Tag Archives: Count de Lautreamont

April 11, 2015 · 5:01 pm

MALDOROR 2:6 – THE JUSTICE OFFERED BY THE LAW IS WORTHLESS

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

THE JUSTICE OFFERED BY THE LAW IS WORTHLESS

Tuileries gardens at nightThe supernatural being Maldoror, fresh off his sadistic murder of a 10 year old girl in the previous stanza, this time around turns his attentions on an 8 year old little boy. Our vile protagonist first spots the child sitting on a bench in the Tuileries Gardens. Maldoror sits down next to the boy and engages him in conversation. 

The conversation consists of the monstrous figure peppering the child with questions about his beliefs and his dreams for the future as well as his barely-developed notions of right and wrong.  Continue reading →

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April 7, 2015 · 10:58 pm

MALDOROR 2:5 – INDELIBLE BLOOD GLITTERING LIKE A DIAMOND

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

INDELIBLE BLOOD GLITTERING LIKE A DIAMOND

Maldoror 2 5Back to the insane, taciturn and blood-thirsty Maldoror we’re used to this time around. The supernatural being has been strolling through a particular narrow Paris alley as part of the ground he covers while taking his walk. A slender ten year old girl, oblivious to the danger she’s courting, takes to following him each time until he gets to the end of the alley where she and her mother live.

Growing bolder she even takes to playfully blocking his way sometimes. On occassions when Maldoror tries to walk through at a brisker pace she speeds up her own gait to keep pace with him. On occassions when he goes slowly through the alley the little girl matches that pace, too. When she tries to start a conversation with the monstrous figure by asking him what time it is he coldly replies that he has no watch. 

Initially Maldoror toys with the idea of sparing the child’s life by simply avoiding the alley from now on. Unfortunately as his disturbed mind continues mulling over the situation he slowly convinces himself the child has dark motives and might even be a youthful prostitute like the 12 year old runaways from England. Maldoror convinces himself the mother could be the child’s Madam. At the very least if the little girl lives she will eventually turn out like the rest of the human race that our vile narrator loathes so deeply.  Continue reading →

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April 4, 2015 · 5:25 pm

MALDOROR 2:4 – THE MIDNIGHT OMNIBUS

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

THE MIDNIGHT OMNIBUS

Midnight strikes in Paris. An eerie double-decker horse-drawn omnibus bursts forth from the ground and begins making its way through the nearly empty, night-darkened streets.

A few late night wayfarers regard the unusual omnibus with a shudder as it goes by. The vehicle carries the full passenger load of twenty-four but all of the travelers on the upper deck appear to be lifeless corpses leaned against each other.

The top-hatted driver looks like another corpse, and the whip he uses to urge on his horses seems more alive than he is. That whip appears to be what animates the arm of the otherwise lifeless driver, not the other way around. Even the passengers on the inner deck remain mute and still and are likewise as pale as ghosts.   Continue reading →

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April 2, 2015 · 2:31 am

MALDOROR 2:3 – AND NOW MEN FEAR YOU NO MORE

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

AND NOW MEN FEAR YOU NO MORE

Maldoror 2 3The enigmatic supernatural being Maldoror opens this stanza by reflecting that he hopes the day never dawns when he and Lohengrin unknowingly jostle each other side by side and elbow to elbow in a crowded city, then each continue on their separate paths, as oblivious to their near encounter as strangers who pass in a crowd. 

Yes, as that opening would indicate our vile protagonist now ties himself into esoteric Grail lore as he provides us once again with hints at his real nature. As always these hints contradict the previous hints he has given us about himself. 

First, however, Maldoror addresses God-as- Demiurge in an accusatory manner again, pointing out that as quickly as Maldoror used a hammer to bash in the brains of his most recent victim – a woman this time – the Creator could share with humanity the secret wisdom that he forever withholds from his creations. He further implies that God no longer converses with humanity as he did in the long distant past because now mankind has grown sophisticated enough that they would shout defiance at him and “fling all their shame back in God’s face.”  Continue reading →

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March 28, 2015 · 3:28 pm

MALDOROR 2:2 – THE LASH OF LIGHTNING ACROSS MY BROW

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

THE LASH OF LIGHTNING ACROSS MY BROW

Maldoror 2.2We now move on to the 2nd Canto of The Songs of Maldoror. For the benefit of newcomers I’ll point out that prose translations of this work are plentiful for those who don’t like poetry. I’m continuing my practice of assigning unofficial titles to each part simply to make cross-referencing easier since otherwise we have just the numbers to go by.

The first part of the 2nd Canto (or Maldoror 2:1) is simply an address to the reader from the author Isidore Ducasse, the self-designated Count de Lautreamont. I’ll pick up with the second part of the 2nd Canto, or Maldoror 2:2.  

The supernatural being Maldoror opens this part by recounting how God tried to prevent him from continuing with his bizarre, blasphemous writings. At first the deity attempted to paralyze our vile protagonist’s hands whenever he would try to put pen to paper. Maldoror overcame those efforts so God tries a more direct approach and unleashes a thunderstorm on our main character’s home.  Continue reading →

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March 25, 2015 · 12:22 am

MALDOROR 13: THE GREAT TOAD-ANGEL

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

THE GREAT TOAD-ANGEL 

Maldoror 13This stanza opens up with the supernatural being Maldoror contemplating the worms he pulls from the swollen belly of a dead dog. Slicing the worms into small bits he philosophizes on how human beings should learn a lesson about their own mortality from the state of such dead, worm-riddled bodies. 

