Current reads? #2

continuation of current reads

Highly recommended for any would-be literati:

Mid-Century French Poets: Selections, Translations, and Critical Notices (edition 1955)
by Wallace Fowlie

http://www.librarything.com/work/book/87041091

French symbolist poetry (edition 1958)
by C. F. MacIntyre

http://www.librarything.com/work/book/86917488

Still plowing through The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell and Blood's a Rover by James Ellroy.

I've just finished reading The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin, which wouldn't merit a mention here, but for this exchange in chapter 10 between two Oxford undergraduates (the book was published in 1946, the setting is clearly pre-war):

"What is that that Charles is drinking?"
"Oh ether and milk, or some terrible chemical affair of that sort. But you know Charles. The poor dear cannot be made to realize that the romantic decadence is over. He still writes verses about affreuses juives and things. How about some madeira?"

Just finished The Age of Flowers. A Burrough's-esque novel set in Morocco full of gross-out debauchery and surrealist descriptions of flowers.

Now reading Hidden Force and Selected Writings (Dario, Ruben)

Excited to have been gifted a copy of Nightmare Culture
Nightmare culture : Lautréamont and 'Les Chants de Maldoror' by Alex De Jonge (others)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/043622450X/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&co...

Will definitely share more when I get a chance to read it. I have high hopes for it.

Fifty Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke

http://www.librarything.com/work/460280/87041054

Werewolves of Wisconsin and Treasure Island

Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais; have just passed the p. 500 mark. Interesting, varied, fun (at least in parts), never boring. It's the Penguin Classics edition translated by Screech.

Horrors from Haunted Seas by Hodgson.

8. I didn't know that Screech took up translating Rabelais after Saved by the Bell.

The Thomas Urquhart translation is wonderful. His vocabulary is really fantastic and Rabelaisian.

9. I love Hodgson. After trying to collect his books in print format for years, I finally have his complete works on my kindle. I always prefer real books. But I'm glad for the chance to read his entire ouvre.

No kindle, etc., only "real" books. ;-)

Just got it for retail price. Any WHH seems to predictably sky-rocket in price, so a good deal.

I'm especially interested in his sea horror stories. This claims to be the definitive collection of them.

On a poetry kick. Reading poems from Yehuda Amichai and Jack Gilbert

On the prose front, I'm nearly done with Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Can pirates be interpreted as decadent characters? Searching for treasure, imbuing vast quantities of rum, indulging in excess of pleasure and violence, the Caribbean location, and a kind of proto-anarchism by sticking it to both the English Crown and the East India Company.

The Other Sleep by Julien Green

I'm preparing for my future in the good ol' USA; I'm currently reading The Road to Wigan Pier.

Was very impressed by I Burn Paris and I'm looking forward to the follow-up anthology of Futurist writing by Jasienski from Twisted Spoon

I'm about 2/3 of the way through The Brothel in Rosenstrasse, a decadent story of the Continental fin de siecle by Michael Moorcock. (It is ever-so-loosely linked to his Eternal Champion hyperwork through the Von Bek family.) So far it looks as if I'll give it a glowing review.

W B Yeats, A Vision, in which, amongst other things, he sets out the personality typing of the Great Wheel, as relayed to him by his wife (herself the conduit for 'other voices').

> 17

You confused me for a moment by pairing the Yeats reading with the Blake illustration!

16: Very interesting title. Have you read anything else similar to that by Moorcock?

> 19

Not really. His "End of Time" books are cosmically decadent, and Breakfast in the Ruins is the only other book of his I've read with comparably explicit sex. But The Brothel in Rosenstrasse has no fantastic or "speculative" elements (so far, at least), and it's got some admirable metaficitonal positioning, with references to Huysmanns and Salammbo, among others.

The Dedalus Book of Spanish Fantasy, excellent short story collection.

Finished and reviewed the Moorcock. It only got "worse" (in a good way) toward the end.

Judas Iscariot by Leonid Andreyev.

Lazarus, Judas Iscariot and Ben Tobit form a trilogy of biblical stories by Andreyev. It's been many years since the image of Lazarus first burned itself into my brain forever. But I was unaware of the trilogy until recently. Now I've read all three stories and I'll never be the same again. I'm going to go sit in the front yard now and stare at the sun.

Read Firefly by Severo Sarduy, a dreamlike bildungsroman about a boy named Firefly in pre-Castro Cuba, full of decadence and corruption and rot. There are mischievous doctors, a beautiful redhead named Ada, a creepy brothel scene, and, yes, a dwarf.

Your review of Firefly is very interesting. I have added it to my shopping list.

Currently, I'm reading Julian the Apostate (The Death of the Gods) by D.S. Mereshkovski (Merezhkovsky).

Marcel Schwob, The King in the Golden Mask is currently my lunch time reading at work, and I'm reading M. John Harrison, The Ice Monkey at home. That last title's picked up another meaning since the book was published (see urban dictionary).

> 27

How are you liking the Harrsion? I'm in the final stretch of The Course of the Heart, and it's the first of his I've read.

> 28

I'm enjoying it a lot. I think these are all early stories, but they are assured and the prose is beautifully measured in the way it conjures up a world of tired London back streets and weirdness (but not overt or overstated) behind the grimy net curtains.

There's one story (so far) that seems a little earlier and thoroughly in the vein of Michael Moorcock's late-60's 'New Worlds' magazine: a collision of secret agents and (again) realistically humdrum 'real life', with a florid (even blasphemous) science fictional plot.

I think all these stories are now included in a later collection.

I should mention that I read Harrison's 'mainstream' novel, Climbers about 20 years ago. I remember it as being very good and having much the same atmosphere as these fantasy stories.

Course of the Heart certainly doesn't lack for sense-of-place in its English settings either, and it has impressed me with both its ability to be dreamy and icky by turns, and its verisimilitude in representing postmodern occultism.

