R.J. Dent's Blog, page 4

The Songs of Maldoror

by Le Comte de Lautréamont

Translated into modern English by R J Dent

The Songs of Maldoror was written and published between 1868 and 1869 by Le Comte de Lautréamont – the nom de plume of the Uruguayan-born French writer Isidore Lucien Ducasse. The Songs of Maldoror is a dazzlingly macabre novel consisting of six superlative cantos. Overflowing with lucid poetic imagery and saturated with sublime malevolence, it channels the ominous dynamism of the most exquisite nightmares and perfidious fantasies.

A jewel in the crown of literary cruelty, this visionary masterpiece of prose-poetry was rediscovered by the Surrealists in the early 20th century, an arcane text emerging from obscurity to be hailed as a dark progenitor of their movement.

R J Dent’s modern English version is the first 21st century translation of this dark, deranged and dangerous subterranean classic.

Translated into modern English by R J Dent

Illustrated by Karolina Urbaniak

With essays by Audrey Szasz and Jeremy Reed

Product details:

Title: The Songs of Maldoror

Author: Le Comte de Lautréamont

Translator: R J Dent

Illustrator: Karolina Urbaniak

Foreword: Audrey Szasz

Afterword: Jeremy Reed

Language: English

ISBN: 978-1-8382803-7-6

Publisher: Infinity Land Press

Publication date: 1st October 2022

Format: Hardbound

Pages: 288

Dimensions: 148mm x 210 mm (5.8 inches x 8.2 inches)

Book details and cover art photos are available here:

https://www.infinitylandpress.com/the-songs-of-maldoror

and here:

http://www.rjdent.com/the-songs-of-maldoror-2/

‘Lautréamont’s The Songs of Maldoror is the black bible… almost the basic dream text of surrealism.’ J.G. Ballard

‘The Songs of Maldoror is an enigma of redoubtable power.’ Jacques Derrida

‘The Songs of Maldoror is the expression of a revelation so complete it seems to exceed human potential.’ André Breton

The Marquis de Sade…

A book by the Marquis de Sade, translated into English by R J Dent, will be published in January 2024.

Although French and Spanish versions of the book are available, it will be the first time that this particular book by Sade has ever been published in English.

Other Sade translations by R J Dent are available here: http://www.rjdent.com/category/marquis-de-sade/

Soluble Fish

by André Breton

Translated into modern English by R J Dent

Soluble Fish (1924) by André Breton is a sophisticated poetic novel which is one of the first works of Surrealism, and with The Surrealist Manifesto (1924), began the new literary movement which followed Paris Dada in the decade of the 1920s.

This is the first translation of this important surrealist work since 1969. R J Dent has finally done the almost impossible and rendered Breton’s elusive and complex prose into a fluid English that is actually a pleasure to read. Here we see a Breton very different from the dour caricature usually presented to English speaking readers. The text here is playful, warm and engaging.

Product Details

Title: Soluble Fish

Author: André Breton

Translator: R J Dent

Publication Date: September 14, 2023

ISBN: 9781446751954

Language: English

Category: Prose/Poetry

Pages: 106

Format: Paperback

Dimensions: 6 in x 9 in / 152 cm x 229 mm)

Publisher: Incunabula Media

Purchase link (Lulu.com): Andre Breton’s Soluble Fish

R J Dent is the translator of several significant works of European literature, including The Songs of Maldoror by Lautréamont, Speculations by Alfred Jarry, The Dead Man by Georges Bataille, and Capital of Pain by Paul Ėluard, among others. He is also a novelist, poet, essayist and short story writer.

His website is www.rjdent.com

TYPO #3

Journal of Lettrism, Surrealist Semantics, & Constrained Design

The latest issue of : TYPO: the Journal of Lettrism, Surrealist Semantics, & Constrained Design includes extracts from R J Dent’s English translation of André Breton’s Surreal novel, Soluble Fish, which will be published in October 2023 by Incunabula Media.

