[<<] September 2005 Jahsonic (02) [>>]
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"Method of this work:
literary montage.
I have nothing to say only to show." (Passagenwerk (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin)
2005, Sep 08; 09:23 ::: Histoire de l'oeil / Story of the Eye (1928) - Georges Bataille
The Story of the Eye (1928) - Georges Bataille [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Cover illustration by Hans BellmerBataille had an amazing interdisciplinary talent — he drew from diverse influences and used diverse modes of discourse to create his work. His novel The Story of the Eye, for example, published under the pseudonym Lord Auch (literally, Lord "to the shithouse" — "auch" being slang for telling somebody off by sending them to the toilet), was initially read as pure pornography, while interpretation of the work has gradually matured to reveal the considerable philosophical and emotional depth that is characteristic of other writers who have been categorized within "literature of transgression." The imagery of the novel is built upon a series of metaphors which in turn refer to philosophical constructs developed in his work: the eye, the egg, the sun, the earth, the testicle. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Bataille#Life_and_work [Sept 2005]
See also: L'Histoire de l'Oeil - Georges Bataille - Hans Bellmer - 1928 - erotic fiction - literature - France
2005, Sep 07; 22:21 ::: Le Con d'Irène/Irene's Cunt (1928) - Louis Aragon
Le Con d'Irène/Irene's Cunt (1928) - Louis Aragon [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Image sourced here.: an illustration by André MassonBook Description
First published anonymously in France in 1928, Le Con d'Irène, is the last 'lost' masterpiece of Surrealist erotica. Likes Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye (published the same year), Irene's Cunt is an intensely poetic account, the story of a man's torment when he becomes fixated upon the genitalia of an imaginary woman and is reduced to voyeuristically scoping 'her' erotic encounters. In between describing various events in brothels and other sexual adventures, Louis Aragon charts an inner monologue which is often reminiscent, in its poetic/ surreal intensity, of the work of Lautreamont, and of Artaud in its evocation of physical disgust as the dark correlative to spiritual illumination.This new edition features an exceptional and completely unexpurgated translation by Alexis Lykiard (translator of Lautreamont's Maldoror and Apollinaire's Les Onze Mille Vierges), and includes complete annotation and an illuminating introduction. --via Amazon
Times Literary Supplement
This work of genius...a lyrically urgent evocation of the mystical core of true sexual carnality. --via AmazonSee also: André Masson - Creation Books - cunt - 1928 - erotic fiction - surrealism - literature - France
2005, Sep 07; 22:21 ::: Paris Peasant (1926) - Louis Aragon
Paris Peasant (1926) - Louis Aragon [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
Paris Peasant (1926) is one of the central works of Surrealism, a work that helps define the movement itself; yet this is the first U.S. publication of Simon Watson Taylor’s authoritative translation, completed after consultations with the author. Unconventional in form — Aragon self-consciously avoided any recognizable narration or character development — but fiercely lyrical, Paris Peasant is, in the author’s words, "a mythology of the modern." The book uses the city of Paris as a framework, and Aragon interlaces his text with the city’s ephemera: café menus, maps, inscriptions on monuments, newspaper clippings, as well as the lives of its citizens. A detailed description of a Parisian passage, nineteenth-century precursor to the mini-mall, and another of the Buttes-Chaumont park, are the great set pieces within Aragon’s swirling prose of philosophy, dream, and satire. "No one could have been a more astute detector of the unwonted in all its forms; no one else could have been carried away by such intoxicating reveries about a sort of secret life of the city.…" — André Breton"I was seeking… a new kind of novel that would break all the traditional rules governing the writing of fiction… a novel that the critics would be obliged to approach empty-handed." — Louis Aragon --via Amazon
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon (October 3, 1897 – December 24, 1982), French historian, poet and novelist, and a member of the Académie Goncourt.Aragon was a member of the Dada and subsequently the surrealist circles.
In 1939 he married Russian-born author Elsa Triolet (born 1896), the sister-in-law of Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.
During the World War II German occupation of France he wrote for the underground press Les Éditions de Minuit, and was one of several writers who adopted the name of a French region as a pen name.
One noted Aragon poem is "Red Poster," in which he honoured foreigners who died while fighting to free France. One Nazi propoganda campaign was named Red Poster. The campaign aimed to convince the French people that the resistance movement was composed of foreigners, mainly Jewish, who served the interests of England and Russia.