26: Julian the Apostate, not to be confused with Vidal's Julian

Vidal's Julian is one of my all time favorite books and the Emperor Julian himself is one of my favorite historical figures. So far Merezhkovsky's novel is great too. It's extremely well written. His descriptive prose is superb and even minor characters are very well developed. I'm enjoying it immensely. Also, Merezhkovsy was married to one of my favorite poets, Zinaida Hippius.

R.I.P. Gore Vidal.

I finished reading The Course of the Heart and found it enjoyable and enigmatic enough for me to find and read Harrison's short story that it had been an elaboration of: "The Great God Pan" (1988). Reflecting on the novel through the lens of Machen's "The Great God Pan" (1890) is certainly interesting. It places all three of the central characters in the position of Mary, the experimental subject who had her brain altered to expose her to the "real world" in Machen's story. Harrison uses Gnostic language to figure this exposure as contact with the "Pleroma." And he supplies each of them with different outcomes.

Reading The Cage by Gordon Weiss, all about Sri Lanka's history of violence and the Tamil Tigers insurrection. A fascinating look at how Theosophy was instrumental in Sri Lanka's Buddhist revival.

>32 DavidX:: And it's only the first part of the trilogy Christ and Antichrist, consisting of:

Death of the gods (subtitled: Julian the Apostate)
Resurrection of the gods (subtitled: Leonardo da Vinci)
Antichrist (subtitled: Peter and Alexis)

I started with Leonardo da Vinci, having found it in a horribly abridged italian edition in Florence. Upgraded it quickly to a full version,

Highly recommended!

Thankyou so much! I've been desperately trying to figure what the other two books in the Christ and Antichrist trilogy were.

I have the Altemus edition published in 1899 with the title Julian the Apostate rather than Death of the Gods. It has one of the most beautiful covers I've ever seen and the illustrations are wonderful too.

Now I'm off to search for the other two books. Thanks again Pim. :)

I'm reading Hunger and Henry Miller: A Life

Just snagged a copy of The Belgian School of the Bizarre at a bargain price online - always wanted their diploma!

38: That's a great title!

It's a great anthology - containing a short story by Thomas Owen (not very Belgian-sounding) whose collection of strange tales is very hard (and costly) to come by in English translation.

Here is the TOC:

Introduction / Kim Connell --
Four Short-Short Stories / Marcel Marien --
Voice of Blood / Jean Muno --
A Simple Warning / Marcel Thiry --
The Dreaming Plant / Anne Richter --
Cinderella 1981 / Nadine Monfils --
The Girl of the Rain / Thomas Owen --
The Pigeon of Saint-Leger / Albert Ayguesparse --
The Eel / Paul-Aloise de Bock --
The Torso / Albert Ayguesparse --
Traffic / Pierre Mertens --
The Cathedral of Mist / Paul Willems --
Angelika / Gaston Compere --
The Great Man of Bronze / Franz Hellens --
The Odor of Pine / Michel de Ghelderode --
Glove of Passion / Jean Muno --
The Region of the Heart / Fernand Dumont

Hi all,

I am pretty sure that Ray Russell of Tartarus Press has said elsewhere that they wil be doing a Thomas Owen volume at some point- sooner rather than later was the feeling I got.

REGARDS!

J

Crikey. I wish I had caught that prior to taking out the bank loan. Ah, well.

Expect to get this next week. Nice to see a story by Michel de Ghelderode, and Marcel Marien is very highly thought of in Surrealist circles.

>41 Siderealpress: Grand news! I have The Desolate Presence, but I'm sure Tartarus will add more stories

Hi all,

Rays quote is on the excellent Thomas Ligotti website:

(http://www.ligotti.net) back in 2011

"I can report that an expanded reprint of Owen's "The Desolate Presence" is being worked on with the original translator, but patience is required... Advance orders are not yet being taken :-)"

Its a recommended forum for news of weird/decadent publications and one of the three I have on my bookmarks toolbar function. Obviously (!) this group is one of the others. The third is an excellent resource for things Aleister Crowley (its not a magic(k) site); Lashtal.com.

REGARDS!

J

Thanks for the heads up! One of my favorite horror stories is Crowley's "Testament of Magdalen Blair".

Ben, we had a group read and discussion of "Magdalen Blair" right over here.

I'm currently reading Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin by Mel Gordon. I'm only at the very beginning and it still feels somewhat superficial in its assessments, but it brings up interesting points. Probably not completely related to this group, but some of you might like it. Has anyone read it?

> 47

It's been on my bookshelf for years, but I'm afraid I've only ever looked at some of the pictures!

Hi all,

yes I have read it and you are right, it is a brief overview and has a somewhat exploitative feel about it.

However, I met Mel Gordon for my Anita Berber project last year, and the Feral House books do not really do him justice as he is a serious, if eccentric (in the best way) scholar. He has extremely knowledgable on early 2oth century experimental theatre and dance with an incredible archive of that and myriads of other interests (love cults etc...). There are some strange links, for example Sebastian Droste joined the Great Oom after fleeing Europe with Berbers jewels.

He told me that Feral House really want to play up the sleaze aspects of all his books and he is sadly asked to edit down what I guess F.H. assume to be the 'duller' parts (read that as 'serious'). F.H. also like pictures (preferably with some nudity) of which Gordons archive has a vast collection, but then what do you expect from Mansonites?

Here is my short blogpost on my meeting- it might amuse...

http://siderealpressblog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Mel%20Gordon

REGARDS!

J

>48 paradoxosalpha:
It's worth a read. I started it earlier today and still haven't put it down, despite the fact that I have a lot of work to do.

>49 Siderealpress:
He sounds fantastic, I haven't read anything else by him unfortunately. Do you recommend any of his other works?
Now that I've gone deeper into the book, it's feeling much less superficial and more interesting. I was referring mostly to his view on the causes of Weimar sexuality, the first chapter or so. I like the rest of it so far. Since those were the more "serious" parts I assume the cuts are to be blamed, and not the author. As to the more exploitative elements, I sort of expected them... actually, I think his approach is at times more tasteful and classier than I expected. :)

I'm going to read your blog now, thanks for the link.

