Going to make a thread for less discussed works, my justification for this is that with how fast the board is now, about 4 hours to archive, posts about lesser known works don't stay around long enough for anyone who does know the work to come along. I figure that if we put them all in one place it may function better, because they will all contribute to the bumping.
So yeah post anything at all that you like but that doesnt see that much discussion.
pic related, le Chaos et la nuit(Chaos and Night), is a 1963 novel by French author Henry de Montherlant, and is often overlooked in discussions of French literature in the anglosphere. The author in general is not that famous, probably because of his reactionary tendencies.
The book is extremely bleak, it's about an old man who was an anarchist in the spanish war, living in france basically in exile. His relationships with everyone around him are fucked and deteriorate over the course of the book, his mind is riddled with memes about anarchism and society in general, he is just a person who is thoroughly unraveled.
There is a bit at the end of a bullfight he watches that is written so well you can practically see it, it's like a Manet or something, and when we get to the part where the words chaos et nuit are used, after an entire novel of seeing this old man's twisted mind it is one of the single greatest evocations of despair and pessimism I've ever read.
de Montherlant's other work is also good, I really like La Reine Morte.
This actually sounds right up my alley, I assume you’re a French speaker from the picture, but if not do you know where to get a good English version?
I don't know unfortunately, I don't even know which english translation is the respected one, sorry m8. But you should definitely read it if you can find it, it's great.
Damn, why is it that his other books are so hard to find? Makes me wonder if it's coincidence or not that nobody reprints his works...
He have any others worth checking out?
Les Jeunes filles is a major one, it's quite antifeminist and was very popular and some major feminists wrote about his ideas. He has stuff about being gay as well, Les Garcons and Le ville dont le prince est un enfant. Idk is he was gay or not but he must have been at least bisexual because he was expelled from school for an affair with a boy. He didnt say anything about the matter so we can't really know I guess.
I highly recommend La Reine Morte, one of my favorite plays, and it feels like an older French play in ways, though it is obviously nothing like the ornate sophistication of a Racine play, it's about monarchy I suppose, and the ways in which power and the psyche interrelate, I find it hard to summarize why I like it so much, it just progresses so beautifully in these little flashes, themes of forbidden love as well, both straight and lesbian. Pasiphae and Le cardinal d'espagne are also good.
I've not read all his stuff so I can't comment too much on his overall oeuvre but I liked whatever I have read.
he's just not of major interest to the English speaking world especially. A lot of authors are not easy to find, I had to order La Chaos et la nuit from France. I usually just read books online but I didnt know about libgen back then, and it is nice to have a copy because I really like the book.
Dank. Think I’ll try to check out the first one you mentioned as it appeals to the slowly aging anarchist in me and see how it goes from there.
for sure and the value in his work is not the political stuff, just so you know, the despair that man feels is not necessarily tied to anarchism specifically. It's his understanding of the mind and how lives progress, how society is formed, his use of language, that's where his brilliance lies. his political leanings aren't the point, so don't be dissuaded by them if you're on the other side of the spectrum.
I’ll contribute. Your posts are appreciated OP (and others).
All About H Hatterr
One of my favorites. Written by an Indian fellow who ran away from home when he was young, this is his only book and is highly regarded for its writing quality. This book remains apolitical, a-anything really, which makes it really impressive when you’re reading it and, given the right moment, you might spot something out-of-the-familiar, something like your own handprint within the reading action. Excuse my descriptive license. What I say is subjective.
It’s one of those pieces of art which increases with subtlety upon each successive study.
Fug I’m so autistic
Sorry brothers
Looks genuinely interesting my man, the way you described it is really good, the Indians have such a distinctive originality sometimes. I will try to actually check this out on top of my absurdly overlarge reading list, ill bump it up near the top.
not at all man, was a good post, besides this is Yea Forums the autism is ok lol
bump boys but im off to sleep, hope the thread or thread idea survives
La France a des secrets littéraires bien plus intéressants que Montherlant.
for some terrible reason i woke up again after only two hours, i think the old devil is coming back. but thank you for your post anyway, why do you like the book? you can write in french if you prefer
im going to try to get some sleep because because its really bad for me to not sleep, gets me to a bad place. but please do post and try to keep the thread bumped
Anyone read Service inutile by Montherlant? Someone recommended this to me lately and wondering if it's worth it.
I am probably the last living human being who gives a fuck about William Baylebridge
a little background:
This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7, (MUP), 1979
William Baylebridge (1883-1942), writer, was born on 12 December 1883 at East Brisbane, son of George Henry Blocksidge, estate agent, and his wife Kate, née Bell. Christened Charles William Blocksidge, he adopted the name Baylebridge without legal change soon after 1925. He was educated at Woolloongabba State School, at Brisbane Grammar School, and by a private tutor David Owen, a classical scholar who became a close friend and a major influence. He chose a writer's career, which divided him bitterly from his father, a rigid Methodist who was absorbed in local business and politics.
In 1908 Blocksidge went to England with his friend Robert Graham Brown. He was financed at first by his maternal grandmother and by his mother's half-sister Celia Grace Levin (or Leven), but later lived as a poor scholar in cheap rooms, probably by pseudonymous hack-writing. He toured the Continent with his aunt and sister, and published eight books of verse and two of prose in England, beginning with Songs o' the South; most were private printings. He was influenced at this time by the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, either directly or diluted by various English interpreters, and developed a mystic nationalistic scheme of metaphysical philosophy akin to that later espoused in Nazi Germany: he presented it publicly in National Notes (1913). This burden proved too much for his poetic talent, and his pleasure in archaic constructions often resulted in obscure versification.
Early in World War I Blocksidge tried to enlist from London in the Australian forces but was told that he could do so only in Australia or, possibly, in Egypt. Spencer Browne later reported helping him out of trouble with the British military authorities in Cairo when he arrived there mysteriously with no satisfactory explanation for his presence. He claimed subsequently to have done special literary work for the British Secret Service. He returned to Queensland in 1919 and, after living briefly on a family farm at Mount Gravatt, writing occasionally for Brisbane papers, he settled in Sydney. He made a living by using a private income for operations on the Stock Exchange.
Convince me to read him then, the title sounds intriguing
opened my volume to a random page, this is about his standard:
>Life's Testament XI
All that I am to Earth belongs:
This Heaven does me violent wrongs.
My fight from fitful loins, my birth,
Are fashioned to the mode of Earth--
Deliberate things, not swiftly given
As some report it falls in Heaven.
This mind is slow to work, this will,
This hand to act them tardier still--
Not dowered with that immediate sense
Deemed in celestial excellence.
True Earth am I, of Earth I'm knit--
O, let me be at peace with it!
He's stuck between the sublimity of heaven and the mundanity of Earth and can only look on to the upwards evolution of man as a small component our journey from the "primal ooze" onward.
He's been called the only Australian poet with a philosophy, his poetry is generally derided with concessions of rare excellency, and he writes mainly from his own mode of Nietzschean vitalism. Occasional political discourse which is historically quite interesting to see from an Australian.
You can probably find most of This Vital Flesh online if you look hard enough, good luck getting a volume outside of Australia
I love the hilarious, rhythmic grandeur of Papini. The Failure tracks his intellectual development from delusional boy to even-more-delusional young man to (gloriously) humiliated adult. The book is marvelously constructed, too, with each chapter really honing in on a single idea.
Are less popular works less popular for good reason, or are simply yet to be vindicated by time?
Check him out if you enjoy writers like Miller, Bernhard, Celine...
Gonna take a papinipill, have a cart open - what other works are essential, anone?
What's the best place to read his actual philosophy? Does he have any more nonfiction/nonconfessional straightforwardly philosophical essays?
Good man! Check out Four and Twenty minds for his insights on a lot of the greats (real and fictional)--he really had a different way of approaching them. Also in this vein are Nietzsche: an Essay, Michelangelo, his life and his era, and Saint Augustine. His other most famous fictional works are Gog and Laborers in the Vineyard.
I think his short stories are a really nice way in, too. Most of them are linked on Wikipedia.
Here's one of my favourites:
babel.hathitrust.org
He went through a lot of philosophic stages (covered in the Failure), and was writing voraciously throughout each. Unfortunately most of his work remains untranslated (I don't read Italian), but here a few essays in English:
Philosophy in Italy: jstor.org
What Pragmatism is Like: archive.org
There's a decent selection of his stuff at archive.org
bump
Great thread OP. A while back I tried to start a thread like this so I'll repost what I posted.
This is a book by Guido Ceronetti. He died only last year. I found this book through Cioran. Apparently they knew each other. The Silence of the Body is a collection of reflections on literature. Very funny but also pessimistic. If you like Cioran you will like this book too.
Thanks user, I will look into getting a physical copy. Realized I'd put this on my reading list a while back, have you been promoting it on here before?
I thought only third-world countries like mine were suffering with a book shortage.
I can't buy On The Marble Cliffs for less than half of my salary.
>Montherlant
based thread
Depends. There's also a difference between private individual acclaim and public acclaim (even posthumous). The kind of author that can become mainstream is not always the same as the kind of author that gather cult following. For the former you generally want at least so form of sacrifice to a demand of form.
I actually don't read but as a Yea Forums fag of a few years I have gathered a few underrecognized titles that sound juicy:
>existential despair and authenticity literature
>Albert Caraco
Breviaire of Chaos
>Carlo Michaelstaedter
Persuasion and Rhetoric
>Sandor Marai
The Sister
>Stig Dagerman
Our need for solace cannot be sated
>Rainer Maria Rilke
Book of Poverty and Death
>honorary mention of Di Lampedusa
The Guepard
In the vein of underrated depressed right-leaning Frenchfag
>Brasillach
Diary of an Occuped Man
>Barrès
The inspired Hill
>Boutang
The Purgatory
>Bernanos
Diary of a Country Priest, Mister Ouine
>Gadenne
The Invitation at the Stirl's, The Whale
>La Soudière
Anterior Chronicles (La Soudière was close to Michaux and Cioran)
Nice list. I was able to find new copies or Albert Caraco in German and Spanish buy not French. I emailed the publisher of his french works about shipping but got no response.
Happy to share!
i know this is a meme around here but im really shocked it isn't more popular
Explain Sean.
Feel like I'm the only one who reads Barthelme. Love his whimsy and wit. Recommended: 40 Stories, 60 Stories, Paradise, The King.
>“What I like about ‘Paraguay’ [from the collection, City Life] is the misuse of language and the tone. Mixing bits of this and that from various areas of life to make something that did not exist before is an oddly hopeful endeavor. The sentence ‘Electrolytic jelly exhibiting a capture ratio far in excess of standard is used to fix the animals in place’ made me very happy — perhaps in excess of its merit. But there is in the world such a thing as electrolytic jelly; the ‘capture ratio’ comes from the jargon of sound technology; and the animals themselves are a salad of the real and the invented. The flat, almost ‘dead’ tone paradoxically makes possible an almost lyricism. I think my Paraguay is an almost-beautiful place…. Every writer in the country can write a beautiful sentence, or a hundred. What I am interested in is the ugly sentence that is also somehow beautiful. I agree that this is a highly specialized enterprise, akin to the manufacture of merkins, say — but it’s what I do. Probably I have missed the point of the literature business entirely. But ‘Paraguay’ is for me a hint of what I would like to do, if I could do it.”
>Donald Barthelme (1931 – 1989), introduction to “Paraguay,” Writer’s Choice (New York: D. McKay Co., 1974) (via)
How are his other books?
How is this one?
What a strange impulse to have but that is interesting.
bump
this thread really just dies a lot. ill try to post some more content tomorrow