What do you think?
Rate this book
Bayamus & Cardinal Pölätüo
Fiction. Two riotous novels by the Polish-born British writer Stefan Themerson (1910-1988), who with his wife Franciszka ran the Gaberbocchus Press in London. Gaberbocchus published both Kurt Schwitters and Bertrand Russselland these extremes unite in Themerson's highly individual brand of philosophical Dadaism. BAYAMUS recounts the adventures of a self-proclaimed mutant with three legs (one is attached to a roller skate) and his efforts to propagate a new species; it includes an instructive visit to the "Theatre of Semantic Poetry," where old rhymes mutate into new truths. CARDINAL POLATUO is the biography of Guillaume Apollinaire's anonymous father, who turns out to be an ecclesiastic with a murderous interest in modernist poetry, a faith based on science, and a dreamlife so frankly obscene that only a dictionary of Freudian symbols can explain its innocence.
- GenresFiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
2 people are currently reading
149 people want to read
About the author
Stefan Themerson
51 books34 followersStefan Themerson was a Polish, later British poet, novelist, film-maker, composer and philosopher.
Stefan Themerson was born in Plock (Poland) in 1910, the son of a doctor. He studied physics at the University of Warsaw and architecture at the Warsaw Polytechnic. In his twenties, Stefan became well-known in Poland as an author of children’s books.
Stefan got married in 1931 to Franciszka. Between 1931 and 1937, the Themersons made several experimental films and Stefan invented new techniques for photograms. 'Adventures of a Good Citizen' (1937) was the fifth and the last of their pre-war films and the only one that has survived.
The Themersons played a major role in the history of independent, experimental and pre-war cinema in Poland, their significance for the development of the Polish avant-garde film is enormous.
The Themersons moved to Paris in 1937, to be at the heart of the art world. Two days after the start of the Second World War Stefan and Franciszka volunteered for the Polish army. In 1940 Franciszka escaped by moving to London. Stefan served in the Polish army in France, ending up in a Polish Red Cross hostel in Voiron, 1940-42.
At this time Stefan wrote his first novel, Professor Mmaa’s Lecture. After two years of separation Stefan and Franciszka were reunited in London in 1942. They made two more films, 1942-44.
In 1948 the Themersons founded a publishing house: the Gaberbocchus Press. In 31 years they published over sixty titles, including works by Alfred Jarry, Kurt Schwitters and Bertrand Russell.
In 1953 Stefan’s Professor Mmaa’s Lecture was first published. It is still a classic in Poland.
Through the 60s and 70s, Stefan’s books were published by Gaberbocchus Press, for example philosophical novels, children’s books, poetry, essays and a libretto and music for an opera.
His books have been translated in eight languages.
He invented 'semantic poetry' which first appeared in his novel Bayamus (1949). It is a sort of poetry that prefers the matter-of-fact meanings of words in dictionary definitions to the romantic euphemism of poetic conventions.
Ethics, language, freedom, human dignity and the importance of good manners are the topics Stefan wrote about most.
His novels range from elaborate allegories to satirical thrillers. The humanitarian philosophy that underpins them all was crystallised in The Chair of Decency, a talk given as the Huizinga lecture in Leyden in 1981. It contrasted the innate sense of good with which man is born, with the impassioned pursuit of belief and causes by which he is subsequently deluded.
Stefan Themerson was born in Plock (Poland) in 1910, the son of a doctor. He studied physics at the University of Warsaw and architecture at the Warsaw Polytechnic. In his twenties, Stefan became well-known in Poland as an author of children’s books.
Stefan got married in 1931 to Franciszka. Between 1931 and 1937, the Themersons made several experimental films and Stefan invented new techniques for photograms. 'Adventures of a Good Citizen' (1937) was the fifth and the last of their pre-war films and the only one that has survived.
The Themersons played a major role in the history of independent, experimental and pre-war cinema in Poland, their significance for the development of the Polish avant-garde film is enormous.
The Themersons moved to Paris in 1937, to be at the heart of the art world. Two days after the start of the Second World War Stefan and Franciszka volunteered for the Polish army. In 1940 Franciszka escaped by moving to London. Stefan served in the Polish army in France, ending up in a Polish Red Cross hostel in Voiron, 1940-42.
At this time Stefan wrote his first novel, Professor Mmaa’s Lecture. After two years of separation Stefan and Franciszka were reunited in London in 1942. They made two more films, 1942-44.
