Maldoror by Lautréamont and Les Diaboliques by Barbey d'Aurevilly

What do you guys think of these two works?

I came to Maldoror from references and allusions in music, and found it quite compelling: primarily in language and overall theme, I don't recall anything specific about "plot" or "character" (and generally I'm left with the impression there aren't any such, but it's been years). I keep it on my shelf and plan to re-read eventually.

Not familiar with d'Aurevilly at all.

Maldoror is amazing. I loved it. I read it shortly after I first read Against Nature by Huysmans Lautreamont seems like a bridge between the philosophic cruelties of DAF Sade and the poetic insanities of Artaud Not much "plot" or "character" in the traditional narrative sense; more of a poetic confession-cum-philosophical indictment of society.

Unfortunately, haven't read the latter, although it's in my library somewhere in a classy Daedalus edition.

I have read either work, but Viscount Emilio Lascano Tegui (another fake Count) mentions his work in On Elegance While Sleeping, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Both ought to be considered seminal works in the Chapel's canon, if such a thing exists. I'll admit that I have better recall of Maldoror. It is a strange work with no discernable plot that I can remember, taking the form of an extended prose poem. It's dark misanthropy recalls Die Nachtwachen des Bonaventura (which I discovered, via benwaugh, only in the last couple of years), and the gothic touchstone Melmoth the Wanderer.

I believe we have discussed somewhere else the imagery of Maldoror as it riffs off of Melmoth: In Melmoth, the protagonist watches a shipwreck from a jagged cliff, unmoved by the cries of the drowning. In Maldoror, the scene is repeated, except that the protagonist stands with a rifle, picking off the survivors one by one.

If I recall correctly, one of the hipsters in the film "Slacker" is reading a copy of Maldoror, in the Penguin edition.

In my dreams, I imagine a collaboration between Ducasse and Rimbaud, overseen by Baudelaire.

That scene in Melmoth: sounds very similar to the Brueghel painting "The Fall of Icarus" -- which precedes the other? Did the earlier influence the later?

Regardless, not having read Melmoth and my memory of Maldoror effectively blank aside from a generic "It's good stuff" impression, the dialogue over those works is fascinating.

Love stuff like this.

5: In Melmoth, the protagonist watches a shipwreck from a jagged cliff, unmoved by the cries of the drowning. In Maldoror, the scene is repeated, except that the protagonist stands with a rifle, picking off the survivors one by one

This would probably make Maldoror the hero of the One Percenters.

Not so fast! Are they wealthy survivors or impoverished survivors or somewhere in between? (I don't think it would make a difference to Maldoror, but it might to the other 99.9999999999999.)

8: A One Percenter wouldn't care either way. If it's the rich, then it's a Daniel Plainview-esque take-down of the competition. "I drink your milkshake!" If it's the poor, then it's King Louis XIV from "History of the World, Part I." "Of course I care about the poor. Pull!" One Percenters simply aren't ethically equipped to care either way. To do so would somehow presuppose they are human, instead of sentient piles of non-consecutive $20s. Hell, if America was actually honest with itself, rather than wrapping itself up in a labyrinth of sexual hypocrisy, sanctimonious hucksterism, and cheap patriotism, we'd have elected and re-elected Vathek, put Maldoror on the Supreme Court (wait, we did that ... how else would one explain Scalia and Clarence Thomas), and turned the halls of Congress into sites of Satanic blood-orgies. Then again, Satan has standards and wouldn't waste his time with those incompetent bourgeois kleptoparasites using our tax dollars to keep their diseased, bloated carcasses alive with government health care ... all the while accusing health care reformers of every crime associated with the Bolsheviks and Pol Pot.

Maldoror for president. Who needs Michelle Obama when we can have an oversexed shark for first lady?

10: I thought that title went to Dame Margaret Thatcher? At least on account of those teeth and her fashion sense.