After the death of his wife on June 16, 1970, Aragon revealed his bisexuality and appeared at gay pride parades in a pink convertible (Ivry 1996, p.134). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Aragon [Sept 2005]
See also: 1926 - arcade - peasant - Paris - Paris arcades - surrealism - literature - France
2005, Sep 07; 22:08 ::: Pulp Surrealism: Insolent Popular Culture in Early Twentieth-Century France (2000) - Robin Walz
Pulp Surrealism: Insolent Popular Culture in Early Twentieth-Century France (2000) - Robin Walz [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
In addition to its more well known literary and artistic origins, the French surrealist movement drew inspiration from currents of psychological anxiety and rebellion running through a shadowy side of mass culture, specifically in fantastic popular fiction and sensationalistic journalism. The provocative nature of this insolent mass culture resonated with the intellectual and political preoccupations of the surrealists, as Robin Walz demonstrates in this fascinating study. Pulp Surrealism weaves an interpretative history of the intersection between mass print culture and surrealism, re-evaluating both our understanding of mass culture in early twentieth-century Paris and the revolutionary aims of the surrealist movement.Pulp Surrealism presents four case studies, each exploring the out-of the-way and impertinent elements which inspired the surrealists. Walz discusses Aragon's Le paysan de Paris, one of the great surrealist novels of Paris. He considers the popular series of Fantmes crime novels; the Parisan press coverage of the arrest, trial, and execution of mass-murderer Landru; and the surrealist inquiry "Is Suicide a Solution?", which Walz juxtaposes with reprints of actual suicide faits divers (sensationalist newspaper blurbs).
Although surrealist interest in sensationalist popular culture eventually waned, this exploration of mass print culture as one of the cultural milieux from which surrealism emerged ultimately calls into question assumptions about the avant-garde origins of modernism itself.
About the Author
Robin Walz is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alaska Southeast.See also: surrealism - pulp - France - popular culture
2005, Sep 07; 11:20 ::: Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton in The General
Image sourced here.Joseph Frank Keaton VI (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966), always known as Buster Keaton, was a popular and influential American silent-film comic actor and filmmaker. His trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face, earning him the nickname The Great Stone Face. His innovative work as a director made basic contributions to the development of the art of cinema.
A 2002 world-wide poll by Sight and Sound ranked Keaton's The General as the 15th best film of all time. Three other Keaton films received votes in the survey: Our Hospitality, Sherlock, Jr., and The Navigator. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Keaton [Sept 2005]
See also: Buster Keaton - American cinema
2005, Sep 07; 10:44 ::: The End of Books (1992) - Robert CooverIn the real world nowadays, that is to say, in the world of video transmissions, cellular phones, fax machines, computer networks, and in particular out in the humming digitalized precincts of avant-garde computer hackers, cyberpunks and hyperspace freaks, you will often hear it said that the print medium is a doomed and outdated technology, a mere curiosity of bygone days destined soon to be consigned forever to those dusty unattended museums we now call libraries. Indeed, the very proliferation of books and other print-based media, so prevalent in this forest-harvesting, paper-wasting age, is held to be a sign of its feverish moribundity, the last futile gasp of a once vital form before it finally passes away forever, dead as God.
[W]hich would mean of course that the novel, too, as we know it, has come to its end. Not that those announcing its demise are grieving. For all its passing charm, the traditional novel, which took center stage at the same time that industrial mercantile democracies arose -- and which Hegel called "the epic of the middle-class world" -- is perceived by its would-be executioners as the virulent carrier of the patriarchal, colonial, canonical, proprietary, hierarchical and authoritarian values of a past that is no longer with us.
[D]awn it is, to be sure. The granddaddy of full-length hypertext fictions is Michael Joyce's landmark "Afternoon," first released on floppy disk in 1987 and moved into a new Storyspace "reader," partly developed by Mr. Joyce himself, in 1990.
