Tag Archives: 1800’s horror

July 15, 2015 · 11:06 pm

MALDOROR 5:4 – A PEDESTAL OF IDEAL PERVERSITY

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror. The forces of Hell once again attack Maldoror this time around.

A PEDESTAL OF IDEAL PERVERSITY

Maldoror 5 4 boaThe supernatural being Maldoror is wandering through a jungle region of South America. Readers may remember the author Isidore Ducasse was born and grew up in Uruguay so he was reasonably familiar with the area.

An enormous boa constrictor (or other boa sup-species) has wrapped itself around our narrator in an attempt to crush him. As the battle between them rages Maldoror eventually realizes this is no ordinary serpent he is grappling with. Rather, it is Lucifer himself, incarnate in snake form. As he fights to free himself from the seemingly infinite folds of his opponent Maldoror gives vent to his usual disdain for Lucifer, whom he views as a pathetic figure already defeated by God.   Continue reading →

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July 11, 2015 · 4:47 pm

MALDOROR 5:3 – INTERMITTENT ANNIHILATION OF HUMAN FACULTIES

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror.

INTERMITTENT ANNIHILATION OF HUMAN FACULTIES

Maldoror 5 3We are now on the 3rd Stanza of the 5th Canto. Our protagonist is railing against sleep, which he describes as “the intermittent annihilation of human faculties.”

He further pronounces that a person who sleeps is “less than a castrated animal” and makes it clear that sleeping is no different than binding ourselves on a sacrificial altar called a bed and leaving ourselves helpless at the hands of a malevolent God.

Maldodor claims he has gone 30 years now without sleeping, ever since he realized that those nightly rest periods are nothing but an opportunity for his archrival God to cement his hold on us. Through sleep God whispers his commands and his demented philosophies to his creations, according to Maldoror. Continue reading →

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July 8, 2015 · 9:14 pm

MALDOROR 5:2 – FOUR SOULS ERASED FROM THE BOOK OF LIFE

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror.

FOUR SOULS ERASED FROM THE BOOK OF LIFE

dung beetleMaldoror, our supernatural protagonist, encounters four men whose lives were all ruined by the same seductive sorceress. The first man has been transformed into a horse-sized dung beetle and rolls along the mangled corpse of the sorceress the way such beetles usually roll clods of dung. 

Our narrator follows this oddity at a distance and eventually the huge dung-beetle encounters a man with the head of a pelican. (No, it’s not Jay Leno, who used to be described as “the pelican-headed comedian” early in his standup career.) The two bizarre creatures stand and converse in heated tones for a time and it slowly becomes clear to Maldoror what caused their mutual hostility and their current physical condition.   Continue reading →

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June 27, 2015 · 3:35 pm

MALDOROR 5:1 – BETWEEN YOUR LITERATURE AND MINE

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror.

BETWEEN YOUR LITERATURE AND MINE

“Hey, Maldoror! You da MAN!”

We are now on the 5th Canto, 1st Stanza. Maldoror goes meta on us and addresses the readers directly, dismissing any moral indignation they may be feeling about his actions by pointing out the obvious: if any of us were all that disgusted with his sadistic reign of terror we could have just stopped reading long ago. 

Continuing along those lines our main character takes credit for erasing the boundaries between the usual literary fare of his readers and his own daring and envelope-pushing brand of writing. This would have been especially true back in the late 1860’s. The Songs of Maldoror makes anything by Poe or Hoffmann or any of the other alleged masters of horror back then look pretty wimpy by comparison.   Continue reading →

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June 24, 2015 · 12:16 am

MALDOROR 4:8 – SPREADING MY WINGS INTO MY TORTURED MEMORY

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror.

SPREADING MY WINGS INTO MY TORTURED MEMORY

Maldoror 4 8 skull headThis stanza starts out with vague hints about what is going on but gradually becomes clearer.

The supernatural being Maldoror finds himself haunted by the ghost of the first person he ever killed. In an account that – naturally – contradicts some of the versions of his past that he has previously related, our protagonist recalls what happened.  Continue reading →

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June 20, 2015 · 3:53 pm

MALDOROR 4:7 – THE AMPHIBIOUS MAN

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror. This time around our main character encounters a fellow supernatural being with a horrific origin story.