>50 cinnamonshops:

The Anita Berber biog is great and the book on Eric Jan Hanussen is also very good. The latter is Mels own favourite- he considers that he sneaked it past the F.H. gang as it is quite serious and breaks some new ground.

REGARDS!

J

You can read a story by Thomas Owen and others here:

http://weirdfictionreview.com/2011/12/thanks-for-your-support-what-wfr-com-has-a...

An interesting article from wfr:

http://weirdfictionreview.com/2011/11/wfr-print-journal-reprint-the-first-ladies...

Forgotten Masters of the Weird Tale #1

The First Ladies of Fear Fiction: Mary Dale Buckner & Greye La Spina

John Pelan

Hi all,

Tartarus have just announced the Thomas Owen book.

Here is a link to the blog:

http://tartaruspress.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/why-you-should-read-thomas-owen.html

REGARDS!

J

Only 299 copies left!

I'm reading Tenebrae by Ernest G. Henham newly re-printed by Valancourt. Looks like it's going to be a wild ride full of opium, insanity, alcohol and other dark decadent stuff.

I'm reading The Devil in Love by Jacques Cazotte.

A holiday gift to myself, the best kind; Reunion at Dawn.

Wow - I checked on that one. I love Wakefield.

I also would recommend Michel Bernanos' novella, The Other Side of the Mountain and the short stories of William Sansom ("A Woman Seldom Found" captures the same unique sense of evil that Bernanos' story does - in Arthur Machen's sense: "if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad").

I mentioned Imagine a Man in a Box a while ago. Highly recommended. Required reading for Wakefield fans. I should re-read it.

Anyone read Old Man's Beard? At $360, too rich for my blood. ;-(

At those prices, all things considered, it's best to grab the anthologies.

Just finished The White Luck Warrior by R. Scott Bakker. I know modern high fantasy really isn't the focus of this group, but Bakker has a way with words. Quest scenes read like a Cormac McCarthy nightmare and court scenes radiate a decadence similar to that of Charles Swinburne or Joris-Karl Huysmans, with character conniving against each other in scenes like The Godfather, Part II in silk and damask.

Here's how he describes a Wracu, a dragon in his world:

"Revealed in all his decayed glory, the Wracu reared with chitinous grace, its neck looking like a swan's, its mammoth head poised low. Blinding vomit cracked its lizard grin."

Can chitin possess or shed grace? Interesting decadent fact: the extract from the chitinous husk of some brand of beetle is used as a dye in some bottled fruit drinks (pink lemonade, in particular).

Is that the beetle we no longer use to color our Campari?

Now I'd have a problem with that. I hope not.

61
Re: Wakefield

In the case of a new collection of old stories, would the new publisher hold exclusive copyright for a period of time? Could they be included in new anthologies? Just curious if there's any reason a definitive Wakefield might or might not appear.

Note:
Intro to Reunion at Dawn mentions that Wakefield was a drunken, pain-in-the-ass to Derleth.

IN RE #67. De mortuis . . . ? Hope I'm not stepping on any toes, living or dead, but Derleth himself -- for all his considerable talents and accomplishments -- was a royal pain in the podex to many, many people. For what little it's worth, I almsot bought one of his old hang-outs in Sauk City, and -- to the extent that I believe in haunting -- sometimes feel that I dodged some sort of bullet in not taking on a space so full of bizarre energies.

Some of the Weird Tales and other pulp editors were notorious SOB's.

69: But Nicholas Sparks loves his fans. I'll take SOB pulp editors over a well-meaning mediocriton like Sparks.

63: Not just fruit drinks! Cochineal (also known as E120 and a couple of other names) is used to colour several kinds of "red" food. I've encountered it in the labels of pizza snacks, jellybeans, and cranberry yogurt, among others.

Halfway through Prince Zaleski by M.P. Shiel, best described as Des Esseintes meet Sherlock Holmes. A highly cultured Russian prince solves crimes without ever leaving his sofa. Lovecraft thought very highly of M.P. Shiel, and it is easy to see why.

Poems bewitched and haunted, interesting collection with a lot of unfamiliar poets and unfamiliar work from familiar names.

72: Then you would enjoy my penny dreadful podcast serial about Prof. Lazarus Faust, alchemist and pataphysician from Austria who battles supernatural forces in 1901 Vienna:

http://www.cclapcenter.com/dreadful/

In re #72. Mon cher CharlesFerdinand, de gustibus non disputandum est . . . BUT . . . M. P. Shiel??? Not for nothing did I use his a copy of his THE LOST VIOL as the prize in my mock Horror-Neologism of the Year contest. I think even the supposedly omnivorous Yogg Sotthoth would gag on his prose. Brrr. Peace to you even so.

@75
I only know this one, and I find it quite enjoyable. It is no great literature, to be sure, but as genre, it has its merits. And these stories are definitely not horror, rather an attempt at Aesthetiscism in crime fiction.
Then again, I did like The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.

#56 - What are your thoughts on Tenebrae?

I'm enjoying a casual tour of underworld lingo in Partridge's comprehensive Dictionary of the Underworld The beautiful thing is that he includes both UK and US criminal slang and slang terms going back to the 17th century. Thought this band of card sharps, spivs, and running snavels would appreciate such a lexicographic treasure trove.

In re #78. Partridge is held in some sort of adoration by many. I can't speak to that one way or the other, but the late lamented Gershon Legman, a scholar and wordsmith to put us all to shame, held him in DISregard. Anybody have any thoughts on that? -- Goddard

I enjoyed the indolent hashish smoking Zaleski as well. The Shapes in the Fire Collection has been on my shelf for years, but I have only read House of Sounds.

