Maldoror and the Complete Works of the Comte de Lautréamont (edit title)

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Liked It Rated 5 stars “I know this work and am excited to reread it. Lykiard's translation is beyond compare.” see full review » see other reviews »

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  • Rated 5 stars

  “I know this work and am excited to reread it. Lykiard's translation is beyond compare.”

  Joe B wrote this review Monday, September 28 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No

  
  
  • Rated 4 stars

  “I really need to add some mediocre books, these starry books eat on the authenticity of my shelf. Then again, I give away the books that give me little or nothing... -- I knew a long time I must read Comte de Lautréamont. When I came across a promising Finnish translation the other year, I went for it, and my goodness what a ride I was given, starting from the first chapter that tells about a hair. A hair! From there it went onward, downward, in concentric circles, a vertigo, a drunken stupor into the shadowside of man, into hate, delusion, and the beauty of horror or the horror of beauty? Surely the grimness that the young author revelled in (describing himself thirty in the book, in reality being little more than 20) will turn off many as mere scandal-seeking, mere effects -- but I don't agree. Sometimes the form ("You think I'm mad?") repeats itself a bit, but these drawbacks are by far outweighed by the mere surreality of it all -- and this in the 1860s when surreality didn't even exist! It's no wonder Dalí and his friends embraced this young visionary long afterwards. I think it would be unfair to not mention that Isidore Ducasse a.k.a. Comte de Lautréamont intended to follow this tribute to evil with a following volume that would be a tribute to good -- had not war come in between, causing his premature death. The Finnish volume can obviously not be found on Shelfari, but this is an English edition I came across in Naples that also features other fragments. These I'm yet to read (as well as "Maldoror" in English).”

  Timo K. wrote this review Friday, February 1 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No