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The Songs of Maldoror
The Songs of Maldoror - Sp 15
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Discussion - Week Two - The Songs of Maldoror - Third & Fourth Canto
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Also, I haven't been keeping a tally, but "vagina" has been used at least 7 or 8 times, and "clitoris" once that I can remember. Most literature euphemises these words, but in the time and artistic environment of mid-century Paris, the time had come to call a "quim" a "vagina". In 1866, Gustave Courbet was commissioned to paint "L'origine du Monde" which depicts a woman's genitals. Currently on display a the Musée D'Orsay in Paris, the painting was part of the realist movement of the 19th century, which, post-French revolution, concerned itself with artistic liberation from church and state, as well as official institutions, and essentially said that all that is human is valid for creative exploration. My sense of The Songs of Maldoror is that Lautréamont chose to extend these ideas to the transgressive, violent, profane, and psychopathic elements of human behavior. Once the boundaries of what is chaste, moral, ethical, etc., have been blurred, then books with child rape/bestiality/evisceration get written. Maldoror the character, then, becomes a symbol of all that is dark and evil in the human psyche and behavior.
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"The lighthouses will pursue him to the northern limits with their sarcastic lights..." It's little gems like these that make this book extra-special for me. That, and the insane megalomaniac vision in the First Canto when Maldoror imagines himself flying over the world and all the men and animals being united in their hatred of him: "...All of a sudden, their flaming, distorted faces, showing their terrible emotions, will grimace in such a way that wolves will shrink in fear. They will all rise at once like an immense spring. What imprecations! What voices breaking as they yell! They have recognized me. And now see how the animals of the earth are joining in with men, making their bizarre outcry heard; the hatred they both feel has turned against the common enemy, me..."
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(last edited Mar 13, 2015 01:01AM)
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It seems to me as if the author despises what he feels is the tasteless kitsch Art or silly literature of his day. He appears to be in a rage against what he considers tasteless, trite, Romantic ideas about Man's better nature, one-dimensional religiosity, Love, Gothic titulation, etc. Kinda the way 22-year-old college students were so intent on turning everything over and starting again in 1968-1975, as I remember it. We said, 'don't trust anyone over 30' because the common cause for those of us under 30 was to reject the Establishment - government, the Pentagon and the military, social mores, religion, our parents and everything they thought important, the Vietnam War, the police, suits and ties, short trimmed hair, Lawrence Welk, 4-door sedans, etc.This guy would have been arranging sit-ins and throwing rocks at the ROTC offices and demonstrating in Chicago screaming 'Pigs!' at the cops.
Jim, my edition's notes mention the term 'spermatozoïde' used in 2.15 just after the term 'vagin' which appears everywhere without euphemism. I'm translating, so forgive any weirdness: This scientific word appears here for the first time in literature; erotic and pornographic authors never used it. Elsewhere, Ducasse will show a good knowledge of venereology.
I'm still dead last, having just finished chanson 3 last night. I think I found the first two chansons a little more interesting, or perhaps the constant layering grows tiresome as the novelty wears off. I continue to find that the disturbing material is less disturbing than it might be if it were presented differently. I think this is one of the more interesting aspects of this work: truly awful and shocking material is presented in a way that makes it seem less shocking. I think this in and of itself is a sort of critique of the gothic sensibility, where shocking and horrifying is part of the point.
I also finally found something funny (Zad, mostly I really don't see it, I usually think he's deadly serious). I enjoyed god falling drunk onto his face from the skies and then being spit on by his creation. Only the lion sticks up for him.
With regards to the painful chapter in which Maldoror rapes, mutilates, and murders a child, I noted this:This chapter is truly awful and not only because of the horrific murder told in explicit detail, but because it is told from the perspective of the mother suffering decades later, and because it contains the absurd but true-to-life premise that she pities the criminal. It is a real expression of outrage, even if it's tempered by absurd elements, and it knows the extent of human cruelty. It is also a cruel act to assault the reader, especially if the reader has previously found something to laugh about while reading this text.
By point of comparison, I had a similar experience reading Darrieusecq's Pig's Tale, when absurdity piled upon absurdity is interrupted by an act of cruelty that kind of shocks and shames us just when we were laughing along.
(P.S., when I say "awful," I don't mean bad as literature. Again, I think this is a great book, and this chapter is almost an essential element to it. I mean "awful" in the obvious sense that the chapter produces awful emotions.)
Another notable point, perhaps not just for this pair of Cantos, but throughout, is Lautreamont's switching between 1st person narration, addressing his protagonist in the 2nd person (also addressing other chacters, and us, in the same way), and using 3rd person narration. It's disorienting as well as amusing. That, plus the occasional exchanges of dialog where the distinction between characters and voices is hard to detect, forces us to reorient from time to time. I think it's funny, too, though some might attack it as a flaw, that characters who are expressly *not* Maldoror still often speak as he does and express similar ideas, in a way validating his point-of-view.
Fourth Canto is when the author takes a somewhat new direction, in that he pushes the experiment of intentionally obscure, self-contradictory, outrageously digressive, over-qualified style beyond the bounds of what we've seen previously. It starts in the section about baobobs/towers/pins (which is actually a concealed/revealed statement of intent, which may be entirely facetious). But it does not find its end here. He also reveals that he is laughing by his assertion that he never laughs... though he also advises:
"...I cannot help laughing, you will reply; I accept this absurd explanation, but then let it be a melancholy laugh. Laugh, but cry at the same time. If you cannot cry with your eyes, cry with your mouth. If even that is impossible, urinate; but I warn you that some kind of liquid is necessary here, to counteract the dryness that laughter, with its creased features, bears in its womb."
He's such a card.
Also, I love his frequent "warnings." He even "warns" when "encourage," or "advise" would be a more apt expression (e.g., in speaking to the amphibious swimmer at sea: "I warn you that you do not need to address me at all...") But Lautreamont is obviously a big fan of the inapt.
That last could be the translation: I would need to look at the individual passages, but if the verb is "avertir" it's not inapt since the meaning stretches from something like a warning back to the more general inform or advise.
Ah, okay, that is interesting. Though the translation may be in line with the idea that Maldoror is much more prone to issuing injunctions and warnings than advising on anything. But clearly this point could be an artifact of translation (I was afraid someone would say so, but...)
Here is the madwoman, dancing, while she vaguely remembers something. Children chase her and throw stones at her, as if she were a blackbird. She brandishes a stick and looks about to chase them, then continues on her way. She does not notice that she has left one of her shoes on the path. Long spider legs move on her neck, but they are only her hair. Her face no longer resembles the human face, and she bursts into fits of laughter like a hyena. She lets slip scraps of sentences in which, when put together, very few would find any clear meaning. (Third Canto)