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The Last Crusade
“In psychological warfare, a rigorous thirst for perversion is a definite advantage.”
Welcome to the last crusade. Imagine GG Allin teaming up with Louis-Ferdinand Celine to right all the wrongs of this fallen, corrupted world. Join a merry band of chronic degenerates as they fuck and slaughter their way across the ruins of revolutionary France. That’s 21st century revolutionary France. Islamist terror attacks, rustic rebellions, blatant atrocities, scatological derangement and host of other comic misadventures worthy of Rabelais at his most splenetic. And disgusting. Amphetamine Sulphate is proud to present this provocative and astonishing French mock-literary punk epic, appearing in English translation for the very first time.
Jean-Louis Costes is an actor, musician, writer and artist of some considerable notoriety and renown.
Welcome to the last crusade. Imagine GG Allin teaming up with Louis-Ferdinand Celine to right all the wrongs of this fallen, corrupted world. Join a merry band of chronic degenerates as they fuck and slaughter their way across the ruins of revolutionary France. That’s 21st century revolutionary France. Islamist terror attacks, rustic rebellions, blatant atrocities, scatological derangement and host of other comic misadventures worthy of Rabelais at his most splenetic. And disgusting. Amphetamine Sulphate is proud to present this provocative and astonishing French mock-literary punk epic, appearing in English translation for the very first time.
Jean-Louis Costes is an actor, musician, writer and artist of some considerable notoriety and renown.
- GenresFiction
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 29, 2020
"Sixty monks in full medieval armor brandishing the vivid red crosses of the Templars. The production values are amazing: take the grandeur of the Catholic church and multiply it by the excesses of Hollywood! A thousand voices suddenly cease their braying, and two thousand eyes hallucinate. A thousand drunken athiests suddenly find themselves recast into the middle of an epic Biblical story. This shit is overwhelming!"
(Note on star rating: I usually only rate books 5-star if they are truly outstanding, classics that I would recommend to anyone. I definitely do not recommend The Last Crusade to everyone! Still, I don't think I could've been more satisfied buying a novel by the notorious Jean-Louis Costes so five stars it is. If you have more than a cursory knowledge of Costes, and think you would enjoy reading a novel by him, you might be better off skipping this review and just diving in with no prior knowledge)
Possibly the most shocking novel I've read since Matthew Stokoe's "Cows", this one might even top that. A bit of background on the author before I even try to describe this thing. Costes is best known in the deep underground music scene as the French equivalent of GG Allin. That comparison is only superficially correct - Allin (whose infamy comes from performing nude, hurling feces at and attacking his audience) always fronted punk bands, many of them very good. He definitely had rockstar ambitions, and died a rockstar's death (heroin OD.) Costes is a far more "challenging" listen. His music usually consists of a basic keyboard loop, some various noises and lots and lots of screeching. He's best known for his infamous live performances, which like Allin's include full nudity and vulgarity, though not as hostile to his audience. He often refers to his live performances as plays or operas. His late 80s/early 90s performances with Lisa "Suckdog" Carter gave him his notorious reputation. I was fortunate enough to catch him on his 2007 US tour where he was performing a play called "Little Birds Shit". Mainly I was curious to see if he lived up to the hype I had heard about. The performance certainly did! The audience was given a songbook which had the lyrics to the performance we were about to witness. Music was played by a boombox, as Costes and a young female yelled the lyrics while fully nude. The bodily fluids were all fake (I think...), though some of the sexual acts between the two were definitely real. As sheer shock value goes, the performance certainly delivered - the sights and sounds of these two weirdos covered in fake feces and fake blood as they screamed at each other made quite an impression. A comically oversized toilet on the stage also added to the oddness. Maybe the most shocking thing was that following along with the lyrics about the romance and tribulations of the young couple were actually hilarious and often quite touching, not just obscenity (though there was plenty of that too.)
