Corrosive reading

James Thomson: The City of Dreadful Night
Bonaventura: The Night Watches
Paul Leppin: Severin's Journey Into the Dark
Jean Lorrain: Monsieur Phocas
Charles Baudelaire: The Flowers of Evil
Paul Verlaine: Poemes Saturnines
J. K. Huysmans: Against Nature (Against the Grain)
James Huneker: Painted Veils
Edgar Saltus: Imperial Purple
Geza Csath: Opium and Other Stories
Petronius: The Satyricon
Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam: Cruel Tales
Clemente Plama: Malignant Tales
Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly: Dandyism
Max Beerbohm: Seven Men
Frederick Rolfe ("Baron Corvo"): Hadrian VII
Georges Rodenbach - Bruges-la-Morte
Rachilde: The Marquise de Sade
Theophile Gautier: The Jinx

I certainly cannot compare with your encyclopaedic knowledge ;-), but I think I can suggest Gabriele d'Annunzio (any book or poem), and The Golem. If we want to add ghost stories as well, shall I mention Lafcadio Hearn?

PLEASE (and welcome!)you are partly to blame for my so-called knowledge, having marvelously expanded it with your posting on the Scapigliati - for which I am immesely grateful... which brings me 'round to asking.. would you like me to post it here... or would you like to... embellishing and adding more? :) That said, I really do have to get to D'Annunzio... the only reason he's not in my list above is because I have, shamefully, not read him yet. The Golem is, of course, a marvelous suggestion (I'm re-reading it now)- as are his The Green Face and The Angel of the West Window (reading them next). There are many wonderful, feverish ghost stories associated with "la decadence": Dedalus Press (bless them!) has put out a good collection of French Horror - then there is Petrus Borel, Maurice Level, Vincent O'Sullivan, James Huneker, Vernon Lee, etc... these are not so much "spooky" as they are dreadful: spiritually cankered, sensual, exotic, courting the blasphemous (as in Huneker's The Eighth Deadly Sin or The Vision Malefic). Anyway - love to hear more/share more. Happy all Souls!

You can post it here, Ben, and if I can think of something more to add, well, I shall do it.
In the meantime, I will look into The Green Face and The Angel of the West Window. Do they take place in Prague as well? Oh what a magical city....I regret not having visited it when I still lived in Europe....

Even if the author was not born (or lived) in the 20th century, what about The Monk by Matthew Lewis? I know it is considered 'gothic', but I always found it quite decadent.
Venice is astounding, a city like no other. You should definitely take a trip there, but NOT in the summer....spring is far better or late September, beginning of October.
:-))

yes - the monk is absolutely essential to the decadent's library... and another i have yet to read. have you read james hogg's private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner? early 1900s - scottish dialect... very creepy. october sounds like the perfect month to visit the venice i imagine...

Good Monday to you, Ben!
Venezia can be quite decadent (as you like) in the fall, except that one runs the risk of finding 'acqua alta' (high water), which is a rising of the water from the canals and consequent flooding of squares, and streets (called 'calle' or 'calli' in the plural). Still, it is a magnificent city.
I took a look at the Dedalus website...quite interesting, I must say, except I do not understand what Luigi Pirandello is doing there. He certainly was not a decadent writer! And no, I have not read James Hogg (ignorant me!)
;-)

Hey, did you realize that this group is practically a dialogue between the two of us? Funny!
If food is one of your interests, I advise you to take a trip to Bologna and the Emilia Romagna region, in Italy. The area is renowned - and rightfully so - for the excellent cuisine (and good wines too). True that I believe it is almost impossible not to eat well in Italy (and no, I am not biased), but that area is particularly famous. Think for example of Parmisan cheese (parmigiano) and prosciutto...that is where they come from.
I am not pleased to read that Pirandello is considered an "absurdist". He is as different from Ionesco and Beckett as chalk is from cheese!Pirandello also wrote novels and stories, which I like quite a lot. I must find out how much of his work has been translated into English and by whom. Do you happen to know?
The monk is worth reading although, from a 21st century perspective, its naivete makes you smile. Ever read Jan Potocki? I read it years ago, in Italian translation, and quite enjoyed it. It is in the Dedalus catalogue....check it out!
Paola :-))

It is NOT doomed, if only because WE make the group! In fact, to me, it is one of the most stimulating and interesting ones.
It is not just a list of names and titles, it is an ongoing conversation, commentary, ideas und so weiter...
I will check the translators. You should read some of Pirandello's stories, they are fantastic.
Is reading part of your profession? If so, lucky you (envy, envy).....
*grin*
Paola

No Rimbaud, lads? Without him, no Verlaine, surely.

How about Pater's "to burn always with this hard gem-like flame"? Andre Gide's The Immoralist and Flaubert's Sentimental Education surely qualify for decadence, as would Mann's Death in Venice. I say nothing of the heady eroticism of Salome, Salammbo and Venus in Furs...

Rimbaud surely implied in the the description of the group - that whole "arrive at the unknown" thing. there was a time i preferred rimbaud to verlaine, but even then there was no doubt the chickenhawk, drunken, more talented paul, came before the country egg. as to your mentions, chere bona dea, they are all honorable, at least in my temple - salome, being of course wilde's thing, and illustrated by beardsley. i'd add, for the kink factor, to your sacher-masoch, krafft-ebing's psychopathia sexualis. just in case chef prudhomme failed to convince you that much can be done with a chicken. Pater, of course the god-father of this sort of stuff. so, welcome! and feel free to discuss these books and others. The Mann you mentioned was unfortunately excluded from a past post regarding venice - and is losely based on the life and seedy proclivities of the baron corvo, one of the extravagant saints of world literature.

I am particularly fond of the literature and mores (or studied lack of them) of the late 19th century Aesthetes. Wilde's quotes never fail to make me smile at their wit and wisdom; his life was lived as if it were Art and never mind the debts. He had taste and intelligence.

Well, I'm a little biased towards Rimbaud (for his youth, vulgarity and extravagantly outre lifestyle) against Verlaine - but I adore Baudelaire above all. He's definitely better in French than in any translation. I love reading the authors on your list: they are so deliciously wicked. I'd add Bierce too: studied amoralism with intent to shock and awe (to borrow from our own time's terminology).

I shall waft off now with a sunflower in one hand and a lily in the other.

i think that is part of what attracts me to the stuff - the quaintness of it. time was a person could walk his pet lobster down the boulevard (or his tribe of cats down broadway) and turn heads. we seem to be shock-proof these days. i agree with you on baudelaire. i have his invitation au voyage pinned to my wall to help me with my french retention... bierce seems to have been an interesting character, undiluted cynicism. no sunny westward-ho stuff. and the disappearing act. i read a lot of his horror shorts when i was young and still like to flip through his devil's dictionary.. the entry that still remains in mind is "november: the eleventh twelfth of a weariness." waft back any ol' time now, you hear?

Ben,
it is difficult to say which Pirandello I prefer. However, if I had to, I would say Novelle per un anno, Il fu Mattia Pascal, and Uno, nessuno e centomila.
I will try to see what the titles in translation are.
And literary oddities are sooooo interesting!
:-))

From a quick search on Amazon, I found the following titles:
One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand and The Late Mattia Pascal, both translated by William Weaver, who is excellent and, in spite of having lived in Italy for quite a while, still has a very funny accent ;-)
Also, you might be interested in checking out Tales of Madness: A selection from Luigi Pirandello's Short Stories for a Year and Tales of Suicide: A selection from Luigi Pirandello's Short Stories for a Year. These last two sound kind of decadent, don't they?
Pirandello's fascination with madness can be explained with the fact that his wife was mentally ill and, I believe, confined to an asylum for many years, so the experience was lived by him first hand.
More to follow.....
:-))

good morning. Paola - i do have Il fu Mattia Pascal (in translation, of course) and was looking through another last night, tr as One No None and One Hundred Thousand, by William Weaver. I'm with you - that's why I started this group - so many curiosities which have slipped away, paths overgrown leading who knows where.

it might be your cologne.....who knows...(eheheheheh..!)
I would love to join your group on the lit of middle east and north africa, but I am extremely ignorant on the matter (yes, I confess, I AM). I have read the messages though, and found them interesting to say the least. Also, I have found out that you are a student of the Arabic language. Cool!

Strange.....although it appeared I had a new message, when I clicked on the highlighted link I found none. Oh well, no matter, I joined anyway. I will be a silent member, though, just there to give support and learn....
When are you going to start writing? (#13)

Morning, Ben.
Did you notice that my last message is flagged? So weird....I don't think I said anything deserving a red flag, or did I? Oh the mysteries of LT....
:-))

Yes, this flag abuse thing is going on in a lot of groups, I see....
But so far, let's keep our fingers crossed, all our messages are here.....
What's up in DC?

We are having a real Indian summer here!
But tomorrow it will start getting colder.....
I know that DC is beautiful in the spring, with the cherry blossoms..:-))

shame on you! ;-)))

well, you are not the only one.....

*grin*

Yes, I agree on both! A morning grin makes you feel ready to face the day, and The Golem IS a great novel. I will reread it as soon as the 'to be read' pile becomes smaller (right now it is humongous!).
I just interrupted translating LT into Italian. Fortunately, other Italian members are (finally) contributing. For a while it was only my humble self and another young woman from Italy.
I hope we shall finish soon because, to tell you the truth, I am a bit ashamed to realize that EVEN the translation into Welsh (nonetheless) is completed, but the Italian one NO!
It is Thursday.....one more day.....
*double grin*

Thanks! *grin**grin**grin*
Yes, we are international indeed!
Since I saw you have an email address in your profile, one of these days I will send you something funny (that is if you allow, of course...)
:-))

will do then.
:-))

a good morning *grin* to you!

check your e-mail :-))))))))))

Hello all,
If I may I'd suggest you add some of Jean Lorrain's works. Most of all I think about Histoires de Masques. Well worth two hours is also Henri de Régnier's L'Entrevue (recently republished in French in a small book called Récits Vénitiens with another story short story set in his beloved Venice, Le Café Quadri).
Cheers

Seems the touchstone for the De Regnier book does not recognize the right one. Check out my library or have a look at this url:
http://www.amazon.fr/R%C3%A9cits-v%C3%A9nitiens-Henri-R%C3%A9gnier/dp/2909688321...

On a geistesgeschichtliches note (pun there), no one has mentioned the fad for the occult around that time. That was not very long after the scientist Willaim Crookes became a spiritualist and the adventurer Daniel Dunglas Home charmed (in both senses!) his way into stately homes. A couple of representative works:

The king in yellow, and other horror stories
The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson

Vague social links crop up among some of these authors. For instance, E.F. Benson was a brother of Robert Hugh Benson, who tried to help Frederick Rolfe, was--I fear--a bit condescending about it, and wound up being caricatured by Rolfe as "Bobugo Bonson."

(edited for spelling)

Re: Message 49: Hello and welcome, Alexis. Good recommedation, by the way. I have read Lorrain's Monsieur de Phocas - which was very good and as decadent as anything Huysmans wrote. I think it is a bit out of print and hard to get these days. The Tartarus press put out a nicely packaged collection of his short stories a few years back: Nightmares of an Ether Drinker. I think Lorrain, who died a truly colorful death, was the model for Proust's crusty Baron de Charlus.

I had not heard of Régnier - I will hunt that one. I would also recommend Jean Richepin's Les Morts Bizarres and Petrus Borel's Contes Immoraux. Neither iis available in English, unfortunately (although the hideously unavailable Dedalus Book of French Horror contains a few translated shorts by both of them, as well as by many others, known and obscure).