Night is falling. In the distance he spies a horse-sized toad with white wings flying down from the sky and landing on the road he is traveling. As the two draw nearer to each other Maldoror senses something familiar about the creature and reflects that its face is “as beautiful as suicide”. He resents the being over how beautiful it looks even in its massive ugliness and the halo over the toad’s head tells him it has come from Heaven and his archrival God. 

Maldoror being Maldoror he tells the Toad-Angel how much he loathes it and berates it for the manifest unfairness and injustice of the world that God has created. He taunts the being that it is only what Maldoror perceives as the deity’s “might makes right” attitude that lets him inflict so much punishment on hapless humanity while feeling no regret.

bufo alvariusAt length the Toad-Angel reminds Maldoror that the two have met before. Once he was an ordinary bufo alvarius (a species of toad whose skin secretions are hallucinogenic and usually fatal) that Maldoror used to lick for psychotropic inspiration. Just as our vile protagonist received mind-altering visions from oral contact with the toad the eldritch chemicals in Maldoror’s mouth eventually elevated the common toad into the higher being it is now.   Continue reading →

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March 21, 2015 · 1:46 am

MALDOROR 12: THE PHILOSOPHICAL GRAVEDIGGER

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

THE PHILOSOPHICAL GRAVEDIGGER

Maldoror gravediggerThe supernatural being Maldoror, here referring to himself as “He who knows not how to weep”, found himself in Norway in his wanderings. While in the Faroe Islands he observed men who hunt for the nests of sea birds in mountain crevices hundreds of feet deep. He mused that if he was in charge of such an expedition he would have knicked the strong rope the mountain climbers use, weakening it so he could enjoy watching at least one of them plummet to a bone-shattering death far below.  

This image of a human body fatally falling into a massive hole in the earth put him in mind of freshly-dug graves. Thus inspired, Maldoror indulged in a nocturnal exploration of the area’s graveyards. In one in particular he passed a band of necrophiliacs violating beautiful corpses and stopped to chat with a nearby gravedigger.

With typical vanity Maldoror told the gravedigger to consider himself lucky to be interacting with him. He (Maldoror) fancied himself a figurative “great whale” momentarily raising his head above the waters of the Sea of Death in which he made his home, granting a mere mortal like the gravedigger the privilege of seeing him in his dread majesty.    Continue reading →

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March 17, 2015 · 1:27 am

MALDOROR 11: DISTANT SCREAMS OF MOST POIGNANT AGONY

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

DISTANT SCREAMS OF MOST POIGNANT AGONY

Maldoror 11For a change of pace we readers are not immersed entirely in a first person narration by Maldoror himself. This section begins with a mother, father and their beloved child Edward spending a quiet evening together. The parents are advanced in age and did not have Edward until very late in life after years of longing for a child of their own. 

The happy trio catch a glimpse of the supernatural being Maldoror peering in at them through a window. Though they think they succeed at shooing him away from their home little Edward cannot get the hideous man out of his mind. The family’s conversation is periodically and repeatedly punctuated by what the author describes as “distant prolonged screams of the most poignant agony.”  Continue reading →

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March 14, 2015 · 3:45 am

MALDOROR 10: A RAIN OF BLOOD FROM MY MIGHTY FORM

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

A RAIN OF BLOOD FROM MY MIGHTY FORM

krew.png (222×239) An uncharacteristically vulnerable Maldoror wonders if he is in his final hours. He defiantly and gleefully boasts that none of the world’s lying, parasitic clergy will be attending him when his end comes. If his supernaturally long life is at last over he plans to meet it cradled on the waves of the sea or atop a forbidding mountain peak. 

Our narrator further points out that no sign of either sorrow or fear will mark his hideous visage at the approach of his merciless annihilation. Against all the odds he marshals what is left of his strength and begins to float across the sky, so that he can watch man’s inhumanity to man to the very last. His eldritch form spreads like a coal-black cloud, blotting out the sun and inflicting violent eruptions of lightning on the ground below. Continue reading →

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March 12, 2015 · 1:10 am

MALDOROR 9: I SALUTE YOU, ANCIENT OCEAN

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

I SALUTE YOU, ANCIENT OCEAN  

Maldoror OCeanThe supernatural figure Maldoror reflects on his fascination with the ocean. He reminds readers that he is a monster and that his hideous face doesn’t come close to matching the ugliness of his soul. His demented reflections on the nature of the ocean follow, along with the oft-repeated line “I salute you, ancient ocean”. (“Je te salue, vieil ocean”)

Per his perverse nature Maldoror’s attempt to sing the praises of the ocean can’t help but be couched in eerie and disturbing imagery. He longs to lie beside the ocean in the tentacles of an affectionate octopus as the two kindred spirits admire the waves and the watery vastness.  Continue reading →

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