Hypertext is truly a new and unique environment. Artists who work there must be read there. And they will probably be judged there as well: criticism, like fiction, is moving off the page and on line, and it is itself susceptible to continuous changes of mind and text. Fluidity, contingency, indeterminacy, plurality, discontinuity are the hypertext buzzwords of the day, and they seem to be fast becoming principles, in the same way that relativity not so long ago displaced the falling apple. --(Robert Coover, 1992) via http://www.tnellen.com/ted/endofbooks.html [Sept 2005]
Michael Joyce
Michael Joyce (b. 1945) is an author and scholar of hypertext. His afternoon: a story (1986) was among the first literary hypertexts to present itself as undeniably serious literature, and experimented with the short-story form in novel ways. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Joyce [Sept 2005]Hypertext fiction
Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature found mostly online, characterized by non-linearity and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a story from a deeper pool of potential stories.The first hypertext fictions were published prior to the development of the World Wide Web, using software such as Storyspace and Hypercard. Michael Joyce's Afternoon, a story is generally considered the first hypertext fiction. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_fiction [Sept 2005]
Electronic literature
The term electronic literature refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. Within the broad category of electronic literature are several forms and threads of practice. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_literature [Sept 2005]See also: 1992 - interactive fiction - books - novel - fiction - Robert Coover - hypertext
2005, Sep 06; 21:54 ::: Transculturation
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram
Transculturation is a term coined by Fernando Ortiz in 1947 to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures. In simple terms, it reflects the natural tendency of people (in general) to resolve conflicts over time, rather than exacerbating them. In the modern context, both conflicts and resolutions are amplified by communication and transportation technology —the ancient tendency of cultures drifting or remaining apart has been replaced by stronger forces for bringing societies together. Where tranculturation impacts ethnicity and ethnic issues the term "ethnoconvergence" is sometimes used.
In one general sense, transculturation covers war, ethnic conflict, racism, multiculturalism, interracial marriage, and any other of a number of contexts that deal with more than one culture. In the other general sense, tranculturation is the positive aspect of global phenomena and human events, where resolutions to conflicts are inevitable.
The general processes of transculturation are extremely complex -- steered by powerful forces at the macrosocial level, yet ultimately resolved at the interpersonal level. The driving force for conflict is simple proximity -- boundaries, once separating people (providing for a measure of isolation) become the issue of a conflict when societies encroach upon one another territorially. If a means to co-exist cannot be immediately found, then conflicts can be hostile, leading to a process by which contact between individuals leads to some resolution. Often, history shows us, the processes of co-existence begins with hostilities, and with the natural passing of polarist individuals, comes the passing of their polarist sentiments, and soon some resolution is achieved. Degrees of hostile conflict vary from outright genocidal conquest, to lukewarm infighting between differing politcal views within the same ethnic community. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transculturation [Sept 2005]
See also: trans- - culture - hybrid
2005, Sep 06; 21:54 ::: The Jewels of Aptor (1962) - Samuel R. Delany
The Jewels of Aptor (1962) - Samuel R. Delany
Samuel Ray "Chip" Delany, Jr. (born April 1, 1942) is a popular science fiction author. He has written many works of critical acclaim, including Dhalgren and Hogg. He is a professor at Temple University, and is also known in the academic world as a literary critic.
Delany was born and raised in Harlem and attended the Bronx High School of Science. Delany and the poet Marilyn Hacker, who met in high school, were married for several years and have a daughter.
Delany spent 11 years teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a year and a half at the University at Buffalo, and moved to the English Department of Temple University in 2001.
Delany vaulted onto the literary stage when he was included in Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions. Harlan gave a short introduction that ironically pointed out how Delany was one of the last straight science fiction authors. Delany has since released several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a gay writer, including his Hugo award winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water. Most of his works deal with sexual themes. Dhalgren and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand are sexually explicit, and some books like Equinox, The Mad Man and Hogg can be considered outright pornographic. He has published several books of literary criticism, with an emphasis on issues in science fiction and other paraliterary genres, comparative literature, and queer theory. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany [Sept 2005]
