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In no ways did this disappoint, and I am thrilled there are yet a dozen books left out there by him to find...
(***N.B. I've ordered 4 more already, shipping, US Pricing, makes him an expensive addiction, but...)
Anyways, a couple of other scenes of interest (the whole damned book was fascinating), his description of Gustave Lerouge (and his domestic arrangements), his stay with Paquita, a Mexican Patroness who puts him up in an disused observatory filled with sexually ambiguous automatons and wax dolls of her own invention, furnishes him a library: "...contained nothing but mystical works on the left, and, on the right, illustrated works of eroticism..."
And - of especial amusement - one last description:
"I remember riding on horseback through the Cordillera of the Andes, searching for the ruins of an Inca Temple (or a fortress ?) in Western Bolivia, in a region where the mountains are most desolate, the most crumpled, the most barren, and the country is the most backward and desert-like in the world, and for a whole week watching a grand piano being manoeuvered across the terrain,"
And now he comes to the Piano, and the ruins of an Inca Temple are left far behind.
Fortunately he's several autobiographies, that each run different themes through his life, his style, his poetry, prose, characters, situations, well, first rate. 5 Stars. I'd retype the entire goddamned book here for your pleasure, only we value those things most we search out for ourselves...
(Note: those books ordered, well, Canada Post's Strike means I'll be waiting a while. An-tic-i-.......PATION!. And on that note the ferry strike is ongoing, 3 runs a day, the entire East Shore now forced to confront a voluntary exile they bought into and now are protesting. This will be the state of the US in a couple of years, the infrastructure crumbles, is sold off, cancelled, like the provinces with healthcare and any number of other public services, the times, they are a changing...This is not the beginning of the end, it's the beginning of our recognition of it...)
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This, the last of those books ordered through Abebooks.com, and I have to say, the more I read Cendrars the more I like him. His writing style, rhythm, descriptions, all curiously in sympathy with mine own. A shame he's so hard to find (I'll be ordering a few more - fortunately he wrote a great deal).
Notes so far: his references to Gerard de Nerval (whom I can't seem to find in translation, although Umberto Eco referred to him in such glowing terms I'll have to keep up the search); his mentioning of 'thrashing' Rainer Maria Rilke, mentions of Restif de la Bretonne, (another novelist I'll have to track down, also abundantly mentioned by Bloch in his book on de Sade). And a few more authors - always it seems the more I read, the more ignorant I become, but time with Cendrars is time well spent...
"Well then, the gap continued to open in front of us, I led Léger through the market, then took a zigzagging path between the shacks, the yards, the chicken-coops, the tiny gardens, the waste lots of the zone-dwellers enclosed by bare walls topped with broken glass, fenced in by barbed-wire, stakes, old railway sleepers, and full of ferocious dogs, their collars bristling with nails, chained up but running the length of a strong piece of wire, or several meters of taut cable, which allowed them to hurl themselves like demons from one end to the other of their bare pens, bounding, barking, slavering with rage amongst the empty, battered petrol cans tumbled everywhere, the burst barrels, the ripped sheets of tin, the mattress springs that sprouted from the soil of the dung-heap, the broken crocks and pots, bashed-in tin cans, mounds of discarded kitchen utensils, broken-up vehicles, piles of disgorged filth, surrounded by thistles and measly clumps of lilac or dominated, Golgotha-like, by the skeleton of a tree, a stunted elder or a tortured acacia, a runt of a lime, with its amputated stumps poking through the handle of a chamber-pot, or its lopped-off upper branches crowned with an ancient motor-tyre; I crossed rue Blanqui and, on the other side, fortifications, at whose foot the 'Academy of the Little Charlie Chaplins' was installed; it consisted of five or six oblong sheds that served as a dormitory for the children and as dens for the bears that were being trained haphazardly in this sinister institution, which was, to boot, an all-night bistro and a thieves' kitchen for cut-throats and prowlers."
That a single sentence to open the chapter.
Or this, a sumptuous description of a meal:
"...my Don Quixote invited me to share with him the 'plat de Lucullus' in a pleasure-garden in Saint-Ouen, which he had just discovered, and this famous dish, invented and cooked by Lerouge, was nothing less than a salad-bowl filled of blackbirds' tongues cooked in white butter and perfumed with rose and violet, which we ate with croutons dipped in celery-liquor, and washed down with long draughts of Alicante, while the patron of that 'chigana', a Spanish gipsy, pattered round the dish in his espadrilles, excusing himself in a tone of complaint:
'They're only blackbirds' tongues, it's not the season for nightingales . . . .'
There were more than two thousand tongues; it must have cost good old LeRouge a fortune, and he was not exactly rolling in money."
Time to slow down on the reading and get some more books ordered...
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I enjoyed this probably far more than I should have. Written by one of the first Psychoanalysts/Sexologists, Iwan Bloch, it's a tour-de-force that puts de Sade in context with his era and compatriots.
The chapter list alone is worth the price of admission, with such chapters as "Flagellation and Phlebotomy - Whips and Passion" and "Poisoning - Wholesale Poisonings" and "Conditions in Italy - Debauchery in Italy, Sexual Orgies in Naples." this book alone is far more entertaining than anything de Sade ever wrote. Not that de Sade was bad (he was, but compared to his peers...), more so in that it provides both context and historical perspective on the events he depicts.
Notes on what I found worthwhile - well, that's several pages, buy the book, but - a short list:
Pornography of every description sold at the Palais Royal - that everything de Sade wrote about, the most despicable things, were already well established in practice and written up about and sold in leaflets at the Palais Royal.