In 1948 the Themersons founded a publishing house: the Gaberbocchus Press. In 31 years they published over sixty titles, including works by Alfred Jarry, Kurt Schwitters and Bertrand Russell.
In 1953 Stefan’s Professor Mmaa’s Lecture was first published. It is still a classic in Poland.
Through the 60s and 70s, Stefan’s books were published by Gaberbocchus Press, for example philosophical novels, children’s books, poetry, essays and a libretto and music for an opera.
His books have been translated in eight languages.
He invented 'semantic poetry' which first appeared in his novel Bayamus (1949). It is a sort of poetry that prefers the matter-of-fact meanings of words in dictionary definitions to the romantic euphemism of poetic conventions.
Ethics, language, freedom, human dignity and the importance of good manners are the topics Stefan wrote about most.
His novels range from elaborate allegories to satirical thrillers. The humanitarian philosophy that underpins them all was crystallised in The Chair of Decency, a talk given as the Huizinga lecture in Leyden in 1981. It contrasted the innate sense of good with which man is born, with the impassioned pursuit of belief and causes by which he is subsequently deluded.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 31, 2014
Bayamus is great, but Cardinal is wonderful - a hilarious run through the philosophical conflicts between Catholicism and Logical Positivism, including a great scene with a schoolboy Ayer (with ink-stains on his short trousers), Russell and the Cardinal. Wholeheartedly recommended for anyone with even a passing interest in such things.
From Thermerson's letters
http://library.indstate.edu/about/uni... (which includes some great correspondence with Bertrand Russell)
Now, when Li Po says "moon" and "far away", he is referring to experiences known to him and to his contemporary readers. Our knowledge of moon and our notion of far away certainly differ from theirs. Supposing we want to undergo an experience that would be as similar as possible to what Li Po's listeners went through. What should we do? Pretend that we are taking the words moon and far away as we imagine they were taken by Li Po's listeners? Yes and no. Yes, - because it would be the same words. No, - because our knowledge, experience, feelings of moon and far away certainly differ from theirs. And thus, from a certain (and very essential) point of view, our semantic translation is more the same thing as his original than his original itself. Let's be clear: what I mean is: our semantic translation, Europe 1950 A.D. as acting upon the modern reader, Europe 1950 A.D. is more the same thing as his original, China rang Dynasty, in relation to his reader, China rang Dynasty, than his original, China rang Dynasty as acting upon the modern reader, Europe 1950 A.D. Now, - don't think that I am not utterly serious. Most positively I am. But, also, please, don't think that I've lost my sense of humour. There is something funny about the whole business. You see it. And I see it. What is it?
Let's try an allegory. Supposing somebody wants to go far away from the place he's living in; and they say to him: the best method of going far away from the place one is living in is to go straight forward from the place one is living in and to keep going until one is far away from the place one was living in. And he decides to act according to the prescription, and goes straight forward from the place, further and further away, until he rounds the earth and comes back from the opposite direction to the very place he left. The process has its funny side. For those who know so much of cosmology to remember that the earth is a globe, it became funny as soon as he had gone 1800 and didn't stop going forward. The observing how his very desire to go still farther away brings him back to the place of departure, the very observing of that makes our laughing (or at least smiling) apparatus start working. But all that doesn't mean that his travelling has been in vain. To have been in a place, and to come back to a place, are not the same thing. He is not the same, but experience-richer, and so the place isn't any more the same, because now it contains at least one new person, - him, himself.