See also: African American - black - USA - black science fiction
2005, Sep 06; 20:51 ::: Waltz of a Ghetto Fly (2004) - Amp Fiddler
Waltz of a Ghetto Fly (2004) - Amp Fiddler [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Amazon.com
Former George Clinton and Maxwell sideman Amp Fiddler walks his own middle ground on Waltz of a Ghetto Fly. Neither as all-out funkadelic as Clinton or as straight-ahead romantic as Maxwell, Fiddler offers a keyboard-heavy blend of styles that's both airy and rooted in a deep groove. Overdubbing harmonies, he presses his rangy voice to its expressive limits. "Superficial" begins with a rhythm pattern that sounds like Blondie's "Heart of Glass" turned inside out before bursting into a Latin-dance extravaganza. Other tracks benefit from jazz touches, such as the elegant piano solo that highlights "Possibilities." Fiddler's songs are often little more than vamps, but it's this brand of musicality that lights them up. --Rickey Wright via Amazon.comSee also: black music - USA - music - George Clinton
2005, Sep 06; 20:40 ::: AfrofuturismAfrofuturism, or afro-futurism, is an African-American and African diaspora subculture whose thinkers and artists see technology and science-fiction as means of exploring the black experience and finding new strategies to overcome racism and classism. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrofuturism [Sept 2005]
See also: science fiction - African American - black music - black - USA - music - Lee Perry - George Clinton - Sun Ra - black science fiction (Afrofuturism)
2005, Sep 06; 19:59 ::: Original Rare Groove Selection (2005) - Various Artists
Original Rare Groove Selection (2005) - Various Artists [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Track Listings
Disc: 1
1. The Jackson Sisters - I Believe In Miracles 2. Maceo & The Macks - Across the Tracks 3. Jimmy Castor - Its Just Begun 4. Bobby Byrd - I Know You Got Soul 5. Dynamos - We Don’t Need No Help 6. Clyde Alexander - Got To Get Your Love 7. Sweet Charles - Yes its You 8. Chain Reaction - Dance Freak 9. Cloud One - Spaced Out 10. Leroy Burgess - Heartbreaker 11. Logg - I Know You Will 12. Arnold Blair - Trying To Get Next To You 13. The Eighties Ladies - Turned On To You 14. Funkadelic - (Not Just) Knee Deep 15. Leroy Hutson - Lucky FellowDisc: 2
1. The Meters - Handclapping Song 2. Maceo & All The Kings Men - Got To Getcha 3. Aaron Neville - Hercules 4. Ripple - I Don’t Know What It Is But It Sure Is Funky 5. The Skull Snaps - It’s a New Day 6. Dawson Smith - I Don’t Know If I Can Make It 7. Fred Wesley - House Party 8. Gene Chandler - I’ll Make The Living (If You Make The Loving) 9. The Chi-Lites - Are You My Woman (Tell Me So) 10. The Dells - All About The Paper 11. The Futures - Ain’t Got Time Fa Nuthin’ 12. Young Holt Unlimited - Soulful Strut 13. Terry Callier - Ordinary Joe 14. Marlena Shaw - California Soul 15. Cloud One – Atmosphere StrutThis looks like a solid compilation, I am familiar with about half of the tracks by title alone. It appears to be the ideal intro to 'rare groove', a musical genre coined by Norman Jay
See also: rare groove - black music - UK - USA - music
2005, Sep 06; 19:59 ::: Maestro (2005) - Various Artists
Maestro (2005) - Various Artists [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Track listing
1. Burning Love Breakdown - Peter Brown 2. Life Is Something Special - NYC Peach Boys 3. Melting Pot - Booker T & The MG's 4. Can You Feel It - Mr. Fingers 5. Spank (Remix) - Jimmy Bo Horne 6. Disco Circus (Original) - Martin Circus 7. Oasis - Aaron Carl 8. Let Me Love You - DJ Rasoul 9. Way - Astrid Suryanto 10. My Peace Of Heaven - Ten City 11. Bang Bang You're Mine - Bang The Party 12. Let's Love Dance Tonight - Gary's GangAlbum Description
The Maestro soundtrack CD is a not-to-be-missed journey through the history of dance music. Some of the most representative, influential, and rare songs that filled the dance-floors back in the day are combined with new tracks and clips from the original motion picture.See also: house music - New York
2005, Sep 06; 19:14 ::: Credit to the edit, vol. one (2005) - Greg Wilson
Credit to the edit, vol. one (2005) - Greg Wilson [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Track Listings
1. Salsoul Orchestra - Ooh, I Love It (Love Break) 2. Rockers Revenge - Sunshine 3. Raw Silk Vs DMX Krew - Do It To The Funk 4. BT (Brenda Taylor) - You Can't Have Your Cake & Eat It Too 5. The Controllers - I Can't Turn The Boogie Loose 6. Scritti Politti - Absolute / Wood Beez 7. Boystown Gang - Cruisin' The Streets 8. Kool And The Gang - Open Sesame 9. Yello - Lost Again 10. Chicken Lips - He Not In 11. Mike T - Do It Anyway You Wanna 12. Uncle Louie - Full-Tilt Boogie 13. Chaka Khan - I Feel For You 14. Chic - Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah) 15. Mr Bloe - Groovin' With Mr BloeGreg Wilson's first CD, released by the Tirk label. Behind Tirk are the original people of former Nuphonic.