Re: Message 51: I don't know about the pun (intellectual history/ghostly history? my German is a bit sauer these days )- but the recommendations are right on. And I am glad that someone has introduced a topic along with the recommendation. There was great deal of inverted spirituality (of the Catholic flavor - debased Eucharists, assorted blasphemies and defilements, flowing robes, perfumed smoke-pots, etc. - gorgeous if, now, silly stuff). The theme is in the horror stories of the day, but also in the "straight" literature of Joris Huysmans, Valery Briusov, Jean Lorrain, Clemente Palma, Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam and others. R. H. Benson, Corvo's "banausic priest", wrote several occult flavored things himself - one of which was put out in Dennis Wheatley's Library of the Occult: The Necromancers. Chambers, of course, tied his tales into Ambrose Bierce's with his mention of "Carcossa" in the King in Yellow (a fine and creepy book by an author who churned out a fair deal of fluff) - continued by Lovecraft, and probably others. Rolfe, though, was a curious character - a venomous cipher. His short "The Armed Hands" is chilling, decadent, and, in its concentrated brevity, a good autobiographical sketch. I would recommend, in the context of this group, everything he has written. Any way - thank you, welcome and please do contribute more!

Alexis, can you tell us a bit more about Henri de Regnier - particularly the title you suggested? Was Recits Venetiens written in his early life, when he was close to the Symbolists? I will wait and see if the price deflates a bit and try to track down a used copy.

Ben: Nightmares of an Ether Drinker is indeed a good one, with that enduring obsession of Lorrain with Venice carnival masks. This discussion made me look what I had not read yet from him and I've found lots of short stories that I did no even know, and also a substantial amount of non-fiction (about the Universal Expositions, his trips to the Maghreb, etc).

I'm a bit in a hurry right now so I won't have time to write about Régnier. But I'll do very soon.
Re- the price issue for many of these out-of-print books, If you can read French, I guess you could try your luck on chapitre.com, also it still can get pricy sometimes.

If this may warm you up, there has been for a few years now renewed interest in the writers of this era and many of their books are being re-published by small editors, often with great - however always too concise, alas ;-) - footnotes and addenda.

This is especially true for Lorrain. One I like very much is the "Petite Bibliothèque Ombres" with its small format and grainy paper. But there are many others.

Tonight I just indulged myself with Charles Cros' Le Caillou mort d'amour (Touchstone not working, try ISBN 2841421651 or check my library) as well as definitely über-decadent collected short stories from Meyrink called Histoires fantastiques pragoises (ISBN 2080712268) which gather stories from the two original collections auf Deutsch Des deutschen Spiessers Wunderhorn and Das Haus zur letzen Latern.

Tomorrow if the Gods are good I'll at last get my hands on a seriuously out-of-print edition of Régnier's collection of short stories called La Canne de Jaspe. Till then, good night.

Noting behind-scenes connections among authors may well be the most innocuous form of gossip, and is at any rate one in which we Fogies freely indulge. So here are a couple bits on this subject.

Raymond Chandler, who entered Dulwich College in 1900 after his divorced mother had brought him to England from his native United States, may have been familiar with Chamber's works, judging by the title of his 1938 story "The King in Yellow."

Montague Rhodes James, whose earliest published collection of ghost stories puts him in the fin-de-siecle era later became provost of Eton during the time a boy named Eric Blair was a King's scholar there. James liked to read his stories aloud to a group of young toffs, and Blair is known to have had a taste for ghost stories, so we are well within the realm of the likely in picturing James reading to a group including Blair over cocoa in the common room in the long winter nights. James's stories are notable for the intensity with which they can evoke looming, threatening horror. How much of the atmosphere of pervading fear in Nineteen eighty-four, which Blair wrote after changing his name to George Orwell, can be traced to James?

On the James-Orwell connection, any opinions on how much of the man James seen by the boy Blair and recollected by the author Orwell is present in the character of Mr. Charrington?

(moved to topic: References)

I for one must confess little recollection of Orwell beyond the language essays and gin-soaked socialist dystopias of Animal Farm and 1984. I do know that he read a lot of Wells and M. P. Shiel. M. P. Shiel's works, such Shapes in the Fire, Prince Zaleski and The Purple Cloud, etc., are wonderful examples of decadent horror. Shiel, a friend to Arthur Machen and John Gawsworth, was also the first king of Redonda - a title which passed on to Gawsworth and eventually to the current King Xavier: The Spanish novelist, Javier Marias. Marias is a member of the Friends of Arthur Machen and through his Redonda Press, he has republished a fair amount of obscure horror writing of the 1890s (by Richmal Crompton and others). His novels and stories often incorporate the theme of the supernatural and the occult. With his assistance, the Tartarus Press was able to edit and publish Gawsworth's Boswellian biography of Arthur Machen.

Alexis - I hope the gods were auspicious. I will have to track down a few of the titles. I think Charles Cros is among the French authors included in one or two of the several "decadent anthologies" put out by Dedalus Press (they have also republished Meyrink's novels and tales).

I am happy to hear that the writing from this period is being rediscovered and republished. In the UK, there are several quality presses devoted to this stuff: Durtro (Count Stenbock), Tartarus and Dedalus. I think a few of Corvo's things have been republished as well, but would suspect most of these would be Kessinger-quality print-to-order poachings from the public domain.

A few efforts have been made in the States to resurrect the work of American authors associated with "the movement of the '90s"- Leonard Cline's The Dark Chamber and the anthology, Decadents, Symbolists, & Aesthetes in America: Fin-de-Siecle American Poetry, are among the most notable (and affordable). Someone (John Pelan, I think his name is) republished Edgar Jepson's The Garden at #19 in a hardback edition a few years back. In its few pages it had it all - the London fog, obscene rites and occult erudition, the great god Pan... nubiles in need of rescue.

Re: Message 58. Echoing my last, I'm not sure - but I envy the boy Blair. James is the perfect companion to a cold winter night, brandy and roaring fire close at hand. Edward Heron-Allen also wrote supernatural tales using academics as narrators in The Strange Papers of Christopher Blayre.

Message 62: or hot buttered rum or mulled wine. And just when you've got comfortable--QUIS EST ISTE QUI VENIT?

it would be the reflux wot venit if I wet my whistle with that stuff, mate!

Re: 55. I think I have a line on a semi-reasonably priced copy of Henri Regnier's La Canne de Jaspe as well. In going through my library the other night - in horror of the clutter, looking to purge excess (see Don DeLillos White Noise/Bruit Blanche?) - I found a banged up copy "Modern French Short Stories" (190 - something) that contained one of Regnier's: "Scheherazade the Widow". In its few pages, loads of cooling nocturnal baths in gardens of narcotic pungency, duplicities, murders, mutilations, fornications and adulteries... in the line of Villiers. I look forward to more.

Greetings to the group! Nowadays I don't read much fiction (dislike that word--let's say, belles lettres), and the time of my intense obsession with the decadents is longishly past, but I'm beginning an exploration of Max Nordau--the spirit, philosophy and ideology of 19th/early 20th century medicine and science in general--which brings me back in touch with many of the fine "poisonous" minds and hearts here mentioned--and a whole lot of others I never heard of, for which my undying gratitude. I'm afraid I've come to learn more than inform, but if this angle isn't entirely misplaced here, I'll try to contribute as my quest develops.

I'm currently reading a 1894 French edition of "Degeneration", and Max is drumming on the pre-Raphaelites (I have to admit: I can't entirely blame him, their visual art is purest kitscherei IMO), so, although I'm late to the party, I offer these "patients" for the corrosive reading list: Rosseti (probably throw in Christina for good measure although he doesn't mention her), Swinburne, and yes, Ruskin. I think I saw somebody somewhere suggest Pater--if he, then Ruskin for sure.

*I* am not entirely serious, but Max is.

What next? I have several German studies of Nordau waiting for me--I'm desperately hoping to discover some Entartung about the man himself--no spoilers please!

Thanks again for the wonderful tips.

Hello and welcome. No fiction? Ah, I suppose all of us are destined for the laundry lists and installation manuals eventually. The interesting thing about the decadents (such a marketing sounding word. Symbolists, say), is, that period of time, for me at least, gives evidence of a mutation, or transformation of consciousness. We who were created in the image of God and on the vertical ascent, began to discover masks, that the whole ordered world was a carapace with something nasty, amorphous, biological pupating it in, and that the progress of civilization might be likened to that of a cancer: unconscious, malignant.

Until recently art was either worship or blasphemy (a sentiment still entertained in some parts). It is not so far a distance at all from Les Litanies de Satan to "Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead."

Good recommendations as well: somewhere in my promiscuous browsings I read that either Huysmans or Lorrain based either des Esseintes's or Ethal's home on Swinburne's.

As to Nordau, I have been wondering whether to pick up Degeneration for some time. I have heard it is really awfully written - which I have used as an excuse not to commit. As far as his own degeneracies -there was that beard-like thing strangling his face. What was he thinking? Let me know what you think of Degeneration, though. I've always loved the title (speaking of which, there were so many on the theme coming out of Germany from 1890s on into the 30s - Lanz von Liebenfels' Theozoology being one of the more lurid, and if we could look past history, silly examples). Krafft-Ebbing's Psychopathia Sexualis is the 1001 Nights of Degeneracy. Highly entertaining.

>No fiction? Ah, I suppose all of us are destined for the laundry lists and installation manuals eventually.

The phonebooks come first! I still read about ten books a month, about half manage to be literature and frankly, Nordau's copious quotes bait my appetite. I finished the chapter on the Symbolists last night (next: Tolstoisme)--if you read nothing else, that ought to amuse you. I won't try to describe it, but I am riveted, not missing a single word. Of course, my fascination owes much to my concern with science and how it's perceived at large (I'm a biochemist), and the history of science and its interactions with the "other" culture. I began reading expecting to hate and ridicule everything he wrote--and most of it IS egregious--so it's with some bemusement that I find myself agreeing with him here and there (in the fight against religion we're on the same side... I think... I might yet regret giving him that much). His judgment of the artists is, of course, beyond the pale. Strangely enough, not so much the esthetic one--he even admits to LIKING Verlaine--the medical "diagnosis". Pauvre Verlaine, he says. The deformed criminal, etc.

For those who don't care about science, "Degeneration" is at least a great source of the more obscure Symbolist (and other) figures. And gossip. Have I mentioned gossip? :)

Some of the names either unknown to me or whose work I haven't read: Emile Godeau, Maurice Rollinat, Edmond Haraucourt, Jean Moreas, Laurent Tailhade, Charles Morice, Jean Richepin, Edouard Rod, Melchior de Vogue, Paul Desjardins (wasn't he Gide's friend?), Frédéric Paulhan, Louis Le Cardonel, Henri de Regnier, Paul Adam, Gustave Kahn--enough, it goes on and on, this old tome doesn't have an index, I think I made my point. (Sorry about de-Frenchified spelling.)

Putting Nordau aside for a moment, what about people like the two Pierres, Loti and Louys? Not Symbolist poets, but surely spreading that decadent aroma.

You have sold me - I'm grabbing the Nordau. I love those verdicts: "deformed criminal." It sounds like great fun. It reminds me of the patristic screeds against the gnostics - and most of the names you cited I have not heard of, save for Richepin, Regnier and the two Pierres (speaking of whom, I thing that Louys does get lumped in with the decadent/symbolist gang in the various anthologies. I have had his Aphrodite on my nightstand for ages and have not yet cracked it).

And I have been scraping up books by the very uhm, aromatic Hanns Heinz Ewers. I just picked up the first US editiion of The Sorcerer's Apprentice - with some very pathological illustrations.

I just bought an 1895 US edition of Degeneration (I can imagine, given the times, struggled against by Huneker and the Saltus dabblers, that it sold fairly well in the US). Also grabbed a copy of Wilfrid Ewart's Aspects of England - not decadent, but a curiosity, and, it seems, a rare one. Ewart I have under my "morts bizarres" tag: one of the oddest deaths I'm aware of in literature. This posthumous collection of essays was put together by one of the oddest, most energetic and unsung characters in English literature (who does tie in with the decadents, through his association with M. P. Shiel and Arthur Machen), John Gawsworth. Gawsworth, 2nd King of Redonda (Juan I), Bohemian drunk, lord of Fitzrovia was a relentless promoter of his friends and wrote several wonderful, creepy horror stories. His works are not easy to come by, either. And of Redonda - The current King Xavier is a Spanish novelist who will, or should, win the Nobel prize one day.

Re: "deformed criminal" (and oh so MUCH worse), let me just add that Nordau dedicated his book to Cesare "The criminal mind" Lombroso... 'nuff said.

