to imply that because he used a pseudonym to write maldoror, he was almost certainly a nutjob with two personalities tearing one another part. of course, this is entirely possible, but from the "poesies" and the aforementioned letters, it seems more likely than not that ducasse was provoking the writer by writing two such opposed and outrageously contradictory works, and it is quite an assumption indeed to read a great deal of neurosis or impending insanity into it. but other than that, this book is, as it says on the back cover, "an electric testament to the imagination", and anyone even mildly interested in surrealist literature should grab it immediately. another victory for reed.