Greg Wilson was responsible for introducing black dance music, and in particular electro, to Manchester's legendary Hacienda club, back in the summer of 1982. His pioneering work on just a Revox tape deck and two Technics turntables, crafting one off DJ re-edits, virtually wrote the rulebook for DJs, remixers and dance producers. This is his first CD, a career defining anthology, ''Credit To The Edit''.
See also: tape - edit - Greg Wilson - electro - electro funk - music
2005, Sep 06; 15:14 ::: Bibliophile
Image sourced here.
2005, Sep 05; 22:51 ::: The Libertine Reader: Eroticism and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century France (1997) - Michel Feher
The Libertine Reader: Eroticism and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century France (1997) - Michel Feher [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
Irresistibly charming or shamelessly deceitful, remarkably persuasive or uselessly verbose, everything one loves to hate--or hates to love--about "French lovers" and their self-styled reputation can be traced to eighteenth-century libertine novels. Obsessed with strategies of seduction, speculating endlessly about the motives and goals of lovers, the idle aristocrats who populate these novels are exclusively preoccupied with their erotic life. Deprived of other battlefields to fulfill their thirst for glory, libertine noblemen seek to conquer the women of their class without falling into the trap of love, while their female prey attempt to enjoy the pleasures of love without sacrificing their honor. Yet, despite the licentious mores of the declining Old Regime, men and women are still expected to pay lip service to an austere code of morals. Since they are constantly asked to denounce their own practices, their erotic war games are governed by a double constraint: whatever they feel or intend, the heroes of libertine literature can neither say what they mean nor mean what they say.
The Libertine Reader includes all the varieties of libertine strategies: from the successful cunning of Mme de T_____ in Vivant Denon's No Tomorrow to the ill-fated genius of Mme de Merteuil in Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons; from the laborious sentimental education of Meilcour in Crebillon fils's The Wayward Head and Heart to the hazardous master plan of the French ambassador in Prevost's The Story of a Modern Greek Woman. The discrepancies between the characters' words and their true intentions--the libertine double entendre--are exposed through the speaking vaginas in Diderot's The Indiscreet Jewels and the wandering soul of Amanzei in Crebillon fils's The Sofa, while the contrasts between natural and civilized--or degenerate--erotics are the subjects of both Diderot's Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage and Laclos's On the Education of Women. Finally, Sade's Florville and Courval shows that destiny itself is on the side of libertinism. via Amazon.comSee also: 1740s - libertine novel - sofa
2005, Sep 05; 22:51 ::: Le Sopha, conte moral (1742) - Crébillon fils
Le Sopha, conte moral (1742) - Crébillon fils [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Image sourced here.The second compartment, "Oriental Dreams," offers "a moral tale," The Sofa by Crebillon fils (1742), the mere mention of which I remember being tantalized by in Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow when I was in junior high, on account of its wicked premise - tales told to the Sultan, Scheherezade's grandson, by a young courtier whose soul in a previous life was condemned to travel from sofa to sofa as a sofa in search of true love and not to be reincarnated in a human body until a man and a woman sincerely in love with each other had consummated their passion on "his" sofa. --http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n7_v36/ai_20572925 [Sept 2005]
See also: 1740s - libertine novel - sofa
2005, Sep 05; 22:51 ::: Il diavolo in corpo (1986) - Marco Bellocchio
Il diavolo in corpo (1986) - Marco Bellocchio [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Description
One of the most controversial Italians films of the 80s, DEVIL IN THE FLESH takes Raymond Radiguet’s classic novel and updates it to modern times. Dealing with the legacy of Italy’s "leaden years" and the aftermath of the social struggles headed by the extreme left wing revolutionary groups, DEVIL IN THE FLESH caused a critical uproar upon it’s release due to its highly-charged political and sexually frank subject matter. Marushka Detmers (THE MAMBO KINGS) stars as Giulia, a young woman engaged to marry Giacomo, her fiancée who’s sitting behind bars because of his political activity. Restless in her appetites and inner turmoil, she meets a young student named Andrea and a passionate affair quickly ensues. But when the day arrives in which she has to face whether she wants to share her life with Giacomo or not, Giulia takes a surprising decision…Boldly directed by Marco Bellocchio (GOOD MORNING, NIGHT) and featuring superb cinematography by Giuseppe Lanci, DEVIL IN THE FLESH is a powerfully erotic film that deserves to be discovered and appreciated without preconceptions. With it’s mixing of political and sexual issues, Bellocchio retains the strength and relevancy of the classic text and makes a strong contemporary statement in favour of absolute artistic and political freedom. As controversial as films get, DEVIL IN THE FLESH remains one of the most important Italian films of our time.
