Comte De Lautréamont
Average customer rating:
- Step Into Darkness
- The book that keeps on giving
- Evil of the Dawn
- Tough To Stomach
- THIS IS THE TRANSLATION YOU WANT
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Maldoror and the Complete Works of the Comte de Lautréamont
Comte de Lautréamont
Manufacturer: Exact Change
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 187897212X
Release Date: 2004-02-02 |
Book Description
Andr Breton wrote that Maldoror is "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). Lautr amont's writings bewildered his contemporaries, but the Surrealists modeled their efforts after his lawless black humor and poetic leaps of logic, exemplified by the oft-quoted slogan, "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 Lautr amont's writings available in English, in a superior translation.
Customer Reviews:
Step Into Darkness.......2007-01-12
I like my writers drunk, blasphemous, decadent and French. If any of that list sounds even vaguely familiar then this is the book for you. Set the absinthe fountain to a slow drip, light some candles and prepare to tour an alchemical end-of-the-century underworld.
The book that keeps on giving.......2006-12-12
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-awarness 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 14 years, and I am still finding new meanings, new passages and new understanding in this wonderful work. This trully is the one book that will never get old, that will always keep on giving, as long as one is ready to listen.
Evil of the Dawn.......2005-12-02
Isidore Ducasse's or Comte de Lautreamont's 'Les Chants de Maldoror' is a book one can contemplate over it's themes of darkness.
The songs of Maldoror is essentially an occult view of the world.
For good and evil are seen as equally important and mutually linked forces in nature, divorced from the moral content given to them by human beings. This is even noticeable in the name of the book's hero: Maldoror, which is a pun on 'mal d'aurore' (evil of dawn), the combination of darkness and light.
The book's phrase 'as beautiful as a chance meeting on a dissection table of a sewing machine and an umbrella' was also very important for the surrealists. It was valued because it was absolutely original in its combination of a banal object from everyday life with something that carries sinister and morbid overtones. The phrase also consists of a paradox, two of these objects have an constructive and therefore positive function, while the third has a dissecting and destructive, and therefore negative function. Yet these are only inanimate objects, it is only our imagination that puts "life" into them and give them these qualities.
It was this paradoxical metaphor that led Breton to describe Lautreaumont as the "unattackable".
The book also mocks science in its attempt to impose a static and rational order upon nature and attacks the belief that humanity is superior to the natural world. Religion is seen as an absurd delusion and god is seen as an unworthy, ineffectual, pathetic drunkard, scorned by the animals he is meant to have created.
This book can be seen as a belief that the "traditionally ugly" can be transmuted to an aesthetic value. When the socially conditioned fear of the ugly has been overcome, pleasure and psychological power are acquired.
Salvador Dali wrote:
"Repugnance is the sentry standing right near the door to those things that we desire most".
Tough To Stomach.......2005-07-06
This is a hard book to digest, but it is worth it, so long as you do not faint at gory detail, and crave a classical mixture of poetry and prose: only then can you appreciate the ultra esoteric Maldoror.
THIS IS THE TRANSLATION YOU WANT.......2004-08-24
Alexis Lykiard captures the rabid bite, godlike arrogance, swooning eroticism, obnoxiously erudite vocabulary, genius humor, and vortex of profound madness that is Lautreamont's Maldoror. Don't waste your time with a translation that will mar this masterpiese with even a streak of drabness.
Average customer rating:
- MALDOROR is the greatest - but NOT this translation....
- Put me to sleep
- the yummiest, sickest, most dementedly surreal book ever
- Holy cruelty
- Puts the ahhhh in dada....
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Maldoror
Comte de Lautreamont
Manufacturer: New Directions Publishing Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0811200825 |
Customer Reviews:
MALDOROR is the greatest - but NOT this translation...........2004-08-24
Many people to whom I've recommended this book end up with this publication. I noticed that one reviewer was bored by it. I assure you, you would NOT have been bored by the translation by Alexis Lykiard (going under the title MALDOROR AND COMPLETE WORKS). Lykiard truly captures the rabid bite, godlike arrogance, obnoxiously erudite vocabulary, genius humor, and vortex of profound madness that is Lautreamont's Maldoror.
