sus

Well-known member
You know who I like a lot? The Dutch. I'm about to read Simon Schama's Embarrassment of Riches, about their golden age.
 

catalog

Well-known member
It mentions Gilles de Rais if I remember correctly and I understand that he was indeed executed for performing satanic (or occult let's say) rites that involved child sacrifice. However, I think there is now some debate as to whether he did in fact drug, fuck, castrate and murder hundreds of children, or, if the charges were created by his political enemies to get him out of the way.

I just finished chapter 11 which is the one where he details Gilles de rais' crimes and its pretty strong and shocking stuff. Not read anything like that since something like Gordon burns one about the wests, 'happy like murderers'.

Can see why this book may have caused a stir when it came out.

And at the end of all this quite brutal and gory description of what he was doing to these children, 800 they reckon at conservative estimate, comes the bit about the trees.

Mental.
 

catalog

Well-known member
This is literally page 1 of the book:

“Say what you will, their theory is pitiful, and their tight little method squeezes all the life out of them. Filth and the flesh are their all in all. They deny wonder and reject the extra-sensual. I don't believe they would know what you meant if you told them that artistic curiosity begins at the very point where the senses leave off.

“You shrug your shoulders, but tell me, how much has deconstructed club done to clear up life's really troublesome mysteries? When an ulcer of the soul – or indeed the most benign little pimple – is to be probed, deconstructed club can do nothing. 'Appetite and instinct' seem to be its sole motivation and rut and brainstorm its chronic states. The field of deconstructed club is the region below the umbilicus. Oh, it's a hernia clinic and it offers the soul a truss!
 

catalog

Well-known member
Opening of chapter 2

Nearly two years ago Durtal had ceased to associate with men of letters. They were represented in books and in the book-chat columns of magazines as forming an aristocracy which had a monopoly on intelligence. Their conversation, if one believed what one read, sparkled with effervescent and stimulating wit. Durtal had difficulty accounting to himself for the persistence of this illusion. His sad experience led him to believe that every literary man belonged to one of two classes, the thoroughly commercial or the utterly impossible.

The first consisted of writers spoiled by the public, and drained dry in consequence, but “successful.” Ravenous for notice they aped the ways of the world of big business, delighted in gala dinners, gave formal evening parties, spoke of copyrights, sales, and long run plays, and made great display of wealth.

The second consisted of café loafers, “bohemians.” Rolling on the benches, gorged with beer they feigned an exaggerated modesty and at the same time cried their wares, aired their genius, and abused their betters.

There was now no place where one could meet a few artists and privately, intimately, discuss ideas at ease. One was at the mercy of the café crowd or the drawing-room company. One's interlocutor was listening avidly to steal one's ideas, and behind one's back one was being vituperated. And the women were always intruding.
 

catalog

Well-known member
i know, hilarious how he's chucked that one in. honestly, the first 80 pages, it's like reading a precis of dissensus in the late 19th century
 

catalog

Well-known member
such an interesting book, even the bit with the bird and his weird patrick hamilton-esque fantasies is now turning into a decent angle.

this would mke a phenomenal netflix series.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Have you got to the sacramental wafers in the fanny yet?
no i don't think so, sounds good. i've just passed the bit where she came round an dis being super weird and he's wondering to himself afterwards whether he should haveforcefully violated her
 

catalog

Well-known member
there's loads of interesting other dovers on the fly-leafs of the print book, lost canon books i suppose, novels and drama, few that i've not heard of before:

ship of fools - sebastian brant
jurgen - james branch cabell
green mansions - w.h. hudson
the songs of bilitis - pierre louys
the book of beasts - t.h. white
 

craner

Beast of Burden
reprint of 1972 dover, keene wallace. but i've been pasting in from the epub of the penguin classic, titled the damned, 2008 objective print.

Interesting. I read the Brendan King translation that Dedalus put out. That was a great publisher, they also did all the other 'Durtal' novels, as well as Octave Mirbeau (another one of my favorites).
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Yeah, Pierre Louÿs is good too. The French were the masters of avant garde filth, Apollinaire and Aragon got in on the act as well. Guyotat's Eden Eden Eden. There was another publisher called Creation who used to specialise in this sort of thing, I liked them a lot too.
 

catalog

Well-known member
i've heard of eden eden eden before, got an essay about it bookmarked.

i just ordered this one from amphetamine sulphate


based on this review

 
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