TYPO #3 details: https://blackscatbooks.com/2023/08/17/back-to-cool/

TYPO #3 purchase link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFX4N3B4

R J Dent’s website: http://www.rjdent.com/

Gothiques & Fantastiques

Horror and Fantasy Tales by R J Dent

A review by Steve Atkinson

In this outrageous collection of the weird and wonderful, R J Dent proves one thing beyond all possible doubt; ghosts do not just haunt the gloomy rooms and ancient buildings of old England, they also lurk menacingly among the dark cellars and corridors of the human mind. Contrary to myth, the spookiest places of all are to be found deep in our own brains.

Spectres here can ferment in a pile of compromising, disgusting photographs involving young boys – which a shocked yet loyal widow exorcises by the simple expedient of flushing them down the loo. Or in the deranged dreams of an egoist who watches so much daytime TV he lives the horror of becoming a quiz show host himself – with no audience but his own hyper-critical self. There’s also the rather imperious, ex-military spectre who actually feels gratitude at finding his decapitated head!

R J Dent knows that you don’t have to delve very deeply into the human psyche before licentious sex crawls hungrily to the surface. My absolute favourite in this nightmare anthology is Mitzi and the Lion, chronicling a woman’s clandestine, nightly visits to the safari park to lay down with her leonine lover. When she first disrobes for this improbable tryst it is both deeply disturbing and yet strangely moving.

Gothiques & Fantastiques is a fascinating insight into the most sinister of all ghouls… the ones that lie hidden deep within us all, just waiting for a dark, stormy night when they can come screaming to the surface.

Gothiques & Fantastiques is available at:

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00IKVOFGQ/

US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IKVOFGQ/

R J Dent is a poet, novelist, essayist and translator. His translations of key literary works include Lautréamont’s The Songs of Maldoror, Alfred Jarry’s Speculations, Paul Ėluard’s Capital of Pain, Pierre Louys’ Her Three Daughters, Sade’s Some Thoughts on the Novel, and Alcaeus’ Poems & Fragments. He has also published a poetry collection, Moonstone Silhouettes, and a dark fantasy/horror novel Myth.

R J Dent’s official website is: http://www.rjdent.com/

Steve Atkinson is a former journalist and the author of Ghosts Who Google and Reflections in a Hubcap.

Alcaeus: Poems & Fragments

A review by Joe Fearn, published in the Hastings Online Times

Alcaeus: Poems and Fragments

Translated into modern English by R J Dent

Published by Circaidy Gregory Press

A review by Joe Fearn

R J Dent is a poet, novelist, translator, essayist and short story writer. His modern English translation of the Poems & Fragments of the Greek lyric poet Alcaeus is available from Circaidy Gregory Press.

On the back cover of R J Dent’s book, Peter Levi is quoted as saying of Alcaeus: ‘His poetry smells of vine-leaves and the sea.’

It made me wonder what my own poetry smells of, wet dogs in a dry room maybe. The folk singer Ray Hearne once told me that poetry may be read out in ballet shoes or pit boots. I quoted this to poet Peter Sansom who said he always tried for tennis shoes. I mention this because the poems and fragments in this book are of the ballet shoes variety. This is not to say that they are slight and have no resonance, for example the poem that begins:

Let us drink! Why do we wait for the lamps?

There is only a fraction of day left.

Friends, take down the large decorated cups.

reminds me of the Yorkshire ditty:

Beer! Beer! We want more Beer!

Everyone is cheerin’

Get the chuffin’ beer in!

Alcaeus is under no illusions about drink:

Wine, dear boy, and truth,

for wine is a peep-hole into a man.

And later:

…and if wine shackles his wits…

Ever wondered why imbibers become so loud?

It is almost a custom

here on the mountain

in the deep silence

to make a huge din,

a great noise.

Very Arthur Schopenhauer, who insisted that silence worries most people.

Alcaeus was born into an aristocratic family circa 625 BCE, and lived in Mytilene, the largest city on the Greek island of Lesbos. Mention Lesbos and one’s mind immediately turns to the “Violet-haired, pure, honey-smiling Sappho” as Alcaeus described her (according to Wikipedia). Dent remarks that Alcaeus’s poetry is often overshadowed by the literary reputation of Sappho, his fellow poet and compatriot.

