MALDOROR 4:5 – PROJECTION OF A SHRIVELED SILHOUETTE

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror. We’re now on the 4th Canto, 5th Stanza. 

PROJECTION OF A SHRIVELED SILHOUETTE

Maldoror, in an even more unstable frame of mind than usual, finds himself in a run-down room in an unspecified building somewhere. He is wary because he has come face to face with another supernatural creature that he has identified as a potential threat. Every man, woman and child in the town is dead except for himself and this new entity, the figure responsible for the slaughter.

SPOILER: In our current age in which we’ve all grown up with anthology shows from Twilight Zone on up through Tales From the Crypt or any number of others we can spot the “twist” in this segment right away. Maldoror eventually becomes lucid enough to realize he’s arguing with his own reflection in a mirror. Since modern readers can spot that “surprise” a mile away I’ve disclosed the ending right up front and will now explore the deadly actions that Maldoror confesses to in this stanza.  

+++ Tearing out the eyes of a beautiful blonde woman as a keepsake.

+++ Killing an undisclosed number of Mexican prostitutes who were working in Arkansas when Maldoror was there. Our malevolent protagonist either skinned them alive or contentedly stayed with their corpses until nothing was left but their skeletons. (The poetic language makes it unclear.)

+++ Keeping an innocent man imprisoned in his lair and torturing him for either five years or twenty years for rejecting Maldoror’s offer of friendship. And since the author Isidore Ducasse never hesitates to tell us when Maldoror has lovers who are either male, female, animals or corpses I’m assuming it WAS just friendship or our narrator would have told us all the details. 

+++ Living like a shark in the sea off the coast of Africa for fifty years. Critics obsessed with continuity often speculate that this was during the period when our main character was in love with that female shark from I Sought a Soul That Might Resemble Mine. 

+++ Drowning a little girl who reached for a lotus on the surface of a pond.

It turns out Maldoror’s initial disorientation at the beginning of the stanza was caused by his most recent atrocity: he had just traveled through whatever town his “room” is in and killed every man, woman and child. (But he informs us he left all the buildings intact and in pristine condition. What a guy!)

In other words Maldoror was momentarily taken aback by how casually he commited this latest large-scale massacre. So much so that he suffered temporary cognitive dissonance and mistook himself for a separate entity.

(By the way, Maldoror’s description of the town in which every citizen lies dead matches La Paz, Bolivia, but obviously that town’s population was never wiped out. People who doubt the La Paz connection need to remember that Isidore Ducasse was born and grew up in South America.)

I WILL BE EXAMINING ADDITIONAL SECTIONS VERY SOON. CHECK BACK ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK FOR NEW INSTALLMENTS.

FOR PART ONE CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/2015/02/28/maldoror-a-neglected-masterpiece-of-surreal-horror/

FOR OTHER PARTS OF MALDOROR CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/category/maldoror/

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.