Costes has been doing these types of performances for over 3 decades now. His recorded output consists of over 100 full-length albums (mostly self-released on CS and CD-R.) He also performed a small role in the excellent Gaspar Noe film "Irreversible" (another work of art that I found incredible, but would have a hard time recommending) and wrote a handful of novels. The Last Crusade is the first of his books to receive an English translation, and it's as insane as you would expect from such a performer. Describing this book is not an easy task, and I feel that if I got into much detail it would reduce the impact of reading it anyhow. The story begins as the narrator (a middle-aged man who is easy to imagine as Costes himself) escorts his daughter to a heavy metal concert. Shortly after, an Islamic terror attack occurs at the venue, leaving most of the attendees dead. The narrator hides below his daughter's body and manages to survive the attack. His daughter does not. Feeling a deep sense of cowardliness, our narrator then seeks vengeance. From here, things only get more and more bizarre, with the terrorist attack being only the tip of the iceberg in terms of horrendous events. It just has to be read. While the book is very grim, there's a lot of laughs - at least if you enjoy irreverent scatological/sexual humor (another review even mentioned Adam Sandler!) I was definitely laughing every few pages, and for most of the novel the humor seemed like a neurotic tic that the author couldn't help but throw in. However, by the end, I thought the humor was used extremely effectively, keeping things upbeat through a very non-upbeat story. The characters the narrator encounters and teams up with also keep things engaging and upbeat, you start to root for them even as the atrocities keep piling up. Despite the vulgar content, there's many poetic moments in this book. I often found myself re-reading an excellent paragraph several times.
I'm not going to speculate on the author's political views, but given the book's premise, I feel a bit obliged to at least discuss some of the politics in this book. There's a very odd and disorienting contrast of views going on here. On one hand, much of the book (not least the narrator himself) feels very xenophobic. However, it's also true that the book features a team of characters of various races, backgrounds and religious beliefs teaming up to fight against a common enemy. It's not tough to imagine a person on the far-right enjoying the xenophobic aspects of the story (though the humor and obscenity throughout the book would surely prevent them from getting too far into the book.) There's also some moments in the book that are quite beautiful, and will likely appeal to the far-left and anyone with a healthy distrust of Western governments (though the relentless anti-PC aspects of the book will likely prevent them from finishing the book.) Centrists who do trust governments...well they're probably not gonna find any political aspect of this book remotely palatable. The ending totally twists things up as far as political viewpoints go, and to discuss that in any detail would be a major spoiler.
I'm very happy that Amphetamine Sulphate chose to translate this book, they are threatening to translate another in 2021, which I'll definitely pick up. This was the first AS full-length I've read, but not the last and hopefully not the last English translation of Costes I read. In the meantime, is it too much to ask for another US tour in 2020!?
(Note on star rating: I usually only rate books 5-star if they are truly outstanding, classics that I would recommend to anyone. I definitely do not recommend The Last Crusade to everyone! Still, I don't think I could've been more satisfied buying a novel by the notorious Jean-Louis Costes so five stars it is. If you have more than a cursory knowledge of Costes, and think you would enjoy reading a novel by him, you might be better off skipping this review and just diving in with no prior knowledge)
Possibly the most shocking novel I've read since Matthew Stokoe's "Cows", this one might even top that. A bit of background on the author before I even try to describe this thing. Costes is best known in the deep underground music scene as the French equivalent of GG Allin. That comparison is only superficially correct - Allin (whose infamy comes from performing nude, hurling feces at and attacking his audience) always fronted punk bands, many of them very good. He definitely had rockstar ambitions, and died a rockstar's death (heroin OD.) Costes is a far more "challenging" listen. His music usually consists of a basic keyboard loop, some various noises and lots and lots of screeching. He's best known for his infamous live performances, which like Allin's include full nudity and vulgarity, though not as hostile to his audience. He often refers to his live performances as plays or operas. His late 80s/early 90s performances with Lisa "Suckdog" Carter gave him his notorious reputation. I was fortunate enough to catch him on his 2007 US tour where he was performing a play called "Little Birds Shit". Mainly I was curious to see if he lived up to the hype I had heard about. The performance certainly did! The audience was given a songbook which had the lyrics to the performance we were about to witness. Music was played by a boombox, as Costes and a young female yelled the lyrics while fully nude. The bodily fluids were all fake (I think...), though some of the sexual acts between the two were definitely real. As sheer shock value goes, the performance certainly delivered - the sights and sounds of these two weirdos covered in fake feces and fake blood as they screamed at each other made quite an impression. A comically oversized toilet on the stage also added to the oddness. Maybe the most shocking thing was that following along with the lyrics about the romance and tribulations of the young couple were actually hilarious and often quite touching, not just obscenity (though there was plenty of that too.)