Supposing somebody wants to go in search of the meaning of things. And they say unto him: the first and most important thing to do is to define as unambiguously as possible the elements of speech you are going to use. So he begins to define the words; - and then he goes on to define the words he had been using in his definition, - and then he tries to define the words he had had been using in defining the words he had been using in his definition; - and he finds some words that are not completely definable by other words, but appear again and again in further trials of defining; - and he finds himself surrounded by linguistic vicious circles whirling around him; - and then it dawns on him that even if he were able, with Bertrand Russell and others, to reduce the whole vocabulary to ostensive words and operatives - (the words 'definable' by showing a thing or demonstrating an action) the ghost of old Berkeley would suddenly appear and ask impertinent questions whether the cat whom we've just seen in the doorway and whom we'll see in a moment through our window - exists or doesn't exist when he walks on the other side of the wall. And our already linguistically turning mind will begin to revolve in those other solipsistic vicious circles, describing vicious epicycloids; - only to find that about the whole process - called: language - you cannot talk in the same language, but you have to invent especially for the purpose a language of a higher degree; and to talk about that higher degree language you have to invent a language of a still higher degree; and so on, steps upon steps; - and so we find ourselves standing in the middle of a Ladder, vicious circles and epicycloids below our feet, and an 'infinity' of meta-languages (Wittgenstein) above our poor tormented mind-containers. The process has its 'funny' side. For those who know so much of the cosmology of language as to remember about the vicious circles, it begins to show its funny side as soon as the printed line defining a word becomes so long that the reader's eye cannot any more take it in one glance. The observing how our hypothetical traveller's very desire to get deeper into meaning makes him turn in vicious circles, - the very observing of that makes our laughing (or at least smiling) apparatus start working. But it does not follow that his travelling was in vain. A word taken out of any 'private vocabulary' (and any national-, or class-, or slang-vocabulary is, in that sense, 'private', as it is the private property of a particular group), - well, such a word, and the same word but having undergone a trial of the vicious circle variety, are not the same thing any longer.
Most of the words used in poetic writings nowadays consist of overtones - the fundamental tone, (exact meaning) being (as apparently so obvious, evident) disregarded or lost, - gone. We very seldom think about the fundamental tone (exact meaning), and if we do, we very often take it not as it may be defined, but by reconstructing it from the harmonics we hear (associations). It reminds me of the modern telephone. I learn that 'the main frequencies' of both male and female voices lie below its range, so that the telephone transmits very little of the main tones of a conversation. It transmits chiefly harmonics, and out of these the ear drum of the listener reconstructs the main tones as difference tones, which are then transmitted to our brains in considerable strength...
And more, I put it that when Saint Francis was saying 'sister' - what he meant was '... female and having the same parents as we have.' - and not any of the sentimental and/or romantic stuff forced upon us by some 19th century conceptions. And when he said 'death' he was talking about what our dictionaries may call 'cessation of the functions of the body as an organised whole', he was talking about a phenomenon, a physical event, a natural law, he was talking about 'cessation of the functions of the bodies many trillions of cells', he knew clearly and precisely what he was talking about (and so did Rabelais when shamelessly and semantically enumerating by hundreds, series of adjectives or verbs or nouns).
Li Po's moon, you can take it out of his poem and put it into the Rabelais, and (though the sentences containing it will express different statements) the word itself will refer to the same thing. And you can take Rabelais' moon and put where Saint Francis says 'moon'. It will refer to the same thing. And you can take Saint Francis' sun and exchange it with Copernicus' sun ('where would God Almighty put His most noble candle. if not in the centre of the Universe?' - quoting from memory - ) - and they will still refer to the same thing. And when Saint Francis said that, his listener responded to the fundamental tone (exact meaning), harmonics coming later with reflection. It is not so today. When a modern poet uses the word, we think that we ought to respond not to the fundamental tone (which is supposed to be not poetic enough) (and a modern poet would not like us to do that) but to the overtones. We think the 'poetic meaning' lies in the overtones, while the fundamental tone is prosaic, trivial, and belongs to text books. And as we don't know which overtones to take to begin with, we turn aside the volume of poetry and snatch from the bookshelves a mystery-detective story, where at least everything is clear and evidential. And this seems to me to be a very healthy reaction, because the overtones we deal with are more often than ever second hand ones: 1. we have inherited from the previous generations words together with their harmonics, but 2. the words have changed their meaning, while 3. the harmonics persist; divorced from their fundamental tone, they float in the air (which phenomenon is called: being poetic). Some poets try to introduce new (modern) sets of harmonics, fundamental tone is still banned from poetry. Semantic poetry tries to cut off the inherited overtone, it tries to restate the fundamental problems in modern terms, it tries to do that by accepting fundamental tones in the form of an exact and commonly used definition, and it waits to see what kind of new overtones will follow. At the beginning 'dictionary method' gives the same fascination as was given by some mechanical devices, photo camera, lithographic stone, etc. However, once this stage is over, it becomes a true poetic medium. It builds new (and sometimes complicated) poetic pictures. However, to build them it uses not the luxurious elements invented by the poetic imagination of today or yesterday; but the commonplace elements discovered, or rediscovered, in the World (World = Language) by means of one of the accepted and actually used dictionaries.