I'm looking forward to your opinions on "The Symbolists". I hope that edition is unabridged? The copy I'm reading is from our university library, I often buy whatever I can afford but then read some usually far more magnificent edition. There is a thrill in holding a book from the past--especially the period one is reading about...

Not exactly on topic, but in its neighbourhood (and possibly tantalisingly rubbing sides--that's what interests me)--I've been reading in parallel studies on the Viennese Otto Weininger and his influence. Weininger has been something of a private nemesis since my university days (I read his "Sex and character" reprinted in 1988) but I've only now begun to explore the context and the repercussions of his philosophy. He famously killed himself in 1903 at the age of 23 in the house where Beethoven died (talk about melodrama), after his magnum opus "S. & C." was welcomed with mostly hostility and indifference. Belying such a short life and unpromising debut, there are fascinating threads connecting O.W. to almost any modernist trend, ideology, figure--Freud, psychoanalysis, futurism, fascism, Strindberg, Musil, Wittgenstein, Broch, Svevo, Saba, Kraus--I could go on for hours. The landscape is incredibly complex. His antisemitic theory inspired Hitler ("O.W. was the only Jew worthy of living") and the whole range of right-wingers, but his misogynistic one was berated by some Nazis, and he had female and Jewish admirers.

If you're interested in minds cracking on the knife edge of the fin-de-siecle, Weininger's is a fascinating one to contemplate. There's the Romanticism (adoration of Genius! Suicide! Beethoven!), there's Austria, there's decadence--deplored in the hated Woman and the Jew and the sort of "culture" they produce and that nourishes them--and then there are the echoes in the mysticism and the occult of our days: Evola, Guenon...

ETA: another one Weininger much influenced: Georg Trakl.

>"morts bizarres" tag

What a great tag. I'm tempted to steal it...

If you haven't read Louys before, I'd recommend "Songs of Bilitis" or especially the wicked "Trois filles de leur mere" before "Aphrodite". Louys was another of Gide's friends, I think Gide describes their jerk off sessions as kids in "Si le grain ne meurt". I could be misremembering some... but not by much. :)

Also, my "to investigate" list grows by inches whenever I look in here... this is GOOD.

Hello all - great forum here. Some of your names are a daily sight in my 'Users who share your books' window so it's nice to eavesdrop on an actual conversation between you. Unfortunately, I can't contribute a lot since I've given way to the ultimate decadence and stopped attempting anything that might accidentally improve me in any way (such as reading.) Occasionally, guilt works its way into my callous, decadent soul when I look at my growing collection of books but usually they're just an ornamental backdrop to my intellectual dandyism. So I hope you don't mind a top-hatted, bow-tied, white-gloved fly on the wall rubbing its hands in glee, gaining a few more tips on selective interior decoration.

On the off chance it might interest someone, I did recently acquire Charles Rearick's Pleasures of the Belle Epoque: Entertainment and Festivity in Turn of the Century France - an illustrated 'social history', but I've spent more time on the plates than the words so far.

Dear LW: what a trove you are! I don't even know you, yet you've managed to empty my wallet out in two days! :) Not that that is a difficult task. I am looking forward to Degeneration (and at 566 pages I hope it was not censored. I suspect that anything passing as science got in past the censors). Weininger is a complete revelation - I am after a copy (not on the shoddy reprint press of Kessinger) of Sex and Character. I had read of him, briefly, in an entertaining book called Vienna Coffeehouse Wits... and I recall some prior mention of his theories in a life of Wittgenstein (was it OW who asserted than women did not have proper thoughts, but rather elaborate sense impressions, which he termed "henids"?). Any way, he seems truly ripe - a must read.

Louys - yes, Bilitis...another for the clutter. Did that make it into film? I have read more of Gide than by him - but love the title: very subtle. As to "morts bizarres" - you should grab the collection under that title by Jean Richepin. The touchstone lists the Italian version.

Very good to have your input.

The Weininger mention brought back pleasant memories of late 19th, early 20th century psychoanalysts who spun off from Freud in their own curious/florid directions: Sandor Ferenczi's Thalassa: A Theory of Genitality is gorgeously strange - as is anything by Geza Roheim (my favorite is Magic and Schizophrenia - whose writings remind me the occultist tracts written around the same time, with their emphasis on dream, ritual and magical thinking. Wilhelm Reich's The Function of the Orgasm should not be missed either... I think Woody Allen whipped out an "orgone generator" in one of his early films.

Dear Existanai, welcome - the book looks interesting, and per your proposal, I would extend to you the wonderful title of chapter two: The Right to be Lazy and Enjoy. Which is basically all I have ever demanded, frailly, from life.

*waving to Existanai!*

We're ALL going broke here, benwaugh. Occasionally it flits through my mind how many trips, gifts, pretty clothes and firm young love for sale I've traded in for musty books--but I banish such depressing thoughts. Let us revel in our mania! :)

Once you begin tracking Weininger you'll find he pops out everywhere. (My favorite sighting is a reference in Strindberg's incredibly weird "Blue Book"... Strindberg even sent him a couple fan letters--O.W., on his part, drew much from both Strindberg and Ibsen.*) Ironically (in view of his pretensions), yet justly (considering WHAT he wrote HOW), his book appealed to the unphilosophical vulgus, stroking the basest vanities, feeding the most primitive phobias. A LOT of people were supported or inspired in their prejudices by him, although naturally he wasn't the first, only or last misogynist or antisemite. But his passionate intensity (or illness, as he was posthumously diagnosed with every shade of mental pathology) sets him apart. Unfortunately for his lofty aims, while the "sociological" muck flattered people he despised, nobody paid much attention or praise to his philosophy. Be warned that the book begins with it, and some 19th-century biological doctrines...

Unlike Nordau who was a competent physician, O.W. studied science for a while but soon abandoned it in greatest revulsion, since it didn't answer life's "big" questions or some such. Curiously, in that period a slew of--especially German--scientifically trained people similarly left science to turn to philosophy and/or mysticism (most famously the embryologist Hans Driesch). I'm thinking now this may have been partly responsible for Nordau's strident urgency, almost panic, and rage at religion and mysticism, and his lashing of those who, in his view, embodied it: hapless Symbolist poets, Tolstoy, idealistic Ruskin, neoplatonists...

If you really get into O.W. I could post a list of my references, although many are in German and Italian and I'm not sure about availability in English. Italians found O.W. especially copacetic, an interesting study by Alberto Cavaglion explains this partly by the culture's (the Catholic Church, scientific establishment, fascists) antagonism towards psychoanalysis and Freud.

I picked up recently a collection of essays edited by Nancy Harrowitz, Jews & Gender: responses to Otto Weininger, haven't looked at it yet.

*Can't resist: here's a Strindberg Blue Book quote--just for its harried, conspiratorial, oracular tone: "Gyneolatry is not Christian in its origin, but
heathenish. All animals and savage races fear their women. When heathenism in the Greco-
Roman and Moorish colonies of southern France and Italy got the upper hand, then began gyneo-
latry, the worship of mistresses. This worship was dishonestly confounded with chivalrous
reverence for the Madonna, which was quite another thing. This religion of the heathen is
the religion of fear and concealed hatred. Therefore all tyrants have been punished by having a
woman to oppress and torment them. Swedenborg explains the reason."

Reference to Weininger further down:

http://members.garbersoft.net/spartacus/strindbe.htm

Thank you for the Ferenczi and Roheim tips. I've first encountered Reich through a movie, Dusan Makavejev's brilliant (but difficult to come by) "WR: Mysteries of the Organism". Heartily recommended, if at all findable.

I just managed to pull down a 1906 edition of Sex and Character. I suspect that will fill my need for Weininger. I see the book as a sort of pungent relish - a little bit going far enough. I love bizarre curiosities - and the fact that he killed himself at 23, in Beethoven's Todhaus (O plaintive trill of violins!) enhances its novelty appeal. I understand that Otto Weininger's suicide got the Werther fad going again - many young intellectuals were keen to join his suicide club (even Wittgenstein moaned that he was too weak follow suit). I do look forward to any sort of exotic recommendations and to any original source or scholarly manifesti which might bring this curious era into clearer or more interesting focus/obfuscation. And, as to going broke, after being sniped on an attempt to land a copy of Monsieur de Bougrelon cheaply, I found, less cheaply - but in its original binding... a copy illustrated by Etienne Drian. Now if I can just find a reasonable copy of Canne de Jaspe, edition Dezambey....

If you find yourself enjoying Ferenczi and Roheim, you may enjoy the apocalyptic erudite Norman O. Brown, a classicics professor turned Freudian oracle. His Life Against Death ("The Psychological Meaning of History") is marvelous, and Love's Body is simply out there... moving from from philosophy to mystical prose poem.

Re-66: you bet, ben... I've had to threaten the life of my favorite bookhunter for him to accept not to sell old De Régnier to anyone else than me. Until now no luck in the almost-reasonable price range.

I have not read the short story you mention. Do you have any information re- the original name of the collected short stories it belongs to?

Also worth blasting a few euros (or a few more USD) are two books by Pierre Michon. This guy is alive and well and an acclaimed writer here. Focus on two small books: Abbés and L'Empereur d'Occident. These do not belong to thhis circa 1900 / decadent thread, but man have I had pleasure reading them this afternoon: stories about the founders of monasteries in France before the year 1000, packed with lust, glory, steel, wolves, boars, monks and knights, peasants and duchesses. Just great.
PS : had to change my nick from Alexis to Kamakura.

I haven't had any luck either. The edition I was looking at turned out not to be the one I wanted - the one illustrated by Etienne Drian... and that was the one bookseller who actually managed to answer my inquiry.

I will check the anthology this evening to see if they give the original source of the Regnier story. I couldn't find anything on a google search... possible that the title is not a literal translation.

Thanks for the lead Pierre Michon, I will look him up. The only contemporary French author I have read (and he is not very obscure) is Michel Houellebecq - and he is about as scaly and jaded as they come, though in a grimier sort of way than the late 19th century predator-aesthetes.

Yes well I'd trade all the Houellebecqs I've read for one Régnier or Lorrain... his first two novels Les particules élémentaires and Extension du domaine de la lutte are fairly good in their desperate style, but in the end it goes the hum-hum way - always the same. He's written a decent essay on Levcraft, though. It's called H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life. I have to say I prefer Maurice Levy's essay Lovecraft, ou, Du fantastique published by the much-admired and die-hard Lovecraft fan Christian Bourgois.

Just want to say that I am incredibly excited at having found this group and all the possibilities it will afford me to read more deviant literature.

I used to spend hours seeking out such books in my university library, but I left there 3 years ago and since then I've had much less opportunity to discover new favourites in the same class as huysmans or bataille. I'm especially looking for books with Prague themes (Severin's Journey is a priority right now).

Hello and welcome. Prague themes - you have Leppin there, you might also look up Gustav Meyrink's novels, particularly The Golem, for vivid descriptions of 19th century Prague. I'm not sure if it's still in print, but there's a collection called A World Apart and Other Stories: Czech Women Writers at the Fin De Siecle. I can only assume it's relevant from the title, but have yet to have read it.

Also sort of Prague related: Robert L. Stevenson's New Arabian Nights, featuring the adventures of Prince Florizel of Bohemia. Florizel and his trusted servant go slumming through the depths of London in a series of linked and darkly themed stories, such as The Suicide Club.

Ben, both books sound intriguing (especially the Czech women writers). I will definitely hunt for them!

Prague themes? The opening story of Jeremy Dyson's Never Trust A Rabbit is well worth your time. And the final story (the automaton one) is just so decadent, you'll... Well, read and judge for yourself!

Came across these three titles recently and thought they might interest forum members:

Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890's: An Anthology of British Poetry and Prose, ed. Karl Beckson, originally 1966, expanded and revised, 1981

and

Decadents, Symbolists, & Aesthetes in America: Fin-De-Siecle American Poetry : An Anthology, ed. Edward Foster, 2000

and

Decadent Poetry from Wilde to Naidu, ed. Lisa Rodensky a new edition from Penguin Classics (2006), listed on the amazon.co.uk site but not amazon.com.

