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Rene Daumal's Mugle and the Silk
Brand New.
96 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
René Daumal
74 books194 followersRené Daumal was a French spiritual surrealist writer and poet. He was born in Boulzicourt, Ardennes, France.
In his late teens his avant-garde poetry was published in France's leading journals, and in his early twenties, although courted by André Breton co-founded, as a counter to Surrealism and Dada, a literary journal, Le Grand Jeu with three friends, collectively known as the Simplists, including poet Roger Gilbert-Lecomte. He is known best in the U.S. for two novels A Night of Serious Drinking and the allegorical novel Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing both based upon his friendship with Alexander de Salzmann, a pupil of G. I. Gurdjieff.
Daumal was self-taught in the Sanskrit language and translated some of the Tripitaka Buddhist canon into the French language, as well as translating the literature of the Japanese Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki into French.
He married Vera Milanova, the former wife of the poet Hendrik Kramer; after Daumal's death, she married the landscape architect Russell Page.
Daumal's sudden and premature death of tuberculosis on 21 May 1944 in Paris may have been hastened by youthful experiments with drugs and psychoactive chemicals, including carbon tetrachloride. He died leaving his novel Mount Analogue unfinished, having worked on it until the day of his death.
The motion picture The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky is based largely on Daumal's Mount Analogue.
William Walsh, an English poet, was a personal friend of Daumal and performed a radio presentation of Mount Analogue later in his life.
In his late teens his avant-garde poetry was published in France's leading journals, and in his early twenties, although courted by André Breton co-founded, as a counter to Surrealism and Dada, a literary journal, Le Grand Jeu with three friends, collectively known as the Simplists, including poet Roger Gilbert-Lecomte. He is known best in the U.S. for two novels A Night of Serious Drinking and the allegorical novel Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing both based upon his friendship with Alexander de Salzmann, a pupil of G. I. Gurdjieff.
Daumal was self-taught in the Sanskrit language and translated some of the Tripitaka Buddhist canon into the French language, as well as translating the literature of the Japanese Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki into French.
He married Vera Milanova, the former wife of the poet Hendrik Kramer; after Daumal's death, she married the landscape architect Russell Page.
Daumal's sudden and premature death of tuberculosis on 21 May 1944 in Paris may have been hastened by youthful experiments with drugs and psychoactive chemicals, including carbon tetrachloride. He died leaving his novel Mount Analogue unfinished, having worked on it until the day of his death.
The motion picture The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky is based largely on Daumal's Mount Analogue.
William Walsh, an English poet, was a personal friend of Daumal and performed a radio presentation of Mount Analogue later in his life.
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January 7, 2024
Mugle and The Silk are two early surrealist short stories written by René Daumal from 1925 and 1926 preceding their work for Le Grand Jeu. The stories felt more like curios and surrealist exercises that, while obliquely spiritual, were of great lesser quality compared to any of the work that followed.
I would like to thank the translator Phil Powrie for sending me a copy of the PDF. I have now uploaded it to Library Genesis should anyone else wish to read it. You can access it here.
I would like to thank the translator Phil Powrie for sending me a copy of the PDF. I have now uploaded it to Library Genesis should anyone else wish to read it. You can access it here.
Displaying 1 of 1 review