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Maldoror and the Complete Works of the Comte de Lautréamont Paperback – February 2, 2004
Equal parts dark, destructive and brilliant, Maldoror blazed the way for the 20th century's boldest adventures in art, music and literature
André 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). Lautréamont 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 Lautréamont's writings available in English, in Alexis Lykiard's superior translation. For this latest edition, Lykiard updates his introduction to include recent scholarship.
- Print length340 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherExact Change
- Publication dateFebruary 2, 2004
- Dimensions6.21 x 1.07 x 7.98 inches
- ISBN-10187897212X
- ISBN-13978-1878972125
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Product details
- Publisher : Exact Change; Annotated edition (February 2, 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 340 pages
- ISBN-10 : 187897212X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1878972125
- Item Weight : 1.14 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.21 x 1.07 x 7.98 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,022,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,246 in European Poetry (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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One aspect that lends to this book’s greatness is the richness of its prose. For example, the way many animals are described with the use of simile and colorful analogies are haunting. Many scenes resemble a story by Beatrix Potter gone awry into the alleys of nightmares and vice, but they all add to the common themes of Maldoror’s rebellion towards God and the depths of depravity he’s willing to traverse. This book is not for the faint of heart since it includes many disturbing scenes involving children and animal suffering. Granted, I highly recommend it to people interested in cruelty, surrealism, or weirdness in literature, and it would be disingenuous to claim the travesties in this story exist solely for shock purpose.
"The Songs of Maldoror" is not without its problems. Lautreamont, at times, taxes the reader with his prose, in what can only be considered a juvenile display of linguistic ostentation. Here's an example. "At first life seemed unreservedly to smile on him, and crowned him splendidly with flowers; but since your intelligence itself perceives or rather divines that he was cut off on the borders of boyhood, I need not, until the appearance of a truly requisite rectratation, continue the prolegomena of my rigorous demonstration." Really? And there are worse instances. Had Lautreamont lived, he surely would have out-grown this puerile, if somewhat humorous, practice. Truth be told, it would have been interesting to see what sort of writer he would have become.
Top reviews from other countries
Mr Lykiard's version - which is all it can be - reads quite well and succeeds in a general sense in conveying much of the spirit of the original, which is the main thing: Lautréamont was a devilishly-determined literary anarchist and that fact together with many examples of his perverse methods emerges clearly enough via the English text. Purists may quibble, but we still get the message of a bomb's blast without knowing every technical detail of its construction.
Almost any more-or-less accurate quotation gives a fair flavour of where Lautréamont was at: 'As beautiful as the trembling of an alcoholic's hands', for example; this handy compendium will certainly do until (if ever) a better one comes along.





