Monday, November 30, 2009

Lautreamont


The little young guy with Freud and Rand and Buckley was Lautreamont.

Lautréamont died at the age of 24 on November 24, 1870, at 8:00 am in his hotel. On his death certificate "no further information" was given. Since many were afraid of epidemics while Paris was besieged, Ducasse was buried the next day after a service in Notre Dame de Lorette in a provisional grave at the Cemetière du Nord. During January 1871, his body was put into another grave elsewhere.
In his Poésies Lautréamont announced: "I will leave no memoirs", and as such, the life of the creator of the "Les Chants de Maldoror" remains for the most part unknown.

Les Chants de Maldoror

Les Chants de Maldoror is based on a character called Maldoror, a figure of unrelenting evil who has forsaken God and mankind. The book combines a violent narrative with vivid and often surrealistic imagery.
The critic Alex De Jonge writes, "Lautreamont forces his readers to stop taking their world for granted. He shatters the complacent acceptance of the reality proposed by their cultural traditions and make them see that reality for what it is: an unreal nightmare all the more hair-raising because the sleeper believes he is awake."
There is a wealth of Lautréamont criticism, interpretation and analysis in French (including an esteemed biography by Jean-Jacques Lefrère), but little in English.
Lautréamont's writing has many bizarre scenes, vivid imagery and drastic shifts in tone and style. There is much "black humor"; De Jonge argues that Maldoror reads like "a sustained sick joke."

The other two were Mohammed and ole JC

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