Let's suppose that the word 'skeleton' has the following association-overtones: a), b), c), d). (They probably are different for different people). If the reader finds the word 'skeleton' in a prose text, he attaches the main importance to the fundamental tone (exact meaning) - to the thing called 'skeleton" If he finds the word in a verse, he seems to believe that the significance lies in a), b), c), and d).
Now, let's suppose that the association-overtones of the word 'bony framework' is p), of 'human body' q), of soft tissue' v), of decay' z), of 'remove' y). If now, instead of saying 'skeleton' I say 'the bony framework of a human body from which all the soft tissues have decayed or had been removed' (pp 11 and 12) I replace a), b), c), d) (familiar to the reader) by p), q), v), z), y) (forgotten by the reader) by means of which I rediscover for him this particular piece of reality called 'skeleton'. Instead of attracting his attention by my attaching to the skeleton some adjectives (white, small, big, terrifying, etc.) – which would individualise the skeleton (make it a particular individual, 'this one and not the other' of its class), I let it remain a universal, anonymous representative of its class, and I try to attract the reader's attention to it not by colouring the skeleton with some added qualifiers, but by finding the qualifiers in the thing itself, (bony structure, soft tissue, decayed, etc.), by enumerating the half-forgotten characteristics that make it a representative of its class, and thus offering the reader a new set of overtones - p), q), v), z), y). N.B. Thus a semantically developed description becomes a description of a part of the Universe, not merely of some of my impressions.
Am in bed with a slight fever, so you must forgive this too long and too incoherent letter.
From Thermerson's letters
http://library.indstate.edu/about/uni... (which includes some great correspondence with Bertrand Russell)
Now, when Li Po says "moon" and "far away", he is referring to experiences known to him and to his contemporary readers. Our knowledge of moon and our notion of far away certainly differ from theirs. Supposing we want to undergo an experience that would be as similar as possible to what Li Po's listeners went through. What should we do? Pretend that we are taking the words moon and far away as we imagine they were taken by Li Po's listeners? Yes and no. Yes, - because it would be the same words. No, - because our knowledge, experience, feelings of moon and far away certainly differ from theirs. And thus, from a certain (and very essential) point of view, our semantic translation is more the same thing as his original than his original itself. Let's be clear: what I mean is: our semantic translation, Europe 1950 A.D. as acting upon the modern reader, Europe 1950 A.D. is more the same thing as his original, China rang Dynasty, in relation to his reader, China rang Dynasty, than his original, China rang Dynasty as acting upon the modern reader, Europe 1950 A.D. Now, - don't think that I am not utterly serious. Most positively I am. But, also, please, don't think that I've lost my sense of humour. There is something funny about the whole business. You see it. And I see it. What is it?
Let's try an allegory. Supposing somebody wants to go far away from the place he's living in; and they say to him: the best method of going far away from the place one is living in is to go straight forward from the place one is living in and to keep going until one is far away from the place one was living in. And he decides to act according to the prescription, and goes straight forward from the place, further and further away, until he rounds the earth and comes back from the opposite direction to the very place he left. The process has its funny side. For those who know so much of cosmology to remember that the earth is a globe, it became funny as soon as he had gone 1800 and didn't stop going forward. The observing how his very desire to go still farther away brings him back to the place of departure, the very observing of that makes our laughing (or at least smiling) apparatus start working. But all that doesn't mean that his travelling has been in vain. To have been in a place, and to come back to a place, are not the same thing. He is not the same, but experience-richer, and so the place isn't any more the same, because now it contains at least one new person, - him, himself.
