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Conte De Lautreamont

Maldoror and the Complete Works of the Comte de Lautréamont Paperback – February 2, 2004

by Comte de Lautréamont (Author), Alexis Lykiard (Translator)

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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 length

340 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Exact Change
Publication date

February 2, 2004
Dimensions

6.21 x 1.07 x 7.98 inches
ISBN-10

187897212X
ISBN-13

978-1878972125
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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)

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Spenta Mainyu

An amazing surrealist work.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 21, 2020

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I have recently finished reading Comte de Lautréamont’s Les Chants de Maldoror translated by Alexis Lykiard. This is a profound text, which largely resembles a nightmare whilst having evocative depth. There are six cantos, but the first five focus on tangentially related events and monologues involving the titular anti-hero Maldoror. We learn Maldoror wishes to rebel against God by forsaking all conscience or moral concerns for his carnal desires and vices, and there are many phantasmagorical scenes which convey this theme well. However, throughout the story there are inconsistencies in Maldoror's personality and certain encounters that make him more sympathizable. The last canto unites many themes from the first five in a more traditional story that is more cohesive. It is important to note, given the depth and elaborateness of Comte de Lautréamont’s prose, the text allows for a lot of interpretative possibility, such as whether or not Maldoror is exaggerating or lying about certain key occurrences, but this is handled in an intelligent and non-pretentious manner. Note, I am not listing concrete examples in order to avoid spoilers.

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.

4 people found this helpful

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Fawn

Brilliant, Uneven--Lautreamont!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 27, 2014

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"The great universal human family is a utopia worthy of the most paltry logic." This haughty, ironic aphorism occurs within Lautreamont's love song to the ocean, one of the most beautiful segments of "Maldoror", a wildly imaginative work emanating from a strange, misanthropic mind. Of course, as is only fair, God himself isn't spared. We find him drunk and incoherent in the third canto, laid out on the side of the road, subjected to abuse from both animals and human, the latter of which defecates on the Almighty's face for three consecutive days. In Canto Four, our protagonist, Maldoror, is in a curious state indeed. Seated on a dilapidated piece of furniture (apparently having been there four hundred years), he describes his current state of affairs (he's become a home for various fauna and flora) with a sense of wan humor mixed with resignation and, paradoxically, defiance. He claims that his prolonged inertia is the method by which he will defeat the Creator. In Canto Five, which contains M.'s (Lautreamont's?) lay to pederasts, he wishes that the universe had been "an immense celestial anus" as opposed to the mere hell that it is, so that he could have violently sodomized all of God's creation. Maldoror has little use for women. Oddly enough, he blames his premature gray hair on his dislike for them. (Mother Nature's revenge?) As he poetically states: "I must have beings who resemble me, upon whose brows human nobility is etched in more distinct and ineffaceable characters!" Misogyny as the root of pederasty.

"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.

10 people found this helpful

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croaksnooze

Belladonna breath

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 29, 2012

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There might well be a vital requirement in the literary publication scene for a superior English translation of The Songs of Maldoror - not because of the general drift of the content, which is easy enough to convey, but because the subtleties and obscure complexity of the author's original wordgames demand the perception of a nimble linguist; it's something of a high-wire juggling-act, like dancing on the roof of a burning building.

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.

6 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Accurate description, quick arrival

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 15, 2020

Verified Purchase

Accurate description, quick arrival

Sports Girl

Hauntingly Sublime

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 26, 2018

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This is a well-known masterpiece, and I hope to read the original French after spending more time with this translation.

Amazon Customer

arrival date

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 31, 2020

Verified Purchase

excellent product.

Ian Simmonds

a must read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 5, 2014

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Great book, very dark poetry that enslaves you as you read.

One person found this helpful

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Maldoror and the Complete Works of the Comte de Lautréamont Paperback – February 2, 2004

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