A list of books of note - as identified by De Sade or Bloch, a reading list that extends beyond my probably lifetime, but I'll be online looking, rest assured...
The mentions and correlations with Chardelos de Laclos & Casanova (for example, when Casanova did his brothel/bordello tours in Italy he was escorted by the Clergy, those Bishops and Priests being connoisseurs in such departments).
Mentions and correlations with Chardelos de Laclos & Casanova, as well Potocki (Manuscript found at Saragossa, see film).
“Pastilles a la Richelieu” (aphrodisiacs), leading on to what is referred to (and you have to laugh!) "The BonBon Cantharidic Orgy"
Or the description of a certain artist using a prostitute of “rare beauty” to model the Virgin Mary - an Englishman, upon entering the church and seeing the statue stated - “Oh, it’s the virgin who gave me a dose!”
Or, entering upon the Marquis De Sade’s life (the first 2/3's of the book deal almost exclusively with his life and times), the Marvellous Salve that first landed him in prison, an experiment lacerating an unwilling captive prostitute to test the efficiency of said healing salve - and his believing he would be excused - after all, what was a prostitute next to the greater good of humanity? This, along with his other over-reported but nonetheless diabolical escapades, well -
Than there's the real-life corollaries, the people that "inspired", if that is the right word, de Sade - the list of Dukes, Kings, Counts and Courtesans and the inventory of their pleasures.
Oh, and there's this:
Paris, August 2, 1808.
The Chief Doctor of the Hospital at Charenton to his Excellency, the Senator and Police Minister:
Sir:
I have the honor to appeal to your authority far assistance in an affair that threatens the entire order in my home.
We have here a man whose bold immorality has made him only too well known and whose mere presence effects the greatest evils. I speak of the author of that shameful novel Justine. This man it not mentally ill. His one delirium is that of vice—and this cannot be aided in an insane asylum. He has to be placed in the severest isolation to protect others from his outbreaks and to separate him from all circumstances that might increase his horrible passion. Our place as Charenton does not fulfill any of these conditions. De Sade enjoys too great freedom here. He can have intercourse with a great number of patients and convalescents either in his or their rooms. He has the right to walk in the park and often meets patients there. He preaches to them his criminal theories and lends them books. Finally we received a report that he is living with a woman whom he claimed was his daughter.
That is not all. They were so improvident at the asylum that they had a theatre erected for the performance of comedies and did not think at the harmful effects of such a tumultuous proceeding upon the mind. De Sade is the director of this theatre. He presents the plays, hands out the rôles and directs them. He is also the asylum poet. For example, at the dinners of the director he writes an allegorical piece in his honor or at least some couplets in his praise. I ask your excellency to remedy such a horrible condition. How can such things be in an insane asylum? Such crimes and immorality! Will not the patients who daily meet this man be also infected by his corruption and does not the mere thought of his presence in this house awaken the fantasy of those who do not see him?
I sincerely hope that your excellency will find these reasons imperative enough to find another resort than Charenton for de Sade. An order for him not to associate with the patients will not be sufficient as it will be only a temporary aid. I do not ask for him to be sent back to Bicêtre but I believe that a strong castle would he better fitted for him than an asylum with its many opportunities for the satisfaction of his degenerate desires.
Royer Collard, MD
I could go on - the book is filled with such anecdotes. But I don't intend to cheat you of the pleasure of reading it yourself.
You can read the entirety of it online here: https://survivorbb.rapeutation.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=222&sid=5b4e0b2d3fbdedef6aeafe2aceea5c9a or simply break down and find a copy online. If the 18th Century is your thing you'll find it money well spent.
And about the Author: Iwan Bloch
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This was a little curiosity, 18th century incomplete novel that takes the case of a Prince, who is witness to some Necromancy and Divination which he is at first at a loss to explain, then, when he is undeceived, goes down a rabbit hole that leads in the end to his being taken back to the faith by an enigmatic "Albanian".
More a little store of undeveloped ideas, not in any way great, merely curious, a peculiar half-developed tale sprung no doubt from indigestion, like a bad dream...
Link: Wiki on The Ghost-Seer
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this, a "Sci-Fi" book written in 1920.
I'll quote a review:
A stunning achievement in speculative fiction, A Voyage to Arcturus has inspired, enchanted, and unsettled readers for decades. It is simultaneously an epic quest across one of the most unusual and brilliantly depicted alien worlds ever conceived, a profoundly moving journey of discovery into the metaphysical heart of the universe, and a shockingly intimate excursion into what makes us human and unique.
After a strange interstellar journey, Maskull, a man from Earth, awakens alone in a desert on the planet Tormance, seared by the suns of the binary star Arcturus. As he journeys northward, guided by a drumbeat, he encounters a world and its inhabitants like no other, where gender is a victory won at dear cost; where landscape and emotion are drawn into an accursed dance; where heroes are killed, reborn, and renamed; and where the cosmological lures of Shaping, who may be God, torment Maskull in his astonishing pilgrimage. At the end of his arduous and increasingly mystical quest waits a dark secret and an unforgettable revelation.
A Voyage to Arcturus was the first novel by writer David Lindsay (1878–1945), and it remains one of the most revered classics of science fiction.
It read rather like one of those AI hallucinations that you can watch on Facebook Videos, the main character Maskull forever morphing, a sort of “Pilgrims Progress” written by a madman, reminding me in tone of Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, no more sci-fi, more a metaphysical investigation into what makes us human, with no clear answers at the end. A long, nightmarish read.