Put me to sleep.......2003-05-28
Certainly Maldoror is unique--I've never read anything like it before and I doubt that I ever will again. Lautreamont's genius is apparent throughout the book, on every page, in nearly every sentence. That said I've never felt so indifferently towards a book that impressed me so. Truth be told, Maldoror put me to sleep on several occasions. (Perhaps it was the translation?)
Maldoror lacks the humour of, say, A Season In Hell or Gerard de Nerval's poetry. It's difficult to read despite its dark and fantastic subject matter. Occasionally Maldoror is flat-out boring, although it's unfailingly brilliant. (Believe me when I write that I have NEVER had this reaction before!) Brilliant doesn't always translate to likeable, I guess.
The shorter piece of writing in the book, Poesies, is highly amusing. Overall I rate the collection three stars because it just didn't do it for me. I recommend Selected Writings by Gerard de Nerval instead of Maldoror.
the yummiest, sickest, most dementedly surreal book ever.......2002-01-27
"maldoror" is the best surrealist anti literature has to offer, without a doubt. the work of an obviously, eh...unconventional? psyche, it viciously tears a gaping hole in sentimentality and anything else that does not reek of absolute rebellion. if you've ever felt even the slightest rancor against society and the hollow men surrounding you all day every day, you can be sure that you will take a liking to this book. bataille and sade are great, but can't hold a candle to little isidore. perversely delicious.
Holy cruelty.......2000-05-05
On one's first encounter with Lautremont's "Maldoror", it will appear a virtually formless, incoherent and incompetent work -- "a compilation of a sick mind" -- until, that is, one becomes habituated to its style. Hailed as one of the pioneering works of surrealism, this is undoubtedly one of the most original and explosive meditations on pure evil. Lautremont's glorification of crime and murder, his blasphemy, his rhapsodic celebration of revolt, are, without a doubt, unsurpassed. Never has a book more malignantly oozed more evil, misanthropy and menace. It will jar any so-called "decent" person out of his/her comfortably smug composure.
Puts the ahhhh in dada...........2000-04-23
You should own this book...and you should buy it right now if you don't own it.
Lautremont's epic prose poem dedicated to the subject of evil is probably one of the best surrealist works we've been lucky enough to have bestowed on us. It jumps all over the map, but it never once loses steam or sags under the weight of its subject matter. This is actually the only book I stopped reading halfway through and went back to the beginning so I could underline all the good parts. And there are a LOT of good parts. Even if you could give a whit about evil, you must sit in awe of the pure grace and strength of Lautremont's writing. It's like a pie made from the flesh of angels.
So dig in.
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Poesies and Complete Miscellanea
Comte De Lautreamont
Manufacturer: Allison & Busby
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0850312388 |
Average customer rating:
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Les Chants De Maldoror
Comte De Lautreamont
Manufacturer: New Directions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HWVCDA |
Average customer rating:
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LES CHANTS DE MALDOROR
Comte De Lautreamont
Manufacturer: New Directions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000PILJIY |
Average customer rating:
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Les Chants de Maldoror et autres textes
comte de Lautréamont , and isidore Ducasse
Manufacturer: LGF
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 2253160733 |
Average customer rating:
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Maldoror
Comte De Lautreamont
Manufacturer: Allison & Busby
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
French
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ASIN: 0850310210 |
Customer Reviews:
Life Off of One's Knees.......2005-04-12
Have you really never read this? Time to give up on Tarantino and other midgets and take on the world with the angry spittle anyone with any real dignity employs. This is a haunting, violent, hilarious novel that help set up the ramp for Surrealism and on the down side the movie SFW. This is my prefered translation though it really should be read in conjunction with his letters and Poesies.
Average customer rating:
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Maldoror
Comte; Wernham, Guy (translator) De Lautreamont
Manufacturer: New Directions Publishing Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000P0W4B8 |
Average customer rating:
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Maldoror and Poems
Comte De Lautreamont
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KTHHXO |
Authors:
- Lautréamont, Comte De
- Lavant, Christine
- Lawhead, Stephen
- Lawrence, D.H.
- Lawrence, Josephine
- Laymon, Richard
- Le Carr, John
- Le Fanu, J. Sheridan
- Le Guin, Ursula K.
- Leacock, Stephen
Authors
Authors