NoShame Films is proud to present DEVIL IN THE FLESH for the first time on DVD in its original widescreen aspect ratio, digitally re-mastered from the original negative, uncut and uncensored. --via Amazon.com
Il diavolo in corpo (English title: Devil in the Flesh) is an Italian film by Marco Bellocchio, an adaptation of Raymond Radiguet’s novel Le Diable au corps. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_in_the_Flesh [Dec 2005]
See also: 1986 - Italian erotica
2005, Sep 05; 22:51 ::: Le Diable Au Corps (1923) - Raymond Radiguet
Le Diable Au Corps (1923) - Raymond Radiguet [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Raymond Radiguet
Raymond Radiguet (June 18, 1903 - December 12, 1923) was a French author.He was born in Saint-Maur, close to Paris, the son of a caricaturist. In 1917 he moved to the city. Very soon he would drop out of the Lycée Charlemagne, where he studied, in order to pursue his interests in journalism and literature. He would associate himself with the Modernist set, befriending Picasso, Max Jacob, and especially Jean Cocteau, who would become his mentor and lover (though - much to Cocteau's chagrin, it was said - Radiguet usually preferred women, having had a number of tumultuous relationships).
In early 1923 he published his first and most famous novel, Le diable au corps (The Devil in the flesh). The story of a young married woman who has an affair with a sixteen-year old boy while her husband is away fighting at the front provoked scandal in a country that had just been through World War I. Though Radiguet denied it, it was established later that the story was in large part autobiographical. Critics, who initially despised the intense publicity campaign for the book's release (something not normally associated with works of literary merit at the time), were finally won over by the quality of Radiguet's writing and his sober, objective style.
His second novel, Le bal du Comte d'Orgel, also dealing with adultery, was only published posthumously in 1924. At the age of 20, Radiguet had died the previous year of typhoid fever, which he contracted after a trip he took with Cocteau. At the time he was dating Francis Poulenc, who wrote, "For two days I was unable to do anything, I was so stunned" (Ivry 1996). Alongside these two novels, Radiguet's works include a few poetry volumes and a play.
In 1947 Claude Autant-Lara released his film Le diable au corps, based on Radiguets's novel, and starring Gérard Philipe. Coming just after World War II, the movie caused controversy on its turn. Among the other cinematic versions of Radiguet's story, the heavily adapted one by Marco Bellocchio (1986) became notorious for its graphic scenes of sex. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Radiguet [Sept 2005]
See also: 1923 - France - fiction - flesh - devil
2005, Sep 05; 21:51 ::: Unidentified picture
Unidentified picture
Image sourced here.Eh bjen! cette nouvelle fille... elle vous a donc plu? O mon cher Valcour, elle ne m'a pas rendue aussi heureuse que je l'aurais imaginé. Beaucoup plus d'esprit que de sentjment, beaucoup plus de vanité que de sagesse, un amour excessif pour son mari, j'en conviens, des choses au-delà de la force humaine pour se conserver pure á lui... Mais pourquoi faut-il que tout cela soit l'ouvrage de l'orgueil? pourquoi n'ai-je rien trouvé quand j'ai voulu sonder ce coeur? et pourquoi me faut-il désespérer même de voir jamais naître en elle les qualités que je n'y al pas trouvées? O mon ami, celle qui érige l'insensibilité en systéme, l'athéisme en principe, l'indifférence en raisonnement... pourra peut-être ne se livrer à aucun écart, mais ji n'en jaillira jamais une vertu... et si la raison de cette cruelle filíe cède á l'exemple... au feu des passions... quel précipice alon est ouvert sous ses pas! Comme on est près de faire le mal, quand on ne sent aucun charme à faire le bien! Les égarements de l'esprit sont bien moins dangereux que ceux du coeur, l'âge qui calme les uns aggrave presque toujours les autres. --Aline et Valcour ou Le roman philosophique () - Marquis de Sade via http://www.elsgnoms.com/Cartofilia/Dones_7.htm [Sept 2005]
See also: 1790s - Marquis de Sade
2005, Sep 05; 21:51 ::: Sexual anomalies and perversions (1938) - Magnus Hirschfeld
Sexual anomalies and perversions (1938) - Magnus Hirschfeld [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Sexual Anomalies and Perversions: Physical and Psychological Development, Diagnosis amd Treatment. 1938. Intro. Norman Haire. London: Encyclopedic, 1952, 2nd ed. --http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-August-1997/Crowleref.html [Sept 2005]
Inspired by Colin Wilson
The Misfits: A Study of Sexual Outsiders (1988) - Colin Wilson [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Image sourced here.