Costes has been doing these types of performances for over 3 decades now. His recorded output consists of over 100 full-length albums (mostly self-released on CS and CD-R.) He also performed a small role in the excellent Gaspar Noe film "Irreversible" (another work of art that I found incredible, but would have a hard time recommending) and wrote a handful of novels. The Last Crusade is the first of his books to receive an English translation, and it's as insane as you would expect from such a performer. Describing this book is not an easy task, and I feel that if I got into much detail it would reduce the impact of reading it anyhow. The story begins as the narrator (a middle-aged man who is easy to imagine as Costes himself) escorts his daughter to a heavy metal concert. Shortly after, an Islamic terror attack occurs at the venue, leaving most of the attendees dead. The narrator hides below his daughter's body and manages to survive the attack. His daughter does not. Feeling a deep sense of cowardliness, our narrator then seeks vengeance. From here, things only get more and more bizarre, with the terrorist attack being only the tip of the iceberg in terms of horrendous events. It just has to be read. While the book is very grim, there's a lot of laughs - at least if you enjoy irreverent scatological/sexual humor (another review even mentioned Adam Sandler!) I was definitely laughing every few pages, and for most of the novel the humor seemed like a neurotic tic that the author couldn't help but throw in. However, by the end, I thought the humor was used extremely effectively, keeping things upbeat through a very non-upbeat story. The characters the narrator encounters and teams up with also keep things engaging and upbeat, you start to root for them even as the atrocities keep piling up. Despite the vulgar content, there's many poetic moments in this book. I often found myself re-reading an excellent paragraph several times.
I'm not going to speculate on the author's political views, but given the book's premise, I feel a bit obliged to at least discuss some of the politics in this book. There's a very odd and disorienting contrast of views going on here. On one hand, much of the book (not least the narrator himself) feels very xenophobic. However, it's also true that the book features a team of characters of various races, backgrounds and religious beliefs teaming up to fight against a common enemy. It's not tough to imagine a person on the far-right enjoying the xenophobic aspects of the story (though the humor and obscenity throughout the book would surely prevent them from getting too far into the book.) There's also some moments in the book that are quite beautiful, and will likely appeal to the far-left and anyone with a healthy distrust of Western governments (though the relentless anti-PC aspects of the book will likely prevent them from finishing the book.) Centrists who do trust governments...well they're probably not gonna find any political aspect of this book remotely palatable. The ending totally twists things up as far as political viewpoints go, and to discuss that in any detail would be a major spoiler.
I'm very happy that Amphetamine Sulphate chose to translate this book, they are threatening to translate another in 2021, which I'll definitely pick up. This was the first AS full-length I've read, but not the last and hopefully not the last English translation of Costes I read. In the meantime, is it too much to ask for another US tour in 2020!?
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January 24, 2020This is one of those rare books I can't really rate as I feel somewhat conflicted about it. On the one hand I admire the fact that the author has balls to write such provocative material and parts of it were not only amusing (in a morbidly scabrous manner), but even weirdly touching... on the other hand I also found it morally repellent, not so much for its political content than for its fixation on bodily functions (a claim I don't make lightly: I should stress I do not consider myself a prude, but as I grow older I've found that I lost my taste for some of this kind of material), and a tad juvenile in its transgressive obsessions and scatological excess: the best way I could describe this book is that it exists somewhere in the middle of a spectrum with a Gallic J.G. Ballard at one end and an Adam Sandler movie on the other. Indeed I haven't felt myself this repulsed trying to get through a book since my attempts to read Delany's HOGG or Duvert's STRANGE LANDSCAPE. The only reason why I sloughed through to the bitter end and didn't set it aside (like I did those other two, though I did rage-quit it once or twice before returning to it, like a dog to its vomit) was simply because I have read all of the previous books put out by this publisher and didn't want to break the streak! I should clarify that these negative comments should not be seen as a condemnation of the book's literary values... some may even see such views as an endorsement, to which I would say: God help them! Abandon all hope ye who enter here, etcetera, etcetera...
December 22, 2019
Can’t have a revolution without getting a bit of shit on you. Utterly disgusting and hilarious. An absolute masterpiece.
March 21, 2021
Ripping off Celine’s style this hard is only a hindrance to any kind of transgressive impact the work might’ve had, but it doesn’t seem to care either way; like the description says it’s just scumfuck guignols band through the lens of the new French extremity
June 16, 2022
A wild, out of this world bloodbath of a journey
August 27, 2023
eschatological AND scatological
April 2, 2024
Incredibly ugly book passing itself off as transgressive. Skimmed the last 30 pages. Not even close to Celine. xo
February 19, 2025
Not for me I had to put this one down about 40 pages in
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews