Maldoror

What am I in for? I'm on page 40 something and it's kinda hard to understand what is going on

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C'mon anons help, bump

Try an easier book.

It's kinda ok so far but just feel like a bad LSD trip sometimes

It is about a guy telling God "Get dunked on". I am only two chapters in.

Just read the goddamn book. Stop being a sissy fag

maldoror isn't especially graphic or shocking despite its fearsome reputation. it hasn't aged well

The sentence structure is extremely difficult. Sentences go on, and on, and on for clauses, and clauses, and clauses, without stopping. This is on purpose, a disorienting stream of consciousness technique. Most "chapters" consist of a single, very long, paragraph-same technique.

The first sentence is objectively false; child abuse (both sexual and not) is described several times over the course of the work. In terms of shock value, there's no place else to go. Just because you don't find it shocking is not a proof that it is not objectively shocking (it is), but merely an indicator of how desensitized you (and contemporary culture) have become to imagery of violence.

See the yellow cell in my notes for an example of this (you already know about it and have come to the wrong conclusion; the point is not to convince you, but to convince others).

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Malodor

Since I'm at it, pic related is more of my Maldoror notes. This is a bean-count of paragraphs. The large majority of chapters are single paragraphs (the green cells). The English rendering I used generally agrees with a French version I cross-referenced online, in terms of paragraph counts/breaks (treated in the pic).

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Do you find this a good or bad thing? I've been reading it and sometimes I feel lost, I just started to not give a fuck and just read even if I'm not understanding it, sometimes reminds me of Jean Genet's way of writing

It's a learning curve. It's a bitch to read at times but I was never bored. The technique is valid, I think, because the thing is a poetic work.

I'll re-read it at some point, which should be considerably easier since I know what to expect/won't be as disoriented (the same thing you're currently experiencing).

Since you're on Lautréamont, you may as well read the complete works (not much more effort). Next, do the Poems, and the few surviving letters.

So far it's a great book, very shocking and beautiful in the same way, I think it's worth a reread, it's a pity he died so young

Not OP but this spreadsheet is incredible. Maldoror is a masterpiece that deserves a lot more attention

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Holy shit dude do you do that to all the books you read or is it just an exception? Looks like a lot of work right there

Not for everything, but in the past few years I have taken to taking notes on books that I read, to massively improve retention (and to have the notes ready for what I don't retain). These notes were particularly thorough though, given the work's difficulty.

As I've said, I had a hard time with my first go-around but wanted to really pay attention, hence the notes. Adjacent chapters seem unrelated to each other at times (the hard sentences and single paragraphs sort of dull the senses), but if you keep going then you see the patterns. I knew there'd be patterns in the work (the confusion would eventually become coherent) so I wanted to log where each bit could be found.

On re-reading all that, there is a clear throughline of pederasty (Was Ducasse abused as a boy?) The images of men drowning just off the shore also come up again and again (did Ducasse witness/contribute to such an episode?) The animal imagery is also constant, and very impressive. He knew what a tardigrade was all the way back in the late-middle 19th c.

I am still curious about the Lohengrin/Leman/Lombano/Holzer stuff. I found where Lohengrin comes from (some Wagnerian myth-thing) but I don't know if the other names derive from the same mythology, any help would be appreciated.

Putting all this together makes me want to re-read a bit more now.

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It's incredible how Ducasse was talented, ofc there are a lot of things we will never know because he was like a ghost, but anyway, I was thinking about taking notes to, do you read physical books or e-books? If you read physical books do you take notes on paper too?

Please tell me you're a professor in real life

Bachelor's in math with minors in philosophy and history. I manage a grocery store lmao

Physical books + internet. I don't believe in e-books but computers are obviously useful.

A grocery store manager that breaks down avant-garde French poetry? The world is a beautiful place.

You probably get paid better doing what you're doing. Keep it up.