The appendix thankfully has a glossary of people and places, essential for the reader’s attempt to understand the poems and fragments. It includes Onomacles, a Lesbian hermit. These were rum times indeed.

One of the great delights to be had in reading this book is that it harks back to a past world of gods and heroes, set in a typically Hellenic fact-value continuum, which we may contrast with the modern commonly held fact-value distinction that influences some modern poetry. Alcaeus writes:

The cold wave carries Sisyphus

along to the river bend.

Zeus and the blessed gods

watch as you toil, calling down curses

while making yourself a ship

which you will drag down to the sea.

It is my guess from the tone of the poem that Alcaeus might have written:

“…and the other gods…” alluding to their callousness, if not for sounding disrespectful; gods of course are guiltless.

It is important to understand what this little gem of a book is about. It would be silly to read it in order to see how to write poetry. For that you would be better off subscribing to a modern poetry magazine.

Alcaeus’s poems and fragments are lyrical songs, most of which are monodies; lyric poetry sung by a single performer, written in this case to be accompanied by the music of a lyre. Many of these poems and fragments are concerned with the politics and personal tenure of the times. He also writes about contemporary personalities, as well as love songs, drinking songs and hymns to various gods.

R J Dent’s book is quite a find. There is no other published translation of Alcaeus’s Poems & Fragments in existence. In many ways it reminds me of ‘The Blue and Brown Books’ compiled from notes made by the students of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Both contain fragments and aphorisms that continue to illuminate and delight.

Alcaeus: Poems & Fragments

Translated by R J Dent

Circaidy Gregory Press

Paperback and ebook

English

2012

£7.49

Review: Paul Ėluard’s Capital of Pain

by Reese Saxment

Among the Surrealist art-forms, poetry has always been the poor relation in the Anglophone world, almost completely eclipsed by the visual arts – especially painting. Ask any passer-by in the street in the US or the UK to name a Surrealist, and they’ll say ‘Dalí’; challenged to name another – you’ll most likely get ‘Er…’ – but other names may be forthcoming. Possibly Magritte, Picasso (not precisely a Surrealist but we’ll let that pass), maybe Ernst, nowadays quite likely Kahlo, Carrington, Tanning – all painters (although some dabbled in prose). Somewhere down the list André Breton may put in an appearance, more for his leadership role than for his poetry – and the other poets – Aragon, Soupault, Éluard – the people who founded the movement and who remained central to it for more than a decade? A long way down the roster, if they feature at all.

For that reason alone it is gratifying to find a collection of Paul Éluard’s poetry translated into English by R J Dent, and published (with a glorious cover!) by Black Scat Books – one of the last publishers to keep the flag of Olympia, Éditions Jean-Jacques Pauvert and Grove Press flying, with new writing as well as classics of Surrealism, the Absurd, Dada, Erotica and ‘Pataphysics.

Important as it is to remind us of the centrality of poetry to the Surrealist project, it is equally important that the quality of the translation does justice to the original, and here Dent hits the target again and again. Capturing the vitality of Éluard, in poems like ‘Woman in Love’ (p. 52) the light, airy, flowing beauty is precisely attuned to the lyricism, sensuousness, even romantic tenderness of Éluard, while in others, like ‘The Flame of the Whip’ (pp. 94-95), the angst and anguish of the poet is powerfully rendered.

In poems like ‘Among a Few Others’, (p. 111) Dent does justice to the oxymoronic and startling juxtapositions by which Éluard shows us the world in unfamiliar, surprising ways, refreshing traditional imagery and rescuing it from cliché into ‘something rich and strange’, while in others, for example, ‘The Deaf and the Blind’ (p. 53), an almost uncanny synaesthesia pervades, reminding us of a de Chirico painting – evocations of visual encounters with painting being one of Éluard’s characteristic themes (in poems dedicated to Ernst, Picasso, Klee, Masson, Braque, Arp, Miró – and de Chirico), beautifully rendered here by Dent’s translation.

All in all, R J Dent, a poet and novelist in his own right, demonstrates clearly the truth of the old maxim, it takes a poet to translate a poet.