Thank you for the post. I am particularly curious about the last two on your list. I have to confess, I have not been able to get through much of the British "decadent" poetry - some of it makes you grit your teeth, with all the swoons (always to rhyme with "moon", as every other word is "white" - virtue, doves, lillies, etc.) and suggested naughtiness - I almost wish I could remeber the one by Richard Le Gallienne ... I had to light a match after I read it.

The exception to the above is the Scottish poet, James Thomson - and in particular his City of Dreadful Night. I've always had a soft spot for it. Here's a chunk nicked from Wikipedia:

O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark!
O battling in black floods without an ark!
O spectral wanderers of unholy Night!
My soul hath bled for you these sunless years,
With bitter blood-drops running down like tears:
Oh dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light!
My heart is sick with anguish for your bale;
Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quail
And perish in your perishing unblest.
And I have searched the highths and depths, the scope
Of all our universe, with desperate hope
To find some solace for your wild unrest.
And now at last authentic word I bring,
Witnessed by every dead and living thing;
Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:
There is no God; no Fiend with names divine
Made us and tortures us; if we must pine,
It is to satiate no Being's gall.
It was the dark delusion of a dream,
That living Person conscious and supreme,
Whom we must curse for cursing us with life;
Whom we must curse because the life he gave
Could not be buried in the quiet grave,
Could not be killed by poison or the knife.
This little life is all we must endure,
The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,
We fall asleep and never wake again;
Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,
Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh
In earth, air, water, plants, and other men.

Suddenly I'm having this yen for a Hammer horror...

my god i am out of the loop

I remember watching the "Hammer House of Horror'' movies in the '80s, when I was in England......nice times those were....

Ha, Hammer! :)

Ben, think Christopher Lee (Count Dracula/the mummy/the monster) and Peter Cushing (Van Helsing/Baron Frankenstein), in hilly, fog-enveloped Central European burgs, or any number of horror staple stories: madmen, swamp creatures etc.

Melancholy and dark, dark, dark, o!

Vampires and mad monks

Ah - gotcha: As in The Village, or whatever that film was, about the human sacrifices among the otherwise jolly peasantry. Oh, come now - it's not that maudlin - all the cloudy weather over there was bound to affect character in more ways than rickets.

Those films, now that memory is jogged, were a staple of after-school teens (along with certain latin imports). Werewolf in the Girl's Dormitory, The Son of Dracula, Black Sabbath - all part of WABC's "Money Movie 7", hosted by "Sir Graves Ghastly".

I chanced to see "The Village" and found it awful, whereas the Hammer House of Horror series was excellent (and mighty scary!!)

Anyone seen Session 9? Not overly decadent - but will scare the something or other out of you.

Never heard of it! Unsurprisingly, since--I just looked it up on IMDB--cinematically I refuse to budge past 1939... okay, I exaggerate, but not much. :)

Actually, I'm a lily-livered weakling when it comes to horror--contemporary horror especially. The old stuff I've been watching recommends itself by style or some other non-scary interest, the accents, the costumes, the manners, curious literary and artistic connexions, ideology, grotesqueness, oddness etc.

But now you made me think: decadent movies? Decadent après la lettre...

First choice... Walerian Borowczyk's La Bête

Wow - some heavy "key words" on that one. One for my queue, indeed - thanks! Jogging my addled brain: all I can think of along that line are Pasolini's films, David Lynch (I still have a thing for the lady behind the radiator - couldn't get the song out of my head for years) - some of Peter Greenaway's.

Session 9 is interesting in that it relies on the story, on performance and the sense of creeping-mounting to all-prevasive dread, rather that splatter and monsters for its effect. The"action" is confined to an abandoned insane asylum. "Session 9" refers to some tapes found there by a clean up crew.

Yes, "Session 9" is one of the rare films that made me jump out of my seat with a well-judged moment of horror. Not one to watch on your own at night.

"What are you doing here...."

aaand for some good old fashioned yet up-to-date werewolf fun, The Dog Soldiers is a must see. British reservists on maneuvers in the countryside - should be a bit of lark, wot? Sorry. It is not.

One thing for certain, the officer in charge sure has a set of bowels on him ("is he having a laugh?").

Ben, if you see "La Bête", you HAVE to drop me a line saying how you liked it... :)

I've seen two other Borowczyks, both, ah, quite engaging--"Heroines of evil" and something I can't identify from the IMDB titles... I like his unpretentious, languorous approach and the dream-like atmosphere of these movies. They are neither tortured high-minded art movies, nor unredeemable porn, IMO. But then I adore both Sade and the surrealists...

I will consider it a point of honor to do so. Great news (for me) is they do have it on Netflix. Bad news is, I have had movies out for nearly a year. Maybe if I send them back they'd be amenable to a sort of ransom thing? We'll soon see.

Anyone familiar with Jeffrey K. Hill's The Last Decadent: A Novel of Paris? I'm beginning think I've run out of fuel here ;^)

@ben: muchas gracias for the James Thomson heads-up. Did not know him, went straight to the bookstore, got it, devoured it (full edition of his poems). I love it! Also took an eye at another (modern this time) Scottish poet called Kenneth White - good stuff. From what I get, he still writes in english although he's been living in France for over 30 years. His wife is his translator.

Back to decadence now. I have laid my hand son a copy of Jean Lorrain's Les Noronsoff recently, after re-reading the amazing Monsieur de Phocas. I have to say I found the latter to be far more superior to the much-hyped A Rebours. Well, taste and colors... I do hope Les Noronsoff is available in english for you guys: a palace above Nice, Russian princes, death wishes and "slut filters" (wonder what this is?? read it).

Also in the recent shopping bag are collected short stories from Jean Lorrain, Sanguines (great story about a Greek painter), more Henri de Régnier with Histoires incertaines and La Pêcheresse, as well as La courte vie de Balthazar Aldramin: Vénitien (not received this one yet).

I'm also very happy to have found a volume of selected Rémy de Gourmont poems. They were selected by über-depressive French icon Michel Houellebecq, who did a nice job here with a good foreword and an excellent selection of this lusty, dreamy, decadent poems. See L'odeur des jacynthes.

Last but not least: Huysmans again. I had been through the minutes of the judgment of Gilles de Rais in Bataille's excellent book Le procès de Gilles de Rais and have kept since an interest in the issue since he's such and schizophrenic reference character. Les Mille et Une Nuit edition recently republished Gilles de Rais: La magie en Poitou, an essay from Huysmans on a historical figure which acted as a magnet for him.

Comments and suggestions welcome, I need to prepare my annual summer book dive.

Re-61: I had not heard of Jepson before and since I like Lovecraft very much (got all of it) and Machen I need these... I'm struggling to find either The Horned Shepherd or The Garden at 19 at a non-pursecrushing price. Any suggestion welcome. Ben I saw your copy of The Horned Shepherd and it looks nice -- which edition is it?

Best Children's book: Bridge to Terabithia

by Katherine Patterson... Read to ur children today!

Best Children's book: Bridge to Terabithia

by Katherine Patterson... Read to ur children today!

Er... uh...well... Any "nubile in need of a rescue" or a decadent count talking to his pet called "the Remorse" in there?!

Alexis, forgive my delay in responding - My copy of The Horned Shepherd is a Macy-Masius (1927) edition - with woodcuts by Wilfred Jones. I have not read it yet, but it sounds like a curious and entertaining read - pagan cults, etc. I have read the Garden at #19 and it is a good short novel of occult horror, unabashedly after the manner of Arthur Machen. I bought my copy new, years ago, from the editor, John Pelan (who also sold me a fairly affordable englished copy of Maurice Level's Those Who Return). Good luck finding a sanely priced copy - it seems these 19th century horror repressings are something of a collevtor's market.

re 107: I’m glad you enjoyed James Thomson – (I’m looking into the other guy you mentioned); I was interested for awhile in the theme of the city as alien/malevolent intelligence – which seemed to run through much of late 19th, early 20th century literature: Machen’s Three Impostors, Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights, Thomson, Huysman’s La-Bas and Parisian Sketches (and, more recently, Peter Ackroyd in Hawksmoor).

I have never seen a copy of Les Noronsoff in French, let alone in English (As far as I know, the only English translations of Lorrain’s work are Tartarus’s Nightmares of an Ether drinker and Dedalus’s Monsieur Phocas. I love the Devambez edition of his Monsieur de Bougrelon… zapped my book allowance on that one… and will eventually do the same on the Devambez Canne de Jaspe. At this point, everything I see of Regnier’s is hideously steep $.

I would like to find a copy of Lorrain’s Narkiss, as well..

Speaking of Huysmans, I’m picking my way through his Le Drageoir aux Epices – can’t for the life of me adequately define drageoir (Huysmans is brutal on my withered French): a pot of sorts?

I have not yet read Bataille’s book – but mean to. Gilles de Rais was one of Huysman’s poles of transcendence – and indeed, an unprecedented event – the vile version of the burning bush. However, we seem to have become jaded to the worse excesses. I find myself growing fatigued these days when I pick up a book which squanders on such people even a penny’s worth of ink. Not very decadent of me, I suppose.

Anyway – some group-themed summer reading which has come my way: Jacques Yonnet’s Paris Noir, The supernatural Tales of Javier Marias (When I was Mortal), HH Ewart’s Blood, G. D’Annunzio’s Nocturne: Five Tales of Love and Death. I would also recommend the Contemporary English writer, Robert Irwin (who is a professor of Arabic, somewhere in the UK) – his Exquisite Corpse, dealing with a group of French surrealists in the 30s is quite good – reminded me a bit of Monsieur Phocas; Satan Wants Me is also on my summer list – dealing with the 60s, drugs, the occult. He has two novels which, like William Beckford’s Vathek, blend decadent and oriental themes: the wonderful The Arabian Nightmare and The Prayer Cushions of the Flesh (I think this was set to film in England).

So much to respond to now that I have finally caught up reading this lengthy and fascinating thread, but first (and most recent) things first!

ben, I can hardly wait to see what you think of Satan Wants Me and Prayer Cushions of the Flesh too. I read the latter fairly recently and very much enjoyed it. It's quite a bit lighter in tone, more whimsical (and quite a bit shorter) than his other work-as suits a tale which is half fantasy and half out-and-out erotica. The general feel of the story is very much Arabian Nights but the sharp-eyed deconstruction of historic Turkish harem politics and the outrageous (and kinky!) jockeying between the sexes for what always proves to be illusory power is clearly modern and very clearly Irwin.

Never realized there might be a film made of anything by Irwin. Now I'm going to have to hunt that down! (given the fact that my GreenCine membership is in almost exactly the same tardy disarray as your Netflix subscription, this may mean I actually need to watch and return some overdue films first!)

>113 Randy_Hierodule:: "Speaking of Huysmans, I’m picking my way through his Le Drageoir aux Epices – can’t for the life of me adequately define drageoir (Huysmans is brutal on my withered French): a pot of sorts?"

A "drageoir" is a small, generally metal or enamel, covered box used to hold sweets or other little edible goodies like dried fruits or candied citrus peel. I think the word may actually be derived from or at least etymologically related to "dragées", but I'm not sure.

>105 LolaWalser: LolaWalser, I recently spotted a 3 DVD set of films by Walerian Borowczyk put out by Ryko Distribution last year. Three of his films are featured, including The Beast (which is apparently based on a story by Prosper Merimée-news to me) as well as the director's last film 'Love Rites' (based on a novel by Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues, a favorite of Borowczyk), and 'Goto, Island of Love'. My local independent CD/DVD store carried the set for less than $40 US-not really a bad deal for three films of this cult status and...er...quality.

Re- 113, 114, ben & marietherese: you got it for the drageoir. I checked it out and it's old French for a sweetbox used to store marriage candies called "dragées" i.e. almonds covered with a thin layer of chocolate and pastel-colored sugar. This Huysmans is an interesting one indeed. I understand your fatigue with all that blood and vileny, and did the same by goifn the other way with his Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam which depicts the life and spiritual upheaval of a trues saint. Magical language, good book. If you do not know it yet check out there's a website in French that has ALL texts by Huysmans available online. Just great.