I am looking for the name of the illustrator of the cover artwork. Is it Allen Jones?From Publishers Weekly
True pornography began in the mid-1700s with Samuel Richardson's voyeuristic novels Pamela and Clarissa , in Wilson's odd estimate. The author of The Outsider , etc., further maintains that sexual perversions such as those catalogued by Richard von Krafft-Ebing scarcely existed before 1740; only after Romanticism unleashed modern imaginations did sexual deviance flourish, he asserts. The "sexual outsiders" whose deliciously naughty doings are chronicled in this thought-provoking, entertaining mishmash are men who used libido as rocket fuel to escape the body's confines and soar toward higher consciousness. They include Swinburne and T. E. Lawrence, both of whom liked to be flogged; Yukio Mishima, trapped inside his womb-like subjective world; Byron, titillated by an incestuous affair with his half-sister; egoist Henry Miller; and guilt-ridden, promiscuous homosexual Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wilson's starting-point is Charlotte Bach (born Carl Hajdu), a Hungarian male transvestite of whose farfetched theory of eros and evolution the author makes too much as he hammers home his thesis that sex resides as much in the heart and the imagination as in the loins. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.See also: 1938 - Magnus Hirschfeld - perversion
2005, Sep 05; 11:45 ::: Georges Duhamel on filmDuhamel, who detests the film and knows nothing of its significance, though something of its structure, notes this circumstance as follows: "I can no longer think what I want to think. My thoughts have been replaced by moving images." (Georges Duhamel, *Scenes de la vie future*, Paris, 1930, p. 52.) --http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html [Sept 2005]
The mass is a matrix from which all traditional behavior toward works of art issues today in a new form. Quantity has been transmuted into quality. The greatly increased mass of participants has produced a change in the mode of participation. The fact that the new mode of participation first appeared in a disreputable form must not confuse the spectator. Yet some people have launched spirited attacks against precisely this superficial aspect. Among these, Duhamel has expressed himself in the most radical manner. What he objects to most is the kind of participation which the movie elicits from the masses. Duhamel calls the movie "a pastime for helots, a diversion for uneducated, wretched, worn-out creatures who are consumed by their worries . . ., a spectacle which requires no concentration and presupposes no intelligence . . ., which kindles no light in the heart and awakens no hope other than the ridiculous one of someday becoming a 'star' in Los Angeles." (Duhamel, op. cit., p. 58.) Clearly, this is at bottom the same ancient lament that the masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration from the spectator. That is a commonplace. --http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html [Sept 2005]
le film "est un divertissement d'ilotes, un passe-temps d'illettrés, de créatures misérables, ahuris par leur besogne et leurs soucis […], un spectacle qui ne demande aucun effort, qui ne suppose aucune suite dans les idées, ne soulève aucune question, n'aborde sérieusement aucun problème, n'allume aucune passion, n'éveille au fond des cœurs aucune lumière, n'excite aucune espérance, sinon celle, ridicule, d'être un jour "star" à Los Angeles." (Georges Duhamel, Scènes de la vie future). --http://www.prefigurations.com/numero8femmes/htm8femmes/revue_4benjaminimage.htm [Sept 2005]
Georges Duhamel
Georges Duhamel (June 30, 1884 - April 13, 1966), was a French author, born in Paris.Duhamel trained as a doctor, and during World War I was attached to the French army. In 1920, he published Confession de minuit, the first of a series featuring the anti-hero Salavin. In 1935, he was elected as a member of the Academie Francaise. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Duhamel [Sept 2005]
See also: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - film
2005, Sep 05; 10:25 ::: Process philosophyConventional Platonic metaphysics posits the 'real' world of Metaphysical Reality as being timeless. Process philosophy on the other hand, identifies 'the real' (ie metaphysical reality) with change and dynamism. Process philosophy was greatly influential on many 20th Century Modernists: for example, D.H. Lawrence, and William Faulkner.