THE AMPHIBIOUS MAN

Maldoror 4 7This 7th Stanza of the 4th Canto from The Songs of Maldoror finds Maldoror standing on a rocky outcropping along a seashore. It is sunset on a summer day and his preternatural senses have enabled him to spot a strange figure off in the distance. With his usual contempt for humanity Maldoror notices that none of the mere mortals in the vicinity have detected the strange being swimming in the sea.  

The figure in question is a naked man with a mostly human body but short, stubby arms and legs plus webbed hands and feet. A huge dorsal fin protrudes from the amphibious man’s back and various schools of fish follow in his wake like he is their leader. The strange hybrid figure frolics with porpoises and outperforms them at leaping from the sea and diving spectacularly back into the water, resurfacing hundreds of meters away.    

Three normal human beings have made the mistake of lingering too near Maldoror and commenting on how they cannot make out what the monstrous man sees in the far-off waves. Our vile protagonist grows annoyed at their slack-jawed incomprehension and – particularly perturbed at this open-mouthed confusion – kills them by breaking their jaws. He wrenches them apart so far that the three twitch for a time and then die, and Maldoror admires his handiwork, joking about how outrageously abnormal the corpses look with their jaws ripped open so widely.  Continue reading →

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June 18, 2015 · 12:18 am

MALDOROR 4:6 – WALLOWING IN A MIRE MOST FOUL

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror. God – Maldoror’s archrival – gets the better of him in a very crafty way this time around.

WALLOWING IN A MIRE MOST FOUL

Maldoror 4 6 hogAn exhausted Maldoror is on a cliff overlooking a gravel pit far below. Overcome with fatigue our supernatural protagonist tumbles forward and falls several hundred feet to the ground below. His descent loosened a few large stones and one of them comes crashing down on top of him.

This makes a massy pulp of Maldoror’s body but naturally it quickly begins to reshape itself. To his surprise our main character finds himself wearing the body of a large hog. No matter how hard he tries he cannot cast off this form and resume his normal appearance.  Continue reading →

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June 13, 2015 · 8:07 pm

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 4 5 bodiesMaldoror, 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.   Continue reading →

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June 10, 2015 · 11:31 pm

MALDOROR 4:4 – FOUR CENTURIES ON A SHAPELESS THRONE

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror. People who want to see our vile main character suffer will definitely enjoy this part. 

FOUR CENTURIES ON A SHAPELESS THRONE

Image by GodofPegana at Deviant Art.

Image by GodofPegana at Deviant Art.

This stanza opens up with Maldoror paralyzed and suffering a variety of excruciating torments. Like a wooden stake through the heart will take out a vampire and a silver bullet through the heart will kill a werewolf, Maldoror’s weakness is at last revealed to us.

While our supernatural protagonist was seated on a boulder contemplating his next move in the ongoing feud between him and God an unnamed human being crept up on him from behind and drove their sword downward through the nape of Maldoror’s neck and on, vertically, driving it through the fiend’s spine like a spike. This has rendered Maldoror paralyzed but happily (given his countless atrocities) NOT immune to pain.  Continue reading →

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June 6, 2015 · 5:31 pm

MALDOROR 4:3 – THE TORMENTED MAN

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror. It’s back to more explicitly horrific material this time around.

THE TORMENTED MAN

Maldoror 4 3 tormented manAfter the previous topsy-turvy stanza saw Maldoror lost in The Valley of Unreality this adventure is much more straightforward.

The supernatural being Maldoror is wandering through a forest when he is attracted by the sound of agonized screams. Locating their source he is intrigued to see a man hanged from a gibbet by his very long hair and with his hands tied behind his back. His legs swing freely, increasing the agony of his pain-wracked form.

The man’s emaciated form showed he had not been fed in days and his face was so stretched from long suspension by his hair that it had lost nearly all human shape.

The tormented man screams that, due to all manner of tortuous pain, he has not been able to sleep during the three days he has been hanging there. He also begs Maldoror to slit his throat and put him out of his misery. 

From hiding Maldoror observes two crazed, drunken women approach the spot where the man hangs. One of the women is very old with her uncombed hair fluttering in the breeze. The other woman is much younger but so thin her knees knock together as she walks. The ladies carry whips, paint-brushes and buckets of hot tar with them.   Continue reading →

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