Re- 112: I have found a $25 copy of The Horned Shepherd but have not yet received it. I suspect it will be in poor shape. We'll see. Otherwise the Seattle edition seems nice but at that price I have to say I find the artwork terrible and will not go for it.

Re- all: eveything depends on your level (or need of practice!) in French. Because if you have sufficient time and will I can give you some help finding all those at a decent price but in French. You tell me. I get hold of approx. €10 Régniers in decent shape for their age almost every week on ebay, so...

Re- all suggestions, I guess that as usual I'll manically hunt them one after the other, maube the Stevenson first along with the D'Annunzio.

I am still digging into Jean Lorrain which I like more everyday -- it just seems to grow on me. I have found on Galaxidion a copy of his best biography (by Pierre Kyria) but have not received it yet. Les Noronsoff can be found alo at a decent price through Galaxidion or ebay.fr. My mint copy of a 1979 edition went for €9 which is more than fair.

Also had an amazing time through Gourmont's Couleurs suvi de Choses anciennes which is I think the best thing I read for weeks. Couleurs brings together a dozen or so of short stories, each one centered around a color. All of this is failry erotic and slightly perverse, transcended by simply the best French you can find. Praise Gourmont!

I am now hunting for a good copy of his acclaimed history and exegesis of the Symbolism movement Histoires de Masques which was at the time illustrated by Félix Valloton. It is a collection of portraits of all writers of the time, and probably the best account of who they were, what they thought and how they behaved in the laste 19th century French society.

-- Gasp: my mate Geodelc tells me I got beaten at the auction for a 1951 special issue of the arts & litterature review La Tour Saint Jacques on Huysmans. Damn!!!

Re- 115 on Mandiargues: I have been through a few, and while some of it is very good, like Le Lys de mer, I have been very disappointed by others like Soleil des Loups. Any suggestion? I like the name of Mascarets bu do not know what its is and considering the hassle to find these I kindly request your help ;o)

Re- 113 on Lorrain's Narkiss: I have seen an original yesterday in a great bookshop in rue de la Pompe going for €450 (see here: http://www.ilab.org/db/book1986_1222149.html ) -- ready to sell one of your kidneys?

If you're interested in Lalique, there is a a magnificent exhibition in Paris these days. at the Musee du Luxembourg (check out http://www.museeduluxembourg.fr/lalique.html ). Just one more reason to come to France!

Marietherese,

I've had that set (sounds identical at any rate) on my Amazon wishlist for over a year! Since I've seen two of them, one several times, I've been giving precedence to other stuff, but one of these days...

Kamakura, I'm afraid I can't give you much assistance re: Mandiargues. I'm in a bit of the same situation as you and have found what little I've read by him fairly disappointing. I suspect that whatever Borowyczk take on him, it will be better (or at least more entertaining!) than the original.

Lola, I see you use your Amazon wishlist like I do mine! I have items on mine that have languished there for something like the last three years. But I'm bound and determined that someday, when there isn't anything more immediately fascinating calling my name, I will get them!

>Message 116 Gourmont's 'Couleurs' sounds intriguing. I see that Amazon fr. has "new" copies of the edition published by La Part Commune in 2004 for the reasonable price of EUR 12,35 (a little under $17.00 US, I think). Sadly, shipping to the US nearly doubles the cost and the little book ends up costing almost $32.00! Still, I have to admit I'm tempted. I may check Amazon Canada, as I find they're often a good source for books in French and shipping is much cheaper!

Re: Régnier. I don't know why I hadn't noticed this before, but I just realized that one of my favorite songs by Ravel is a setting of a poem by Régnier, 'Les grands vents venus d'outremer'. It's a lovely and atmospheric brief poem in its own right but Ravel's setting for piano and voice raises it to another level entirely (the original French text, from Régnier's collection 'Tel qu'on songe' is no longer under copyright, so I'll quote it in its entirety here):

Les grands vents venus d'outremer
Passent par la ville, l'hiver,
Comme des étrangers amers.

Ils se concertent, graves et pâles,
Sur les places, et leurs sandales
Ensablent le marbre des dalles.

Comme de crosses à leurs mains fortes,
Ils heurtent l'auvent et la porte
Derrière qui l'horloge est morte.

Et les adolescents amers
S'en vont avec eux vers la mer.

Ravel used brief snippets of poems and other text by Régnier as epigrams on the frontispieces of a number of his instrumental and orchestral works, but I think this may have been the only complete poem by this author that he set.

Another French composer, Albert Roussel, set nine poems by Régnier to music. They're not as successful as Ravel's settings (they were composed quite early in Roussel's career) but still worth checking out if you like the poet and enjoy French art song.

I don't have the Roussel songs, but I do Ravel--he had a great taste in poetry, didn't he, composing music to Verlaine and Mallarmé too...

But my favourite French songs--some of my favourite vocal music in general--are by Henri Duparc, and to stay with the decadent theme, some of his most famous songs were set to Baudelaire, such as "L'invitation au voyage" and "La vie antérieure" (classics of lieder now).

Debussy and Fauré composed to decadent poetry too... Proust's friend Reynaldo Hahn also composed to Régnier, Verlaine etc.--everyone was doing it!

I have come across a couple of contemporary French musicians who have put Jean Richepin's poems to music - the only name I can recall is Tonio Gememe.

The flamboyant Serge Gainsbourg used to throw in snatches from Rimbaud, Baudelaire (he's buried not too far from the the latter in Montparnasse) in his songs - and lifestyle.

More soon.

you can also read "Melmoth" from mathurin. good reading!!!

i don't know if it exits in english translation. You can read le cahier noir by Joe Bousquet and a one of my favorite autors Pierre Jean Jouve.

It's corrosif....

I just picked up Jouve's "Aventure de Catherine Crachat", although Klossowski's essay about him (and it) made me think I'm likely to hate it. (Testing my hypothesis...) But he was a poet, so I'm hoping for pretty language, even if the ideas are likely to be imbecilic.

I guess I should feel I got quite the deal on my Devambez edition of Monsieur Bougrelon; there is one up on e-bay for 800 euros. Now that's decadent!

Precisely! Is your edition illustrated with original drawings or anything? Tomorrow I'll break my heart: I'm going to the Paris International Antiquarian Book Fair and will I think lay my eyes on some precisely über-decadent prices...
Also picked up yesterday the single volume of poetry written by Symbolist maverick Ephraim Mikhael. From the few pages I went through it looks very good.
My best to all of you for the week-end. It will be a sunny, regnier- and lorrain-full one over here!

Same to you, Kamakura. Your recent posts inspired me to look for Lorrain beyond "Monsieur de Phocas". I started too on this morning's commute one Philippe Jullian's "Jean Lorrain ou le Satiricon 1900"; very engrossing.

Hello all, and apologies for my gaps.

Kamakura and marietherese: thank you for your help with drageoir. It is reassuring when even native speakers need to hit their dictionaries! As to les dragees... it brings back memories of my confirmation. my relatives brought bags full of the insipid things (sans drageoir). I am bringing Satan Wants Me on my long overdue and all-too-brief vacation this summer. Life and its maddeningly inconsiderate claims upon my leisure time has led me to put aside such things as reading and chronic meditations on personal dissolution.

I have a copy of Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam, English - which I also hope to tote along. It is, upon perusal, in the vein of his other works I have read: lavishly, garishly descriptive... sores blooming through the flesh, attentive to the tones of prayer and purulence.

Lolawalser: speaking of Klossowski - I keep meaning to get to his book, I can't recall the name, involving the theme of the Templars... and also something I have somewhere by Balthus... memoirs or bio or something.

Re 116 (Kamakura):

"I am now hunting for a good copy of his acclaimed history and exegesis of the Symbolism movement Histoires de Masques which was at the time illustrated by Félix Valloton. It is a collection of portraits of all writers of the time, and probably the best account of who they were, what they thought and how they behaved in the laste 19th century French society. "

yes - good one. I wish I had that edition, too! Good luck to you. I hope your copy of Jepson's book arrived in decent shape. If you read it before I do, let me know what you think.

Thanks, also, for your offer of help with tracking down Regnier titles - yes, if you see anything, pas trop cher, en francais or English, please do let me know. I'd also be happy to do exchanges - I have extra copies, mostly in English, of various on-theme authors (I always pick up extra copies of things I find to be rare and/or interesting).

Re your Gourmont - I have the Couleurs on hold in my Abebooks queue... need to get that soon, if no one else has.

My edition of Monsieur de Bougrelon is the 1920-something Devambez edition illustrated with quite a few eaux-fortes by Etienne Drian - the same, i think, as was up on e-bay.

If you were unable to rescue any nubiles over your weekend, I hope you did manage to reclaim a few errant Lorrains, Regniers, etc.

Best to all!

I keep meaning to get to his book, I can't recall the name, involving the theme of the Templars...

The Baphomet--I'd love to see your review of it, if, when... I read it a couple weeks ago. I had some strong reactions to it so I'd rather keep my comments for later.

He (Pierre) wrote about Balthus too, I haven't read any of that or Balthus himself. (Wasn't the third brother a writer or painter as well?) Speaking of painters writing, this just in, I loved De Chirico's "Hebdomeros". Unfortunately it's impossible to summarise... unless this means it's about nothing, in which case I just did!

Re: Message 126: lemeneurdelune:

Bousquet/Le cahier noir... Miserably unavailable in either language over here. I will add the name to my list for next tour ... là-bas.

Speaking of painters and their brothers writing, I have somethings by Chirico and his brother as well... I will add both of those to my summer list (the family will have to make due as best they can, which means business as usual). I have had Lord's bio of Giacometti on my list forever... never got around to it when I was absorbed in Samuel Beckett (another anniversary passed without notice. Nearly none...).

Re: 132/Histoires de Masques by Gourmont/Vallotton -- I learned today that a small French publisher called Manucius is reprinting Histoires de Masques. It was first due to hit a few shops by mid-April, then now it seems to be scheduled for the end of this week. It goes for approx. €20 on Amazon.fr. I'll keep you posted regarding actual contents (is it the full text?) and illustrations (are they all there?).

Re: 130 -- Lorrain was such a mesmerizing, outrageous figure. Have you figured out how he died? Just as the most vile of his characters would... See examples like Wladimir in Les Noronsoff.

Re: 132 -- no nubiles last week-end (sadly I have to admit) but 2 Maurice Barrès delivered: one on Venice called Amori et dolori sacrum -- great title -- and on on Greco called Greco ou le secret de Tolède. I still have his supposedly wonderful Un jardin sur l'Oronte on my bedtable... A Barrès week-end lies ahead of me despite the 2nd round of the presidential election.

Also: just finished Ernst Jünger's Heliopolis philosophica sci-fi utopia. Rather intriguing. Any input on Jünger welcome despite the fact that this may not be the right thread. I'll create another one asap.

On Louÿs : there have been these days absolutely amazing editions of some of his best (or worse, depending your point of view) curiosa on sale on ebay.fr. I was notably dazzled by his "Au temps des Juges" which is a sort of parody of Biblic texts with "Louysiac" erotic writing within. Relly wonderful. And the drawings were just great. No wonder this one is so rare.

Re: 132 / resource pooling (Thanks, also, for your offer of help with tracking down Regnier titles - yes, if you see anything, pas trop cher, en francais or English, please do let me know. I'd also be happy to do exchanges - I have extra copies, mostly in English, of various on-theme authors (I always pick up extra copies of things I find to be rare and/or interesting).

I will gladly grab books for you on ebay.fr at a decent price. There are just so many of them. Also very interested in your proposal for exchanges. Anyone else so we pool best? How do you wish to proceed?

In the meantime I'll head to my exquisite Richepin on Cesar Borgia, received this morning. Strange format, 2 columns on each page, many interesting illustrations... I cherish it already.

I'd love to trade, but then I might as well move to debtor's prison presently. And I'm afraid the Canadian market has very little to offer of bibliophilic interest... Kamakura, do you do more shopping online than in bookstores? If I lived in Paris...