Shapes in the Fire is amazing, probably Shiel at his looniest, which is saying something. I liked the idea of Zaleski far more than the actual stories - the character deserves a tribute anthology. For decadent detection, you'd be better off investigating Fantomas or John Dickson Carr.

I like the Fantomas books- open my door and he glowers at you from a high wall! Have you read the poem by Robert Desnos?

I love the Fantomas novels. Is the Desnos poem in print in English?

I don't think so... but here is a translation, of sorts:

http://www.fantomas-lives.com/fanto5e.htm

Thanks for this, Ben. The poem / chanson isn't included in either of the English language collections The Voice of Robert Desnos or the more recent Essential Poems and Writings of Robert Desnos. It's a shame Mary Ann Caws didn't see fit to include it in the latter, as her translations read superbly, and I'm sure she would have improved on the version given at the link.

The whole song can be heard here, along with a nice selection of covers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5qK-He9xeE

Long OP but there's Complaint of Fantomas by Desnos in
Mid-century French Poets.

That's the one. Thanks!

Hey up VolupteFunebre!

I was wondering if Tenebrae by Ernest G. Henham held up to your expectations?

REGARDS!

j

Digging Babel.

The Complete Works Of Isaac Babel

Highly recommended.

I just finished Justine by Lawrence Durrell

#89 - A professor was telling me about The Red Cavalry. Is that a good place to start?

It is - or you can get his complete stories as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works-Isaac-Babel/dp/0393328244/ref=sr_1_1?s=book...

Red Cavalry is the most famous but Early Stories and Odessa Stories
are excellent. Complete Works is relatively cheap and, supposedly,
an excellent translation. Original list for the hardback was $45.

My copy of Glove of Passion, Voice of Blood by Jean Muno just arrived, delayed in the yuletide post - the two stories included in The Belgian School of the Bizarre are excellent, I have high hopes for the rest.

Days and Nights by Arthur Symons. His poetry collections are all fantastic, far better than Lionel Johnson or John Davidson (who are almost unreadable). More dark and decadent than Wilde's poetry too.

All his poetry can be found in nice quality reprints like Pranava books from India.

Anyone for some pinaforing?

http://www.cclapcenter.com/2013/03/the_nsfw_files_gynecocracy_by_.html

93
Thanks, Soukesian

Glove of Passion, Voice of Blood by Jean Muno
and The Belgian School of the Bizarre are interesting and excellent.

Tales of the Grotesque by L.A. Lewis. Apparently an influence on David Tibet/Current 93 and a very good read.

Cocaine by Pitigrilli (aka Diego Segre). A late (1921) decadent novel that had me searching, unsuccesully, for more english translations of books by this Italian author.

Hi all,
the Pitigrilli sounds intriguing and will be available (it says) here:

http://newvesselpress.com/books/cocaine/

REGARDS!

J

98. If Fassbinder liked it, then it must be good.

I'm currently reading Sidonia the Sorceress by William Meinhold, translated by Francesca Speranza, otherwise known as Lady Jane Wilde, Oscar's mother.

Getting my brain Wittgenstein for Beginners Apparently Ludwig was a friend of Georg Trakl

Wittgenstein's precise, clinical logic and his exploration of language and mysticism make him a fascinating anti-decadent.

Reading The Kill by Emile Zola, so far it's jam packed with the artificiality of Hausmannian Paris, incest, promiscuity, unrelenting greed and ennui. I'm astonished it doesn't get mentioned more often.

Agreed! Fondling myself while I chew poison leaves and wait for my bisexual son-in-law lover in the lush hothouse full of the rarest plants? Perhaps there are too many bourgeois enjoying the opulent and shameless living still-lifes? Still there are definite decadents attending there and at the brothel.

101: Just about all I've read by Zola is packed with Parisian/French vice and degeneration. Thérèse Raquin, L'Assommoir, Nana, Pot-Bouille, and La Terre...to name a few...all tackle some sort of sordid subject matter. I also think that the lyricism and fantastic elements in La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret nearer to symbolism than naturalism, but this book appears to be the exception for Zola. It appears that by the early 1880s, Zola fell out of favor with many symbolists and decadents, starting with J-K Huysmans, who began revolting against his naturalist/realist style in lieu of something with greater romanticism and perhaps greater spiritual profundity...(?) Perhaps they were also revolting against Zola's popularity of the time, or perhaps his out and out atheism/materialism? Regardless, although not mentioned much here in the Chapel, the fact that much of everything Zola's written remains in print to today must attest to a lingering popularity.

The lack of spiritual in Zola was something the narrator in La-Bas certainly complained of. I wouldn't call that narrator a decadent (or the increasingly religious Huysmans.) But I am not a scholar of Huysmans, decadence, or anything else for that matter.

102: Yama yama bonita mamita! That's a bit richer than last I read it.

Reading Against the Day by reclusive polymath Thomas Pynchon -- a gorgeous mish-mash of fin-de-siecle intellectual lunacy, everything from Anarchism to Aether, Time-travel heretics, hot-house poets, occultists, and sentient Light.

105: Zola was a Naturalist, not a Decadent. More of a salt of the earth fellow, siding with the industrial proletariat. Never read The Kill, but I did read Germinal, a tome that proves mining really sucks.

Maybe its the new translation!

108: That very well could be. The censorious Anglo-Saxons do like the euphemize the vulgarity and effluvia in such writers like Zola, Catullus, and certain sections of Seutonius

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCGjY5KFCZ4

I loved The Kill. Zola's descriptions of plants, boudoirs, and lavish dinner parties reminded me of A Rebours.

I keep meaning to get to The Belly of Paris. The Kill is on my purchase list.

Oxford World Classics offer recent (and, apparently, faithful) translations.

My translation is Oxford. I read it in French in 30 years ago, forgot most of it... all I can recall or the various physiological distinctions that marked long-timepatrons of various slophouses and wine sellers - really stymies the taco bell jones.