Book details:

Title: Capital of Pain

Author: Paul Ėluard

Translator: R J Dent

Publisher: Black Scat Books

Publication Date: February 16th, 2023

Language: English

Format: Paperback

Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 979-8986922485

Item Weight: 7 ounces (198.447 grams)

Dimensions: 5.06 inches x 0.33 inches x 7.81 inches (12.85 cm x 0.84 cm x 19.84 cm)

Reese Saxment’s review of Capital of Pain can be read here: https://surrealerpool.home.blog/2023/02/21/capital-of-pain-book-review/

Book details (translator): http://www.rjdent.com/capital-of-pain/

Book details (publisher): https://blackscatbooks.com/2023/02/16/surreal-deal/

Pretty Bubbles

Pretty Bubbles is a short story by R J Dent, published on 1st August 2023 by D.F.L. Lit.

The link to read Pretty Bubbles on the D.F.L. Lit website is here: https://dfllit.com/051-2/?fbclid=IwAR3qs3dcWRPu0oUAPzZtFl_0EOpXNn69h2d5OOpsLp_oWD7z38QI-Rpbv-M

R J Dent says:

‘There are two sources for Pretty Bubbles – the first is (was) the figure of death that was filmed in the doorway of Westminster Abbey during the coronation of King Charles the Third in England on 6th May 2023. The second source is (was) a scene from the film Women in Love (1969, directed by Ken Russell. The scene I’m referring to was the one in which Ursula (Jennie Linden) and Gudrun (Glenda Jackson) find a secluded picnic spot beneath some trees and a herd of highland cattle move towards them. Gudrun gets to her feet and dances in front of the cattle, accompanied by Ursula singing ‘I’m forever Blowing Bubbles’, a popular song composed in 1918 by James Brockman, James Kendis, and Nat Vincent.’ Gudrun’s dancing grows more frenzied and her movements quickly unnerve and panic the herd, which she then successfully drives away.’

R J Dent’s website for books, news, events and publications is: http://www.rjdent.com/

The Official Report on The Intransitionalist Chronotopologies of Kenji Siratori

published by Time Released Sound in September 2023

Kenji Siratori’s Official Report on The Intransitionalist Chronotopologies (ISBN: 979-8-218-23733-2) is an experimental literary work edited by Andrew C. Wenaus, that features contributions from several writers, artists, editors, film-makers. and musicians, including:

Rosaire Appel, Louis Armand, David Barrick, Gary Barwin, Steve Beard, Gregory Betts, Christian Bök, Mike Bonsall, Peter Bouscheljong, Maria Chenut, Shane Jesse Christmass, Roy Christopher, Tobasco ‘Ralph’ Contra, Mike Corrao, R J Dent, Paul D. Fillipo, Zak Ferguson, Colin Herrick, S.C. Hickman, Maxwell Hyatt, Justin Isis, Andrew Joron, Chris Kelso, Phillip Klingler, Adam Lovasz, Daniel Lukes, Ania Malinowka, Claudia Manley, Ryota Matsumoto, Michael McAloran, Andrew McLuhan, Jeff Noon, Jim Osman, Suarjan Prasai, Tom Prime, David Leo Rice, Virgilo Rivas, David Roden, Aaron Schneider, Andrej Shakowski, Gary J. Shipley, Kenji Siratori, Sean Smith, Kristine Snodgrass, Sean Sokolov, Alan Sondheim, Simon Spiegel, Henry Adam Svec, Jeff VanderMeer, R.G. Vasicek, William Wenaus, Eileen Wennekers, Christina Marie Willatt, Saywrane Alfonso Williams, D. Harlan Wilson, Wormwood and B.R. Yeager.

Book details:

Author: Kenji Siratori

Title: Official Report on The Intransitionalist Chronotopologies of Kenji Siratori

Editor: Andrew C. Wenaus

Publisher: Time Released Sound

ISBN: 979-8-218-23733-2

Language: English

Format: Paperback

Publication date: September 1st, 2023

Soluble Fish

by André Breton

Book details to be announced in July 2023…