Re: Lorrain's sad end, I'm just a couple of chapters away from it, but it wouldn't have surprised me on page one. By the way, I can heartily recommend the Jullian book I mentioned (Jean Lorrain ou le Satiricon 1900), oldish as it is (1974). Very lively (well, the subject helps), teeming with Nordau's degenerates.

Now I'm on the lookout for some cultural histories of syphillis. I'm reading the Goncourt's diary too and it's amazing how often it pops up, la vérole. Lorrain suffered from recurring attacks all his life. This was a man with an intimate knowledge of festering sores, no wonder he could write so well about them. I want to find out more about how they treated it, what the affected organs looked like, what was sex with a syphillitic partner like, how people felt, thought, talked about it--everything. In the name of science.

Oh yes, Lorrain died in a less than glorious/dignified manner - and painfully, I suspect.

I also suspect that sterile rubber tubing was in short supply a hundred years ago.

I've read a couple biographies of Proust but either it was never mentioned or I completely forgot: he fought a duel with Lorrain! Witnesses, revolvers, at twenty paces or whatever--the whole charade. To make it even more surreal, it was over the slighted honour of a woman; Lorrain, as was his wont, habit and employ, bit into someone who happened to be Proust's friend.

Both missed, and THANK ALL THE GODS IN HEAVEN FOR THAT. The idea that there could've been no "La recherche..." leaves me in cold sweat.

Another lovely detail: when Gide saw Proust shortly before the latter's death, he noted in his diary that he'd reminded him of Lorrain, "bloated" etc.

I though the topic of offense was that he'd made certain insinuations, re Proust... hm. Lorrain was also, I believe, challenged by fellow Norman syphlitic, Guy de Maupassant (you must read his Le Horla, if you haven't - a great tale of terror - and of the sufferings brought in the advanced stages of the disease).

Pooling- good suggestion, the concept and good question, as to how to proceed. Shall we exchange wish lists? If you want, you can sort my library by the "decadence" tag (etc.) - I have listed the extra copies where they exist (I know, for example, that I have extra copies of things by Ben Hecht, James Branch Cabell, Baron Corvo, Vernon Lee and M.P. Shiel. I'd be happy to check bookstores and auctions as well.

I am trying to find more (cheaply) by Richepin, Petrus Borel (I have Contes Immoraux) and Arthur Cravan (not sure if he fits the topic, but on the hunt, nonetheless).

Poor Maupassant. I think I read that--or I might be mixing up Babel's story and notes with Maupassant...

Great sense of claustraphobic dread as he races down a tree-shrouded lane "pursued" by some overwhelming alien presence: Le Horla. Another scene where the narrator is walking in a garden and just happens to see a rose detach from the bush and hang suspended in the air.

Having bought (yet another) 1900-odd Remy de Gourmont for a short story called "Le Pèlerin du Silence" I fell upon something great. The Pèlerin story turned out to be an arabic-inspired very short and not so original tale about forgetting passions to achieve contemplation and peace, a quick read, equally quickly forgotten.

The other text enclosed in the book turned out to be a little jewel of decadence. It is called "Le Fantôme" (for those of you who read French have a look here: http://www.remydegourmont.org/de_rg/oeuvres/fantome/notice.htm) and relates the mephitic, tortured relationship between two youngsters. The boy, obviously a satanic figure, tries to "wake up" a nubile, noble girl to her" true self", that of an ever-hesitating, dependent "phantom" - as all women are. As usual, expect misogyny, an outstanding mastery of French (I am in awe at his writing) and a pretty sick story.

Thanks a lot for the link, K. - it is good to have access to the French original.

For those who do not read French, these stories - written by Gourmont in his "decadent" phase - are available in English translation in Dedalus's hyperbolically titled The Angels of Perversity.

Just received a brand new & nicely-bound re-edition of Jean Lorrain's Princesses d'ivoire et d'ivresse.
Apparently the editor (Praise Francis Lacassin, who edited a massive 3-volume complete edition of Lovecraft in French!) also put in some otherwise unavailable short stories. More soon.

Hi everyone, I'm one of kamakura's friend "in real life" and he advised me to come here and see your talks... Well he was right, that's a nice group !
I've just finished my own "monsieur de Bougrelon". And I'm still thinking about the pages with that barbara-like "caniche" (poodle, is that it)... and the pineapple... Well, that's a great book, and I must say that I was happy of my Jonquières 1928 edition with Borodvitch, but now I just want to have the Devambez one, Ben...
Is your book like the one you could see on the Dutch Library site (Koopman collection) ? : http://www.kb.nl/bc/koopman/1926-1930/c25-en.html
It's a wonderful book...

Welcome, geodelc.

It is indeed. And it is lovely. The illustratations are Étienne Derain's. I need to get over being lazy and read it (it has been nearly 10 years since I've had a conversation or read a novel in French).

There is also a nice Edition Devambez of Henri de Regnier's Canne de Jaspe, which I covet, but which is outside the scope of my purse at the moment. It is also nicely illustrated, though I'm not sure who the artist was.

I have just received a beautifully illustrated ("Chapront") copy of Monsieur de Phocas. These books are in decent shape, but frail - still in their original wraps. I'm considering having it and Bougrelon bound.

Thanks, Ben.

10 years... Et bien tu as besoin de pratiquer un peu, Ben, alors ce Bougrelon sera un parfait entraienement ;-) !
I think that the Canne de Jaspe illustrator is Drian too.

I'm reading Aphrodite de Pierre Louys which is not is most corrosive book (well, I must confess that I'm reading is Manuel de Gomorrhe too, but don't repeat it...), but the chapter where he describes the temple of Aphrodite Astarté Gardens, where thousands of Courtisanes from all over the world are living is quite a corrosive text... I will copy and translate a paragraph for the group if you want...

Pas exactement 10... j'ai une amie qui, de temps en temps, me reprimande dans la langue... salie avec de jolis, mauvais noms tunisiens.

Please do, if you have time for that. I had not heard of Manuel de Gomorrhe (I saw the cover of the paperback offered on Amazon - a delightful accolade if I've ever come across one). I'm likely going to grab another copy of Aphrodite - it seems there is a translation that was illustrated by Beresford Egan.

Well, it's too late for a translation, and in fact I think it's way to difficult for me, but at least for the moment in french :
In the chapter on the "Goddess Garden", I just loved these pages, describing the 1400 "courtisanes" living there... to celebrate Aphrodite:
"Les jardins étaient plus qu'une vallée, plus qu'un pays, plus qu'une patrie : ils étaient un monde complet fermé par des limites de pierre et régi par une déesse, âme et centre de cet univers. Tout autour s'élevait une terrasse annulaire, longue de 80 stades et haute de 32 pieds. Ce n'était pas un mur, c'était une cité colossale, faite de quatorze cents maisons. Un nombre égale de prostituées habitait cette ville sainte et résumait dans ce lieu unique 70 peuples différents. Le plan des maisons sacrées était uniforme et tel : la porte, de cuivre rouge (métal voué à la déesse), portait un phallos en guise de marteau, qui frappait un contre-heurtoir en relief, image du sexe féminin; et au-dessous était gravé le nom de la courtisane (...)
Les plus belles parmi ces filles venaient des royaumes d'Asie. Tous les ans, les vaisseaux qui portaient à Alexandrie les présents des tributaires ou des alliés débarquaient avec les ballots et les outres cent vierges choisies par les prêtres pour le service du jardin sacré. C'étaient des Mysiennes et des Juives, des Phrygiennes et des Crétoises, des filles d'Ecbatane et de Babylone, et des bords du golfe des Perles, et des rives religieuses du Gange. Les unes étaient blanches de peau, avec des visages de médailles et des poitrines inflexibles; d'autres, brunes comme la terre sous le pluie, portaient des anneaux d'or passés dans les narines et secouaient sur leurs épaules des chevelures courtes et sombres.
Il en venait de plus loin encore : des petits êtres menus et lents, dont personne ne savait la langue et qui ressemblaient à des singes jaunes (sic). Leurs yeux s'allongeaient vers les tempes; leurs cheveux noirs et droits se coiffaient bizarrement. Ces filles restaient toute leur vie timides comme des animaux perdus. Elles connaissaient les mouvements de l'amour, mais refusaient le baiser sur la bouche. Entre deux unions passagères, on les voyait jouer entre elles assises sur leurs petits pieds et s'amuser puérilement.
Dans une prairie solitaire, les filles blondes et roses des peuples du Nord vivaient en troupeau, couchées sur les herbes. C'étaient des Sarmates à triple tresse, aux jambes robustes, aux épaules carrées, qui se faisaient des couronnes avec des branches d'arbre et luttaient corps à corps pour se divertir; des Scythes camuses, mamelues, velues, qui ne s'accouplaient qu'en posture de bêtes; des Teutonnes gigantesques qui terrifiaient les Egyptiens par leurs cheveux pâles comme ceux des vieillards et leurs chairs plus molles que celle des enfants; des Gauloises rousses comme des vaches et qui riaient sans raison; de jeunes Celtes aux yeux vert de mer et qui ne sortaient jamais nues. Ailleurs, les Ibères aux seins bruns se réunissaient pendant le jour. Elles avaient des chevelures pesantes qu'elles coiffaient avec recherche, et des ventres nerveux qu'elles n'épilaient point. leur peau ferme et leur croupe forte étaient goûtées des Alexandrins. On les prenait comme danseuses aussi souvent que comme maîtresses. Sous l'ombre large des palmiers habitaient les filles d'Afrique : les Numides voilées de blanc, les Carthaginoises vêtues de gazes noires, les Négresses enveloppées de costumes multicolores.
Elles étaient quatorze cents. "

a very beautiful - if somewhat puerile (the same has been said of me, sort of) fantasy. Here's my crack at an English job:

“The gardens were more than a valley, more than a country, more than a nation: they were a complete world closed by a border of stone and governed by a goddess, soul and center of this universe. All about rose a ringlike terrace, 80 stadia long and 32 feet high. It was not a wall, it was a colossal city, made of fourteen hundred houses. An equivalent number of prostitutes lived in this holy city and represented, in this singular place, 70 distinct peoples. The plan of the sacred houses was uniform and thus: the door, of red copper (metal sacred to the goddess), bore a phallus as a knocker, which struck a metal plate embossed with an image of the female sexual organ; beneath which the name of the courtesan was engraved (...)

The most beautiful among these girls came from the kingdoms of Asia. Every year, the ships which carried to Alexandria the gifts of various tributaries and allies unloaded along with the bundles and the leather flasks, a hundred virgins chosen by the priests for the service of the sacred garden. They were Myceans and Jews, Phrygians and Cretans, the girls of Ecbatane and Babylon, of the lands bordering the Gulf of Pearls, and the sacred banks of Ganges. Some were pale-skinned, with faces like medallions and hard chests; the others, brown as earth wetted by the rain, wore gold rings in their nostrils and shook down upon their shoulders a head of short dark locks.

And some came from more distant places: small creatures, lithe and languid, who spoke an unknown tongue and resembled jaundiced monkeys. Their eyes stretched towards their temples; they wore their straight black hair in a strangely arranged manner. Throughout their lives, these girls behaved as shyly as lost animals. They were experts in the movements of love, but refused to kiss on the mouth. In episodes between brief couplings, one saw them playing together, sitting on their tiny feet, giggling childishly.

In a solitary meadow, the fair-haired and pink-skinned daughters of the people of the North lived in a sort of herd, sleeping on the lawns. There were Sarmatians, triple braided, with robust legs, and square shoulders, who made crowns out of tree branches and indulged in hand-to-hand combat to amuse themselves; Scythians - flat-nosed, slack-breasted (?), hairy, who coupled only in the manner of beasts; gigantic Teuton women, who terrified the Egyptians by their hair pomaded (?) in the fashion of old men and their flesh softer than that of children; Gallic women, ruddy as cows and who laughed for no reason; young Celts with sea-green eyes who never went out unclothed. Elsewhere, brown-breasted Iberian girls met during the day. They had heavy locks which they arranged in an elegant manner, and sinuous thighs which they did not depilate. Their firm skin and their strong rumps tasted like pears. One took them for dancers as often as one took them for mistresses. Under the broad shade of the palm trees the girls of Africa lived: white-veiled Numidians, Carthaginian women swathed in black gauze, and the Negresses, wrapped in multicoloured costumes.