Heh, you read it 4 years before I was even born. Anyway the oxford translation is excellent. Some of the passages reach the descriptive genius of Huysmans. At least in traslation.

The Kill is one of my favourite Zolas.

107, I'm reading this too! I'm about 1/3 in. What do you make of it so far?

I'm also reading Symons's The Symbolist Movement in Literature which is very illuminating on the relationship between naturalism and Decadence/Symbolism, and on the difference between Zola and Balzac. Symons has a low opinion of Zola. He reckons that Zola's naturalism limits him as an artist, compared with Balzac, whom he describes more or less as a force of nature. I can't disagree with that assessment of Balzac, but I think Zola's artistry transcends his theoretical aims. Symons writes under the belief that Zola will disappear, but of course, he hasn't, but seems to be gaining in popularity, as Vaniamk13 notes.

It always hinges upon the anyway. It's on the beach read list.

I believe there was a BBC (?) televised production of Thérèse Raquin in the 1980s. And a film made in the 50s. I saw the 80s series and would like to dig up the film. YouTube has clips, of course. This novella, and Le ventre de Paris are the only things I've thus far read.

In Degeneration, Max Nordau's misguided attack on European literary values in the later half of the 19th C., he blasts the French public for making Nana the top selling novel of its era. Nordau claims, and cites sales statistics, showing that the popularity of Zola's novels (with the exception of Germinal) corresponded directly to the amoung of sex and depravity portrayed in each.

118: Ah, Nordau. Gotta love the bloviations of the self-righteous aesthetic philistine. Sex sells. Well, duh. It's been selling quite well since they painted those randy frescoes in Pompeii.

While we decadents can sit back in our lily-hued lassitude and chuckle at Max Nordau's moral hysteria, can we read Degeneration as High Camp? Something to consider.

I've just finished Sidonia the Sorceress by Wilhelm Meinhold, translated by Lady Jane Wilde. Great fun to read and beautifully rendered in English by Oscar's dear mother.

Now I'm reading The Amber Witch, also by Meinhold, but translated by some other lady.

Perusing the positive thinking and relentless cheerfulness of EM Cioran

@118: Degeneration is up on Google Books, an 1895 English translation. It's an enticing read: you get to read some serious crazy-talk, yet at the same time, this stuff made varying degrees of sense (or not) to its readers in those good ol' days. At the very least, his preface is worth your time. He's also got chapters on "Parnassians and Diabolists," "Decadents and Aesthetes," "The Richard Wagner Cult," and so on. I'm interested in his "Prognosis" and "Therapeutics." How do we fix these deranged literary minds??!?

Anyway, I recently read José Asunción Silva's De sobremesa and highly enjoyed it. There may be a tendency to dismiss Latin American Modernismo as derivative of its European inspirations, but that doesn't seem to be very fair. It's in English as "After-Dinner Conversation: The Diary of a Decadent." It's well worth your time, if only to see decadence through a different, non-European dandy's eyes. Another good book, although I don't know if it made it to English, is Enrique Larreta's La gloria de don Ramiro. In terms of poetry, I've gone back to some Delmira Agustini poems, as well as some of the classics from Darío, Martí, and so forth.

122, paragraph 2: Thank you for your post. I have lobbied for ages for attention to and translation/publication of Latin American modernismo. Some foreign publishers, such as the Catholic University of Lima, have been extremely helpful. It is really a shame that a whole legacy of American letters is unavailable to North American (etc.) readership.

Reading The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi by Mark Hodder -- another installment in his Burton & Swinburne steampunk series. Fun stuff, and nice to see Decadent poet Swinburne used in an alt-historical actioner.

Reading Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison, currently on the middle novella of the collection "The Man Who Gave UP His Name". It might make me seem like an enemy of diversity and all that loveliness since I've lately been so enamored by white male writers currently in their seventies like Harrison and Tobias Wolff.

Wolff gave a reading at my school a couple months back and I had the privilege of attending a private lecture/discussion. His sheer passion for reading literature and for his craft and even the magnitude of his life experience lends him such a character that I was enamored the whole time. A great experience for me. Anyway, I'm rambling.

Also reading Wyatt Mason's translation of Rimbaud. I didn't realize that Schmidt took so many liberties with the language until my French-speaking girlfriend went through and compared Schmidt's translations with Mason's. If any of you speak French and have multiple translations of Rimbaud, I'd like to hear your opinions.

Reading Proxy: Peter Sotos Pornography: 1991-2000. My main fear in reading his work is that it's going to get redundant, being that he is completely obssessed, very literally, with cases of murdered and molested children, prostitutes, and clandestine homosexual encounters. However, he allows for just enough self-reflection (which I hear is more prominent in later work like Selfish, Little) and he experiments with fragmentation and other devices jsut enough that he snaps me out of doubt every five pages or so.

I'm currently reading The Manuscript Found in Saragossa for the first time. It's been waiting in my pile for a very long time. My very high expectations have been surpassed already. Phantasmagorical!. I've fallen love with this book.

Be careful where you sleep tonight...

I think the Orion Press, two volume hardback set are the most complete in english, which includes

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
and
The new Decameron; further tales from the Saragossa manuscript

David/tros, thank you. I have a copy packed away somewhere that came out years ago - but you have brought it back to mind AND alerted me to the possibility that my edition is a bit incomplete. Off, then, to Orion.

125: I have always liked Louise Varèse's translation of Les Illuminations (preferrred to Fowlie's) . but it has been so many years since I have read them in French, I can no longer remember why hers (I remember a favorite of my youth Barbare/Barbarian "the banner of raw meat, above the silk of seas and the arctic flowers(?). They do not exist" -some such... packed away, alas).

Re: Sotos: interesting, like a particularly horrible accident and the afterthought of why we felt compelled to watch it.

The Dedalus Tales from the Manuscript looks to be criminally incomplete at less than 200 pages.