Process Philosophers include Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Charles S. Peirce, John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_philosophy [Sept 2005]
See also: philosophy - modernism - stream of consciousness
2005, Sep 05; 09:25 ::: Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (1919) - James Branch Cabell
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (1919) - James Branch Cabell [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From AudioFile
Rarely in this age of action figures and product tie-ins does one come across a work as boldly and unapologetically erudite, urbane, and steeped in folklore, mythology, and literature as this early fantasy classic. Written in 1919 by James Branch Cabell, JURGEN employs chivalry, philosophy, mild eroticism, humor, and high poetic prose to celebrate man's desire for the perfect mate. Think Shakespeare crossed with Philip Roth. This production is just as unapologetically smart and urbane as the book. JURGEN's vocabulary is enormous, and John Rubinstein gives a fine, clear reading as the hero, while Melissa Greenspan, Ann Marie Lee, and Lorna Raver give depth and voices to the many heroines (from Guinevere to Helen of Troy). The entire production is like listening to a banquet of words. B.P. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine--This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.Book Description
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice, an entry in the Poictesme series, is an epic fantasy voyage as well as an erotic fable. Cabell himself wrote: "This fable is, as the world itself, a book wherein each man will find what his nature enables him to see; which gives us back each his own image; and which teaches us each the lesson that each of us desires to learn." Jurgen was banned for decades because of its explicit content. It was, and remains, a groundbreaking early fantasy novel and a worthy addition to the Wildside Fantasy Classics line.James Branch Cabell
James Branch Cabell (April 14, 1879 - May 5, 1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres.Cabell was born in Richmond, Virginia. In his lifetime he published some fifty books, most now forgotten, but his eighth book, Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice, (1919) was the one that caught public attention. The eponymous hero, who considers himself a "monstrous clever fellow", embarks on a journey through ever more fantastic realms, even to hell and heaven. Everywhere he goes, he winds up seducing the local women, even the Devil's wife. The novel was denounced by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice; they attempted to bring a prosecution for obscenity. The case went on for two years before Cabell and his publishers won: the "indecencies" were double entendres that also had a perfectly decent interpretation, though it appeared that what had actually offended the prosecution most was a joke about papal infallibility. Cabell took an author's revenge: the revised edition of 1926 included a previously "lost" passage in which the hero is placed on trial by the Philistines, with a large dung-beetle as the chief prosecutor. He also wrote a short book, Taboo, in which he thanks John H. Sumner and the Society for Suppresion of Vice for generating the publicity that gave his career a boost.
Other works include Figures of Earth, which introduces Manuel the Redeemer, who conquered a realm by playing on others' expectations - his motto Mundus Vult Decipi meaning "the world wishes to be deceived". (Jurgen makes a minor appearance at the end of Figures, as the small boy who was the last to see the Redeemer). The Silver Stallion is a sequel that deals with the adventures of the knights in Manuel's company after his departure.
All of these books are part of The Biography of Manuel, the story in 18 volumes (or 20 or 22, depending on how works published both separately and jointly are counted) of Dom Manuel and his descendants through many generations. Cabell stated that he considered the Biography to be a single work, and supervised its publication in a single uniform edition, known as the Storisende Edition, published fron 1927 to 1930.
Though now largely forgotten by the general public, his work was very influential on later authors of fantastic fiction. Robert A. Heinlein was greatly inspired by his boldness, and originally described his famous masterpeice Stranger in a Strange Land as "a Cabellesque satire", and a later work Job, A Comedy of Justice (with the title derived from Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice) has an appearance of the Slavic god Koschei (who also appeared in Jurgen). Fritz Leiber's Swords of Lankhmar was also influenced by Jurgen. Jack Vance's Dying Earth books show considerable stylistic resemblances to Cabell; Cugel the Clever in those books bears a strong resemblance, not least in his opinion of himself, to Jurgen.
There are also references to Cabell in the works of many other fantasy and science fiction authors. For example, the Leshy Circuit stories by Larry Niven feature planets and places whose names are taken from Cabell. H. Beam Piper also used names from Cabell for some of his invented planets, although no stories are actually set on any such planets.
From 1969 through 1972, the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series returned six of Cabell's novels to print, and elevated his profile in the fantasy genre. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Branch_Cabell [Sept 2005]
See also: 1919 - fantasy - literature - fiction
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