They were fourteen hundred."

Odd aside (my haditha): I went home this evening and opened, randomly, my copy of Aphrodite - page 75 of the Willis Parker translation. It was this same passage (your forebearance is appreciated - this is my version of the appearance of the sacred heart of Christ in a spatter of ketchup). I will say that aside from having enlightened me to a few horrible guesses on my part ("pâmes", I suppose, would be less ludicrously translated as "snowy" than as "pomaded"... alas for an abridged Collins and nothing on WWW to ease my pain), I prefer my translation. Parkers, I think, is wrong is several instances - gleaned in this passage - and just plain prude throughout. Protestant heritage...., ugh.

I'm going to have to buy the thing in French, it seems.

I was sure this quotation would spark frenzied attempts at translating ;o) I do not know either the exact meaning of "pâmes" -- have checked my own dictionnary but no definition seems to come in handy. Need to check on a Littré. Here it would mean grey/white as for elders, but with an erotic background in it like in "en pâmoison" or "se pâmer" i.e. whitened by the passion of age?!

However mind-boggling this may be we have to remember that writers of the time LOVED to manipulate bizarre, antique-sounding words and use them in another contexte to enrich them with subtler, darker, more erotic meanings -- just as it is the case here. It reminds me of the issues Chateaubriand faced when he translated Milton's Paradise Lost in French for the first time and litterally created words to render the profound meanings of Milton's verse. This gave us words such as "emparadisés" (for "emparadized"? cannot remember) in French -- weird, but beautifully antique though.

How about a simple typo: "pâmes" erroneously replacing "pâles"? I think that's my final call.

Just asked... Typo indeed apparently. Am at this point unable to check as I've lent my copy

Oh, good. I've been trying to wrap my mind around the phrase "unconscious hair", but it's difficult outside the surrealist context. :)

Speaking of frenzy.. 4 posts. I was paid rather well for my furious translation ;^)

Sorry for the typos everybody, but it was late when I typed the text...

Thankyou for all the translating. We the language challenged appreciate it.
Speaking of Chateaubriand, the 1828 Henry Colburn english edition of Travels In America And Italy, in two volumes, has been reprinted recently by Applewood Books in hardcover and paperback. I'm enjoying it presently.

Volume 1: isbn 1429001259 trade paperback
Volume 2: isbn 1429001232 trade paperback

Actually, I appreciate the typo... I had to abandon my monoglot sloth to dust off my dictionary. And any time I can manage the energy to pick up the dictionary, I end up reading it - whatever the language. A sort of sortes biblicae process, from which I divine nothing but the radical fragility of memory. Invigorating... I had forgotten, can you imagine, "chômage". Though, I suspect, if I indulge in many more lengthy impromptu translations (etc.), I may become very intimately familiar with the term, in plain English, as we say.

I had ordered a cheap copy of Lorrain's Monsieur de Bougrelon to use as my reading copy (cheap, I guess because it's ex-library). When it arrived this afternoon I was pleased to notice the book also contained two other short novels: La Dame Turque(The Turkish Lady) and Sonyeuse. The Lorrain bibliography listed the latter as a collection of short stories. Misleading, if not incorrect. Any way, here's an e-text of Sonyeuse (in French):

http://www.bmlisieux.com/archives/sonyeuse.htm

There are a lot of interesting things on this site - including other pieces by Lorrain, Catulle Mendès and others. I tried to find some in English, but it may well be these have never before been translated.

You can also find works of interest on other places online, such as Stalker Editeur -PDFs available for download as mentionned in the thread on Catulle Mendes). I would also recommend (thank you Geo) having a loooooooooong look at Le Boucher's online library here: http://www.leboucher.com.
There is some Mirbeau, some Barbey, some Lorrain, some Rodenbach... All pleasures to us tormented brains.

Very good - thank you all for the links. I like knowing that I have them all in once place. The "favorites" option on my browser has not been an option for ages.

Funny coincidence : just after this discussion, I began reading a Jean Lorrain : les Noronsoff (after kamakura strong advices, thanks dude) and I bought it in an edition called "Les Pamés"... So..., you were not far away from the truth...

Me? I was leagues away... pâmes, I have since learned, is an archaism for being passed out drunk, or the state of unconsciousness. Basicall, if set loose, I could order drinks and ask how to get to the wc.

My copy of Histoires de Masques just arrived - very nice shape, considering its age. It's amazing many of these things survived as fragile and as cheaply produced as they are. I'm just amazed not a single postman along the translantic & local routes did not stomp the thing to dust. Any way, it's got the collection Contes d’un buveur d’éther in it. A good many of these stories were translated for Tartarus's collection of Lorrain's fiction, Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker. That collection, I jus noticed last night, contains the short novel Narkiss.

At last! I FINALLY landed my copy of Monsieur de Bougrelon. My joy knows no boundaries.

Congratulations! Did you land one of the swank illustrated editions? I'm curious to know what the Zig Brunner (1945 ed.) artwork is like.

My next target is a copy of Alraune.

Alas, no: having run roughshod through my accounts during the summer I find myself Bougrelon-like broke as Autumn is on the way. Got a 1996 copy from an -- otherwise than offering a reprint of a rare work -- uninteresting edition. Has a copy of Timar's main illustration, though, as well as an "Epilogue" to the novel which I find both useless and damaging to the powers of the text. But last night was a time of laughter, corrosive smiling and admiration. This is great stuff.

You and geodelc are making me feel guilty. I have had the book for nearly a year - and was overjoyed when it arrived. Now it collects dust on the shelf. I must crack it this Fall, without fail... I suppose I'll need my dictionary less for Lorrain than for Huysmans... Lorrain having had the journalistic background.

I'm sure you will enjoy this book a lot, Ben ! I just began yesterday Messaline suivi de Madrigale of Alfred Jarry and a Traité de chasteté which is quite a corrosive reading : it's a guideline for the priests, a sort of 19the century "sex 101" for them... As said by the publisher (a french small publishing house called "A rebours") : "this text written at the beginning of the XIXe century by the adversaries of the licence (or licentiousness in that case? my dictionnary is not clear about it) joined it by the extreme opposite"...

It seems to have been a very useful manual - though it's advice on avoiding prosecution must be in need of an update. There are a lot fun things written about the sainted fathers of the Church and quirky priests: The Bad Popes, David Madsen's Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf - which focuses, at some length, on Pope Leo X's extravagances, and my favorite, Frederick Rolfe's Hadrian VII, in which a stiletto tongued novitiate, booted out of seminary school, is suddenly asked, out the clear blue, to become Pope. As Pope, his focus is on aesthetic, etc., pleasures, and, mirroring his creator, himself. Beautifully, elegantly perverse.

François Augiéras's The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a staple of such a reading list; François Rabelais, of course and the celebrated Abbey of Thelema (it was that book which aroused my interest in Francis Dashwood and his Hellfire Club. Dashwood, I believe, had an Abbey of Thelema set up on his estate, for the less than solemn ceremonies of his mad monks. John Wilkes was a member for awhile, and I highly recommend his affiliated writings).

I love Hadrian VII so much that I have two copies... One for (re-) reading and one to caress its binding... Argh

I have three - two in Blue Jade, for no reason (I love the Blue Jade collection) and one in pb for the introduction by Alexander Theroux - the maximalist, screed-afficianado Beckett scholar.

But, back to Rolfe. If you can find a copy of The Armed Hands, grab it - as it contains his collected and bizarre short stories (the best of thr lot lending its name to the collection).

I have three - two in Blue Jade, for no reason (I love the Blue Jade collection) and one in pb for the introduction by Alexander Theroux - the maximalist, screed-afficianado Beckett scholar.

But, back to Rolfe. If you can find a copy of The Armed Hands, grab it - as it contains his collected and bizarre short stories (the best of thr lot lending its name to the collection).

Just checked availability on BF and wow... Not many editions, all downright pricey. But they do seem to look and feel nice (red leather bounding, gold letters etc.). And apparently no translation in French. No you've just ruined my concentration for today at work. Also found a Chronicles of the House of Borgia which seems nice. I need both.

I do have an extra (several) copy of the Borgias book, in English.... and of the strange, interesting "biography" of Rolfe, The Quest for Corvo.

Corvo is a saint. I'll look for the "The Armed Hands", thanks for the tip. I want copies of "The Ballade of Boys Bathing" and "The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole".
I have the NYBR trade paperpacks of Hadrian the Seventh and The Quest for Corvo(with the Theroux intro). They are nice reading copies. But I need some nice fetish copies for my shrine. I'll search for the Blue Jade. It sounds lovely.

Here's a bibliography of Rolfe first editions. A dream wish list if ever there was one.
http://studiocleo.com/librarie/rolfe/bibliography.html

Studiocleo is a great site - there is a Rolfe (Arthur Cravan, etc.) site in French as well, but I can't recall the particulars. And I own a Corvo bibliography - it is a catalog of things I will never be able to have.

There is a fellow, Callum James, who is reprinting obscure tales and letters of Rolfe's - usually offering them on E-Bay... printed very handsomely, but priced thus as well for such slim things.

The Ballade of Boys Bathing can be found in Baron Corvo Collected Poems, put out by Cecil Wolf in the 1970s. I'm not sure of its availability, though (Desire and Pursuit should be fairly easy to track down - you will want a recent publication as the older one, prefaced by Auden, was expurgated).

For those who admire Rolfe, I recommend the novels and poems (and shorts, where you can find them) of contemporary curiosity, Alexander Theroux. His novel Darconville's Cat is pungent with Rolfe, decadence, the occult and pure lust for language, and a reference to the Baron in An Adultery occasions a wonderful spasm of snobbish abuse. Theroux's characters share with Rolfe's the trait that they are created in the image of their maker. Seek out A. Theroux's review of a book written by his brother Paul - hilarious, horrid, quintessential.

As I was telling Ben earlier, more corrosive reading can be foudn in the online versions of Baron Jacques Andrewski-Fersen's "Akademos" litterary review, such as this:

Femme! tu ne seras jamais qu'une blessure
D'où coule en la vie terne un médiocre plaisir;
Tu ne seras jamais, amputée du désir,
Qu'une molle paresse offerte à la luxure.

Ton sexe sans pensée et ton corps sans murmure
Eloigneront toujours ceux qu'ils voulaient saisir;
Et nul cri ne dira, déchirant souvenir,
Le remords de l'esclave après sa joie impure.

C'est pourquoi, tendrement penché vers le bonheur -
Léthé chaste où se fond la sensible douleur, -
Tout ému par l'amour de Narcisse éphémère,

Je répudie, railleur, ton coït ennuyeux
Et, dédaignant mêler l'injure à la prière,
Je te laisse farder le masque des faux dieux.

JACQUES D'ADELSWARD-FERSEN

Fersen, along with Corvo and Huysmans, is without doubt a portion of that strand of decadent art that reeks of misogyny. However, he makes up for it in over the top debauchery, black excess and heartless inbred-aristo hauteur. He is a nasty, arctic bitch - and note: that is not a criticism.

There is something for everyone in the pages of Lord Lyllian (Black Masses): Satanism, adultery, pederasty, vivid cankers, murder, drug-fueled orgies of pale, wasted flesh. The characters of Jean Lorrain, Fersen and Wilde are all there, thinly veiled with pseudonyms.

I don't know if the book is available in paperback or not, but the English translation I have is boards bound in black silk, bearing the cover illustration of the original edition (currently on display in this group). Along with Delphi Fabrice's as yet unenglished L'Araignee Rouge, Black Masses is one of the most extreme (cliched?) expressions of literary decadence.

I started wandering through Ephraïm Mikhaël's Oeuvres (thank you l'Age D'Homme Editions for that one) last night. I was surprised to discover he wrote some dark, mystical, and overall very cruel tales and short stories. 5 of them are enclosed in the book I own. Also went through his first genuine poetry book called "L'Automne", full of grey skies, depression and poetic visions of this saison mentale. Apparently L'Age D'Homme also published a second volume with some autobiographical stuff as well as a dense critical apparatus. I am yet to check for the availability and price of the original versions of the short stories and of L'Automne -- I hope I simply won't. I do, however, very much recommend both for thos ewho read French or can find a translation.