233 pages for SM and 433 for ND. 666 pages!

Good luck finding them. They're more than 50 years old.
It took me more than 20 years to find ND before the internet.

The Dedalus "Tales from . ." is incomplete, but it was all you could easily get when it came out in 1990. The Penguin Classics edition, which came out in 1996, is 656 pages.

See the Wojciech Has movie if you get the chance.

Cybulski rules!

I am currently reading the Penguin Classics edition, which is well annotated.

147. I did wake up at 4am on the sofa with a headache. The Saragossa Manuscript was lying next to me between the coach cushions. I was very relieved to not find myself under the gallows of Los Hermanos.

148. Thanks, I had been looking for a copy of The New Decameron: Further Tales from Saragossa I will pick up the 2 volume Orion edition immediately, cost permitting.

I've been watching the Polish film adaptation on youtube without subtitles while I await my DVD in the mail. I read somewhere that Cybulski was a James Dean type icon. He died in 1967, just two years after filming Saragossa.

I think I have decided to quit my job and become a bandit like Zoto. I've got a few scores to settle.

Is the Penguin complete? Can anyone verify that it is not?

Zoto! What a life! I wish I could join you!

I was lucky enough to see the film subtitled, but with a mostly-Polish audience. They were laughing it up infectiously throughout, which pointed up the intentional absurdities of the text, and made it a totally different experience from my previous viewing, reverentially watching a VHS borrowed from the Polish Cultural Institute.

If you're interested in occultism at all - and the connections between Europe and the Arab world in particular - the book is pretty essential read, and thoroughly entertaining to boot.

My favorite Cybulski film is Ashes and Diamonds from the novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski and directed by Wajda.
An interesting story with an outstanding performance by Cybulski and great cinematography.

I have a peculiar relationship to The Saragossa MS as a book. I don't own a copy, but I've read it. I distinctly remember reading it, about 15-20 years ago, but I can't picture the edition, and I don't know from whom I borrowed it. When I saw the film, I had already read the book. For a collection-happy bibliophile like me, it's very strange to be unable to mentally place a physical book, while being familiar with its contents.

Reading The Bullet's Song by William Pfaff. Erudite, witty, and brilliant. He looks at utopians and dreamers from the 19th century who influenced extremist ideologies of the 20th -- Gabriel Dannunzio, Ernst Junger, Andre Malraux, Koestler, Simone Weil, and Popski

I am currently reading Peter Barry's Beginning Theory to refresh and round out my pretty basic understanding before I start upper division English classes. Also reading The Sun Also Rises and Proxy.

I've finally gotten around to Fantazius Mallare, and I'm about three chapters in.

141: What are your thoughts? Worth the effort?

> 142

Oh, it's not a lot of effort at all. I'm about 2/3 through now, after just three sittings. Mallare is definitely a descendant of Des Essientes. The omniscient third-person narration alternates with passages from Mallare's journal, so that Mallare's misconceptions are set into ironic relief.

The illustrations seem to have an inconsistent relationship to the text, but they're terrific regardless.

It's nice to see a positive review. I have heard from a couple of readers who didn't express a very high esteem for Hecht's talents. FM and several other of his books (including his skewering of Max Bodenheim in Count Bruga) have been on my reading list for a long time.

142: The intro to Mallare is worth the admission price. A wonderfully vindictive exorcism against the sanctimonious mediocrities of contemporary existence. Since Hecht was a Hollywood screenwriter -- and Hollywood treats screenwriters like low-level clerks -- I can see where the bile came from. Nothing can fuel the snark and loathing in any upstanding human being than the false glow of Hollywood dreams and its cheap avarice.

Finished Sade: a sudden abyss by Annie Le Brun. Fearless criticism and analysis of everybody's favorite uncle, The Marquis de Sade.

> 145 The intro to Mallare

Agreed!

The Hamlet by William Faulkner. The description of the decayed and derelict plantation of Frenchman's Bend is a marvel to behold. The same glowering sense of decay and moral squalor, except with poor white trash instead of absinthe-swilling French aristocrats.

Faulkner is far too close to home at times for poor white trash like me. My relations are living out the last chapters of the sequel to As I Lay Dying at my father's house as I type this.

I still haven't read Fantazius Mallare. I must get to that one soon. I did pick up a copy of a collection of twenty of his stories titled A Treasury of Ben Hecht at a used book store a couple of years back and have enjoyed his short fiction very much.

Currently, I am coming to the end of The Marquis of Bolibar by Leo Perutz. I started it immediately after finishing A Manuscript Found In Saragossa. The setting of The Marquis of Bolibar is in Spain not far from Saragossa during the Napoleonic wars, precisely the same time period and location of the beginning and end of the Saragossa Manuscript. So I picked up more or less exactly where I left off. Incidentally, Perutz was a mathematician which made me think of Vasquez in Saragossa. Anyway, Bolibar is a trip as mind blowing as The Master of the Day of Judgment and The Swedish Cavalier. Who needs mescaline when you have books like these? Oh how I love Leo Perutz!

I finished and reviewed Fantazius Mallare, along with Thom Ryng's version of The King in Yellow, having enjoyed both.

I agree with paradoxisalphas review in that the dedication is great and the illustrations wonderful but actually prefer the (commonly regarded as inferior) Hechts Kingdom of Evil which I reviewed here:

http://siderealpressxtras.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/book-reviews-i-have-dispensed-w...

I am reading ‘The Transfiguration of Mister Punch’ on

Egaeus Press. The Schneider part is excellent and I have high hopes of the rest.
REGARDS!
J

> 150

I just found out about The Kingdom of Evil through LT a week ago, and wishlisted it right off.

I recently acquired a very nice edition of The Collected Works of Pierre Louys. Had read odds and ends of Louys before, and liked them well enough, but I'm really very much impressed by The Songs of Bilitis

Next on the shelf, I've just received an English first edition of The Love Life of Julius Caesar by the mysterious Renee Dunan, Dadaist and prolific author of 1920's pulp shockers and erotica. Glancing through her introduction and afterword to this work, I'm pretty confident of a ride at least as wild and cranky as her Baal.

I picked up a copy of Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea yesterday. Has anyone here read it? The blurb on the cover sounds promising:

"Thirteen-year-old Noburo is a member of a gang of highly philosophical teenage boys who reject the tenets of the adult world--to them, adult life is illusory, hypocritical, and sentimental. When Noburo's widowed mother is romanced by Ryuji, a sailor, Noburo is thrilled. He idolizes this rugged man of the sea as a hero. But his admiration soon turns to hatred, as Ryuji forsakes life onboard the ship for marriage, rejecting everything Noburo holds sacred. Upset and appalled, he and his friends respond to this apparent betrayal with a terrible ferocity."

I like Mishima and I love the title, but I thought the book was not as strong as his best stuff. The sketch of the novel is so good that it had to be better to live up to it.

I loved The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea. I found the voyeuristic passages about Ryuji quite titillating.

I recall liking Sailor as well.

I'm almost done with Bouvard and Pecuchet, which had been on my TBR list for quite a long time. Quite hilarious - these two could have been grandfathers to Vladimir and Estragon!

"Then a lamentable faculty developed in their minds, that of noticing stupidity and finding it intolerable."

I think Hugh Kenner made that connection in The Stoic Comedians. I loved Bouvard and Pecuchet - particularly the idea of compiling a dictionary of inherited sureties and off-the-rack phrases ambient in the culture.

Here's a line, sort of suggested by sailors and viral prejudices, from Vincent O'Sullivan's story, Master of Fallen Years: "We obey some secret command; we sail under sealed orders." A catchy motto.

Picked up The Flaneur by Edmund White. Not a current read, but putting it on the TBR pile.

Upon finishing Sailor, I find myself agreeing with slickdpdx; it didn't live up to the promise of its title and summary. Still, it has gems like this (pp. 38-9):

"He remembered her asking: ‘Why haven’t you ever married?’ And he remembered his simpering answer: ‘It’s not easy to find a woman who is willing to be a sailor’s wife.’

What he wanted to say was: “All the other officers have two or three children by now and they read letters from home over and over again, and look at pictures their kids have drawn of houses and the sun and flowers. Those men have thrown opportunity away--there’s no hope for them any more. I’ve never done much, but I’ve lived my whole life thinking of myself as the only real man. And if I’m right, then a limpid, lonely horn is going to trumpet through the dawn someday, and a turgid cloud laced with light will sweep down, and the poignant voice of glory will call for me from the distance--and I’ll have to jump out of bed and set out alone. That’s why I’ve never married. I’ve waited, and waited, and here I am past thirty.’

But he hadn’t said anything like that; partly because he doubted a woman would understand.”

A short film by Mishima.

Yûkoku: The Rite of Love and Death

http://youtu.be/eJyzoFWNAy4

Finishing up Urien's Voyage by André Gide, a wonderful little symbolist novella from 1892 about a exotic journey full of temptations, suffering, and ennui. Highly recommended.

Finished Louis XXX by Georges Bataille. Blasphemous, mystical, violent, and short.

> 162

Thank you! Wishlisted.

ETA: What's with the broken cover images? I just re-grabbed from amazon; hopefully it will stay there.

I'm about a third of the way into MollyTanzer's A Pretty Mouth and it is quite good! Decadent, weird, and horrific, with a sense of humor.

Just picked up French Decadent Tales, new from Oxford World's Classics, which looks like a handy and nicely priced collection. Includes stories from Barbey D'Aurevilly, De L'Isle-Adam, Catulle Mendes, Leon Bloy, Octave Mirbeau, Jean Richepin, De Maupassant, Gustave Geffroy, Jean Lorrain, Georges Rodenbach, De Gourmont, Jules Laforgue, Marcel Schwob and Pierre Louys. Many of these names are represented by three or four different pieces and the whole thing comes with a scholarly introduction, bibliography and copious footnotes.

There is some overlap with material available in English language translations that I have from the Dedalus series, but much of it is new to me. Worth picking up.

. . oh, and it actually says 'newly translated selection' on the back here, though I'm pretty certain at least a couple of the titles are familiar.

> 164 Picked this up in the sales, and it's thoroughly entertaining. A few rough edges and some slight missteps here and there, perhaps, but clearly a writer to watch.

Just started Insatiability by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. I'm only one chapter in, but it looks like it will be quite a ride.

I've just finished The Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus and Avatar by Theophile Gautier. The former was deeply fascinating and the latter was quite a fantastic tale, Gautier at his best. I loved the plot twist at the end of Avatar.

I've just started The Life of Pythagoras by Iamblichus and The Wild Ass's Skin by Balzac.

I am almost finished with From Nine to Nine by Leo Perutz and will be reading his novel Turlupin next. After that I'll have read all his translated works. Perutz is definitely one of my very favorite authors.

What did you think of The Swedish Cavalier? It's one of my favorite Perutz along with The Master of the Day of Judgment, The Marquis of Bolibar and From Nine to Nine.

It's hard to choose. The Swedish Cavalier is probably my favorite, followed closely by The Marquise of Bolibar, but I dearly love all of them. Perutz is a great storyteller and so profound. I'm looking forward to Turlupin.

Incidentally, In Saint Peter's Snow, I found the Counts theory about the spread of the ergot fungus across Europe and it's effect on history was very interesting indeed.

Perutz is fascinating. One review said "there is much that is universal in his novels". I thought that was well put. Reading his novels has made me more mindful of karmic implications.

>168 dcozy:

Insatiability is truly a frenzied and philosophical treat. I've heard the translation is not so wonderful though, but I'm not in a position to evaluate that.