Years later.... Ephraïm Mikhaël is included in Pastels in Prose, Stuart Merrill's translations of 19th century French prose poems. A nice collection - Regnier, Huysmans, etc. Merrill himself typically composed in French.

This is an official shout-out: I downloaded a truckload of PDFs from Gallica and am now the proud reader of many of Gustave Kahn's writings. YES!!! I even have the great Les Palais Nomades. You can get them too from Gallica, with a simple search. Life is good.

My plunder: Les Palais Nomades, Chansons d'amant, La pluie et le beau temps, the great art criticism essay Symbolistes et décadents, L'aube énamourée, a novel called La Childebert and a collection of short stories called Contes juifs. After 5 seconds, and a few random searches... I finf myself awash in new stuff to plunder: it has loads of otherwise unreachable Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, etc.

Very cool. Unlike project Google - you can print this stuff: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ - and it looks like you can actually pay to have them bound and mailed to you - after the lulu method.

My own recent (and more expensive discovery) has been a Victorian home in the tree-shrouded suburbs that was converted into a used bookstore - in the 1970s! (Who knew? they have never advertized). The house is a cathedral of obscurities (I found signed and dedicated works by George Sterling and Richard Le Gallienne) - books in all languages, from the renaissance period to the early 1970s.

It is now a race against time and bankruptcy to plunder the place: the owners are in their 9th decade and planning soon to sell off the property.

I threw this list of curiosities (not always synonymous with "forgotten literary classics") together to offer up a more affordable hunt while waiting for prices on better known titles to deflate:

Stuart Merrill: The White Tomb: Selected Writings. Merrill was an American involved with the French decadents, many of whom he translated into English for his collection Pastels in Prose (a few are included in this collection).

Vincent O'Sullivan: The Green Window

Jacques d'Adelsward-Fersen: Lord Lyllian (Black Masses). A louche fictional treatment of the relationship between Lord Douglas and Oscar Wilde.

Roger Peyrefitte: The Exile of Capri: This is the English translation of Peyrefitte's fictional biography of Jacques d'Adelsward-Fersen.

Norman Douglas: South Wind (also set in Capri). I think basically anything by Douglas should do it - but this title is available cheaply. Douglas moved in the same eccentric orbit as Fersen and Crowley and others. That said, I have not yet read a word he's written.

Fyodor Sologub: The Petty Demon.

Julien Gracq: A Dark Stranger (etc.)

Ernst Junger: A Dangerous Encounter

Ranier M. Rilke: The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

William Seabrook: Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today; Adventures in Arabia.

Ferdinand Ossendowski: Man and Mystery in Asia; Beasts, Men and Gods.

Montague Summers: Any of his collections.

Guy Boothby: Dr. Nikola

Sadegh Hedayat: The Blind Owl

Ruben Dario: Selected Writings

Arthur Schnitzler: Rhapsody: A Dream Novel; Fraulein Else.

Leonard Cline: The Dark Chamber

Leopoldo Lugones: Strange Forces

Ugo Tarchetti: Fantastic Tales

Heinrich von Kleist: The Marquise of O.

More later, perhaps, when I have had more caffeine. Please feel free to add.

I'd second "Sadegh Hedayat: The Blind Owl".
Are we adding any curiosities? How about "Joko's
Anniversary" by Roland Topor?

The Blind Owl looks interesting. I just recieved a copy of The Supernatural Omnibus(Hardcover ISBN 0883560372) by Montague Summers. It was very inexpensive and contains 3 Vincent O' Sullivan stories. It has selections by Seabrook, Wilkie Collins, Dickens, and Le Fanu as well.

Also, I found in the bargain books at B&N a modern collection called Great Irish Tales Of Horror edited by Peter Haining(Hardcover ISBN 0760703795). It contains a Charles Maturin story called The Doomed Sisters as well as a Vincent O' Sullivan story called Will, which is introduced with a nice homage to O' Sullivan by the editor. There are also selections by Lafcadio Hearn, Le Fanu, and Stoker. Amazon has copies starting at 1 cent.

I am having a ball reading Seabrook's Adventures In Arabia this afternoon.

Seabrook's travel writing is really vivid and engaging. I recently decided to pick up everything I can by him that's not too expensive. So far, the only expensive book is the one on Haiti - The Magic Island. Its not too expensive and it looks too good to pass up! Seabrook's Jungle Ways has photos and some crazy stuff including girl-juggling. I haven't read it through yet. I don't think I'd classify any of the Seabrook as "corrosive."

I too picked up the Montague Summers book after Ben recommended it here. $1.99! Now I'm even more excited to check it out.

There is nothing tackier than someone who recommends books he has not read... I'm going to have to go beyond perusal and read a few of those Seabrook titles. So - apologies - but am glad to hear you are enjoying them! I have (muttered sheepishly) read some of the selections in the Summers anthologies.... And, speaking of O'Sullivan, I have a short story of his not included in any modern collection I'm aware of that I will post here ... if I can find it again. It's not a horror tale, but more in the vein of Wilde - light, bright, mildly decadent. I'm also looking forward to picking up (and possibly reading) some of the less costly Roland Topor titles.

No apology necessary. They were offered up as curiosities worthy of checking out - and they were!

Just watched Hammer horror films: "Curse of the Werewolf", based on Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore, and "Brides of Dracula". Pretty entertaining, definitely worth watching. Avaiable on one dvd from netfix.
Melmoth the Wanderer by Maturin is my vote for the great gothic novel. I'd also add "Confessions of a Justified Sinner" by James Hogg. Two great novels about religious intolerance.
I've always appreciated the "suggestiveness" of Algernon Blackwood, the master of the creepy atmosphere. Don't want to start a flame war, but Dracula always seemed over-rated. I'd prefer "Camilla" by LeFanu.
"Essence of Laughter" by Baudelaire is an old favorite.
Not sure if he fits in with the "decadents", but Tristan Corbiere is excellent; "Les Amours Jaunes"

I have to jump in and shout enthusiasm for both The Blind Owl and Melmoth the Wanderer, two of my all time favorites. I probably mentioned to someone in this group the smile that comes to my face whenever I spy the latter in a book store. The memory of ceaseless searching for that title, back in those pre-internet days, only to find it among thrift-store detrius years later, is still sweet.

In that context, I must also mention the book that put me in Melmoth-mania to begin with - Lautremont's Maldoror.* I spied a beautiful new edition of this work, along with Lautremont's poems, in Borders last week. Unfortunately, my finances are such that I cannot easily justify purchases of works I already have. Still, it was lovely....

* I have to quote the description on the back of my Penguin pb:

"Lautremont's fantasy unveils a world - half-vision, half-nightmare - of angels and gravediggers, hermaphrodites and pederasts, lunatics and strange children. The writing is drenched with an unrestrained savagery and menace...."

197
Religious intolerance, indeed! The rabid and insane intensity of Maturin's anti-Catholic diatribes had me in stitches. But then, I've never been able to take zealots seriously...

Check out that new Maldoror and Complete Works translation before you buy. I found the older translation of Maldoror more lively (in the bit on Amazon) than the new "more accurate" but perhaps less true translation (which is the one I bought and read.) I'm not a scholar of French or Lautremont (or anything else!) and its only based on the bit you can read on Amazon so take that for what its worth. I will probably buy the older one some time.

And, I was pleasantly surprised by Dracula when I finally read it!

200 Very little actually happens in the story.
Everything is described 2nd or 3rd hand. Talk about oblique. Disappointing, leaden story. Only films have kept Dracula alive. The most over-rated
gothic novel.

I loved Hogg's book and need to read it again soon. I also need to read Dracula again (I read it as a monster story in my early teens). Written in the 1890s, it's a little late to be a proper gothic novel - so I suspect with all the languor and attenuated perversity of vampirism, it probably qualifies as a "decadent novel". And, here's a puzzle for you - the solution to which brings no prize: I humbly beg you tell me, what has Dracula to do with Man?

I would add to this list Gustave Falubert's Salammbo. Unlike Mme Bovary, it is no ride in the park (But then what goes on inside is much more explicit). Julien Gracq likens the reading of it to a strenuous weight-lifting session. Like Gracq, Flaubert is not sparing with adjectives and makes use of a richly recondite vocabulary. Briefly, the novel focuses on the barbarian mercenary wars against the city of Carthage - and the ambiguous relationship between Salammbo, the priestess-daughter of the Carthaginian Suffete, Hamilcar, and the leader of the mercenary armies. Most of the novel details the ongoing warfare between the mercenaries and the Punic forces - the savagery of which is ornately, even voluptuously detailed. Beautiful gardens, perfumes, comestibles and odalisques are lushly described as are exotic deformative diseases, varied perversities, mutilations, tortures, sadistic deceptions and punishments, cannibalism and child sacrifice. Salammbo is interesting as an historical novel, and as an exotic poetic work of erudtion and dxecadent excess.

I have an edition illustrated by Mahlon Blaine, in his usual style, but I agree with the author - illustrations are distractions here.

There is probably enough temptation, but not enough sin, for Dracula to be all that decadent. Still, it does have a strong whiff of decadence. Stoker's relish for describing crumbling buildings, cemeteries, lonesome landscapes, rats and the staking of vampires, helps. The story is told from many points of view, but never second or third hand.

I attempted Dracula once or twice as a teen and did not like it. As a middle-aged fogie, I loved the story and the telling of it. I wish the book was about two hundred pages longer once the friends begin taking on the Count!

I've always enjoyed the style of Dracula - and Salambo - but my favorite Flaubert would be Lafcadio Hearn's translation of Saint Anthony

One more comment on Maldoror. Although it is said that the writing is "drenched with an unrestrained savagery and menace", I thought it was pretty funny at times and largely constituted one big angry piss-take. He put the rotten in punk before Johnny (or the Mentors), if you please.

My most valued possession is a first edition of the Guy Wernham translation of Maldoror. I like the Paul Knight translation as well. I plan to read the Alexis Lykiard translation soon. I have an unhealthy obsession with this book. Isadore Ducasse himself is a fascinating enigma.

206. The bands Bauhaus and Current 93 both used qoutes from Maldoror in their lyrics in the 80's.

Melmoth the Wanderer is another of my favorite books. I relate to Melmoths alienation very much. Oscar Wilde apparently related to Melmoth during his Parisian exile, after his release from reading gaol, when he used the alias Sebastian Melmoth. Maturin incidentally was Oscar's mother's uncle by marriage.

I read Dracula again last year for the first time since I was an adolescent. I enjoyed the descriptions, the succubus like brides, and especially the wolves. Stoker's use of diary entries, letters, and newspaper clippings to tell the story, similar to Maturin's use of similar documents in Melmoth, was effective and somewhat groundbreaking for a popular novel at that time. But the two dimensional Dracula is only described by witnesses and has no inner dialogue, let alone the sublime pathos of Melmoth.

I've never been a big Flaubert fan. But I'll put Salammbo and Saint Anthony on my list and give him another try.

To answer my own goofy riddle: Dracula is dedicated to "Hommy Beg" - which is, and I forget which, either a childhood nickname for Manx author, Hall Caine, or the name of a character in one of Caine's novels (which I have read somewhere someone is reissuing). Has anyone read him?

"Imagine a Man in a Box" by H.R.Wakefield.
Not the usual ghost stories. Hard to classify.
Maybe speculative fiction(?), not sci-fi though.

Adding more to this now obese thread: the Musée d'Orsay is hosting a wonderful exhibition on masks ("Masques, de Carpeaux à Picasso", see http://tinyurl.com/69bfll). Another incentive to come over to chilling, cloudy Paris.

>208 Randy_Hierodule:: I've heard / read the nickname thing before. But "Hommy Beg" does figure in Hall Caine's The Deemster. That could of course well be an autobiographical element though. I know I've read it, but frankly I don't remember too much about it.