I'm about 60% of the way through The Prague Cemetery and it reminds me a lot of La-Bas in both the setting and the emphasis on gastronomical detail, not to mention the appearance of the Abbe Boullan and his milieu.

I can't judge the fidelity of Louis Iribarne's translation of Insatiability to the Polish, but I will say the prose often seems pretty clunky. This may or may not be a reflection of the original.

There is, I discovered, a film of Insatiability available with English subtitles on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8EF2YVtv7Y

>174 dcozy: Thanks for that link!

I must admit, I found getting through the English Insatiability something of an uphill struggle. I understand the Polish text is very funny, but dense, experimental and allusive, and all of these things will conspire to make pulling off a successful translation a challenge. The author's plays seem to survive the translation process much better, and are well worth checking out.

I gave up half way through Insatiability for the aforementioned reasons. Now reading Complete Short Stories by Ronald Firbank. A mix of vignettes and prose poems some of them bilingual.

I read Chateau d'Argol by Julien Gracq today. I'm still processing it, but all I can say is, "That shit is the shit, man." (Also, probably the most unhelpful summary ever.)

177: There was an unpleasant but good discussion of that book on LT where a person who had interesting things to say was unfortunately dogmatic about them. Check it out.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/26310
gets rolling/roiling at 42

I found the male/female issue the most interesting in the book and added it to the now defunct TFC thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/49826

Like most good parables, there is a lot to muse upon and its versatile.

Also, at the risk of offending our literary sensibilities, did you see that Vegas movie that they just made a third one of? I only saw the first, but it almost could have been that the first guy was wacked out on the roof the whole time and his id, ego and superego escaped and had adventures. Chateau had that aspect as well.

Silly me, I see you were there Karl! I should have known. How was The Balcony in the Forest?

Oh lord, all that noise (179). I have been meaning to reread Chateau myself. I have just finished up The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (and thanks to tros's recommendation, I now have the dvd in hand).

180: Still on the TBR list. Why would people get hung about the male/female issues? I read somewhere -- probably in this group -- about how Argol was a reinterpretation of the Parzival story. Although I found it wonderfully ironic that a book about conversation and intellect has absolutely no dialogue. One must not forget that Julien Gracq was a working schoolmaster and that seems like a pretty funny trick that only a schoolmaster would do. I also found the novel (novella) to be a wonderful example of literary indirectness. Everything is described in a roundabout fashion, even while being very concrete and precise at the same time.

>174 dcozy: Thanks again to dcozy for posting the link to Wiktor Grodecki's film of Insatiability. Just got around to finding time to watch this.

Highly entertaining - far more so than the available translation of the novel, as far as I'm concerned. Grodecki brings off the filming of what I would have thought an unfilmable work with considerable style. The actor playing the dictatorial Commander gives a performance of absolutely demonic intensity. Spectacularly kinky throughout, sometimes disturbingly so - you have been warned!

I'm reading The Ages of Lulu by Almudena Grandes -- an erotic coming of age story set in the last days of Franco's Spain.

And The Universal Spider by Paul Murray Kendall, a bio of Louis XI.

Today I started The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov and I half way through Vendetta by Balzac.

During the Olympics, I will be reading Wings by Mikhail Kuzmin.

>184 kswolff: That's on my wishlist. Let me know what you think once you've finished it.

The Grandes, that is.

Teatro Grotesco by Ligotti, off-beat horror short stories, interesting.

I'm reading the bios of two French leaders: Louis XI by Paul Murray Kendall and A Taste for Intrigue by Philip Short, a bio of French President Francois Mitterand.

I'm reading Henry IV, Selected Short Stories of D.H. Lawrence, and Norman Mailer's biography of Marilyn.

Mount Analogue by Rene Daumel and My Father's Life by Retif de la Bretonne.

Finished reading Matriarchy: freedom in bondage by Malcolm McKesson. A strange, unearthly, and utterly enchanting book. McKesson is an outsider artist who provides copious illustrations for his semi-autobiographical erotic tale. In the novel, a young man achieves spiritual enlightenment from his servitude to his Mistress as both a page boy and a serving maid. It's reminiscent of Gynecocracy by Viscount Ladywood, although infused with a spiritual decadence more in line with Our Lady of the Flowers

Nearly done with The Universal Spider by Paul Murray Kendall, the biography of King Louis XI.

Adrian Rome by Ernest Christopher Dowson and Arthur Moore.

https://archive.org/details/adrianrome00dowsiala

Reading Lost Girls by Alan Moore and 'Zine by Pagan Kennedy

first sentence of Echo's Bones:

The dead die hard, they are tresspassers on the beyond, they must take the place as they find it, the shafts and manholes back into the muck, till such time as the lord of the manor incurs through his long acquiescence a duty of care in respect of them.

Echo's Bones
Samuel Beckett

Reading Down in the Chapel by Joshua Dubler, about religious life in a Pennsylvania maximum security prison. Fascinating stuff, especially about the more abstruse black religions that bubbled up during the early twentieth century like the Moorish Science Temple of America:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorish_Science_Temple_of_America

And I began 120 Days of Sodom by DAF Sade. I still have a couple short tales to get through before I read "120 Days" itself. I've read Sade before -- Justine and Juliette, the Yin and Yang of his depraved writing -- but I've finally mustered up the courage to read the most notorious book of them all. I remember reading somewhere that JG Ballard liked "120 Days" to "a black cathedral."

DAF Sade is one of those unique "cusp" figures, riding the border between two different eras. In his case The Age of Reason (see Sade's strident and confrontational atheism) and The Gothic/Romantic Era (see Sade's settings with castles, monasteries, etc. ... and as with many Gothic tales, there is a rational explanation for the scary goings-on, although that rational explanation makes them no less horrific).

Comte de Gabalis by Abbe de Montfaucon de Villars.

Finished Down in the Chapel and now reading John Marshall by Harlow Giles Unger