Supposing somebody wants to go in search of the meaning of things. And they say unto him: the first and most important thing to do is to define as unambiguously as possible the elements of speech you are going to use. So he begins to define the words; - and then he goes on to define the words he had been using in his definition, - and then he tries to define the words he had had been using in defining the words he had been using in his definition; - and he finds some words that are not completely definable by other words, but appear again and again in further trials of defining; - and he finds himself surrounded by linguistic vicious circles whirling around him; - and then it dawns on him that even if he were able, with Bertrand Russell and others, to reduce the whole vocabulary to ostensive words and operatives - (the words 'definable' by showing a thing or demonstrating an action) the ghost of old Berkeley would suddenly appear and ask impertinent questions whether the cat whom we've just seen in the doorway and whom we'll see in a moment through our window - exists or doesn't exist when he walks on the other side of the wall. And our already linguistically turning mind will begin to revolve in those other solipsistic vicious circles, describing vicious epicycloids; - only to find that about the whole process - called: language - you cannot talk in the same language, but you have to invent especially for the purpose a language of a higher degree; and to talk about that higher degree language you have to invent a language of a still higher degree; and so on, steps upon steps; - and so we find ourselves standing in the middle of a Ladder, vicious circles and epicycloids below our feet, and an 'infinity' of meta-languages (Wittgenstein) above our poor tormented mind-containers. The process has its 'funny' side. For those who know so much of the cosmology of language as to remember about the vicious circles, it begins to show its funny side as soon as the printed line defining a word becomes so long that the reader's eye cannot any more take it in one glance. The observing how our hypothetical traveller's very desire to get deeper into meaning makes him turn in vicious circles, - the very observing of that makes our laughing (or at least smiling) apparatus start working. But it does not follow that his travelling was in vain. A word taken out of any 'private vocabulary' (and any national-, or class-, or slang-vocabulary is, in that sense, 'private', as it is the private property of a particular group), - well, such a word, and the same word but having undergone a trial of the vicious circle variety, are not the same thing any longer.
Most of the words used in poetic writings nowadays consist of overtones - the fundamental tone, (exact meaning) being (as apparently so obvious, evident) disregarded or lost, - gone. We very seldom think about the fundamental tone (exact meaning), and if we do, we very often take it not as it may be defined, but by reconstructing it from the harmonics we hear (associations). It reminds me of the modern telephone. I learn that 'the main frequencies' of both male and female voices lie below its range, so that the telephone transmits very little of the main tones of a conversation. It transmits chiefly harmonics, and out of these the ear drum of the listener reconstructs the main tones as difference tones, which are then transmitted to our brains in considerable strength...
And more, I put it that when Saint Francis was saying 'sister' - what he meant was '... female and having the same parents as we have.' - and not any of the sentimental and/or romantic stuff forced upon us by some 19th century conceptions. And when he said 'death' he was talking about what our dictionaries may call 'cessation of the functions of the body as an organised whole', he was talking about a phenomenon, a physical event, a natural law, he was talking about 'cessation of the functions of the bodies many trillions of cells', he knew clearly and precisely what he was talking about (and so did Rabelais when shamelessly and semantically enumerating by hundreds, series of adjectives or verbs or nouns).
Li Po's moon, you can take it out of his poem and put it into the Rabelais, and (though the sentences containing it will express different statements) the word itself will refer to the same thing. And you can take Rabelais' moon and put where Saint Francis says 'moon'. It will refer to the same thing. And you can take Saint Francis' sun and exchange it with Copernicus' sun ('where would God Almighty put His most noble candle. if not in the centre of the Universe?' - quoting from memory - ) - and they will still refer to the same thing. And when Saint Francis said that, his listener responded to the fundamental tone (exact meaning), harmonics coming later with reflection. It is not so today. When a modern poet uses the word, we think that we ought to respond not to the fundamental tone (which is supposed to be not poetic enough) (and a modern poet would not like us to do that) but to the overtones. We think the 'poetic meaning' lies in the overtones, while the fundamental tone is prosaic, trivial, and belongs to text books. And as we don't know which overtones to take to begin with, we turn aside the volume of poetry and snatch from the bookshelves a mystery-detective story, where at least everything is clear and evidential. And this seems to me to be a very healthy reaction, because the overtones we deal with are more often than ever second hand ones: 1. we have inherited from the previous generations words together with their harmonics, but 2. the words have changed their meaning, while 3. the harmonics persist; divorced from their fundamental tone, they float in the air (which phenomenon is called: being poetic). Some poets try to introduce new (modern) sets of harmonics, fundamental tone is still banned from poetry. Semantic poetry tries to cut off the inherited overtone, it tries to restate the fundamental problems in modern terms, it tries to do that by accepting fundamental tones in the form of an exact and commonly used definition, and it waits to see what kind of new overtones will follow. At the beginning 'dictionary method' gives the same fascination as was given by some mechanical devices, photo camera, lithographic stone, etc. However, once this stage is over, it becomes a true poetic medium. It builds new (and sometimes complicated) poetic pictures. However, to build them it uses not the luxurious elements invented by the poetic imagination of today or yesterday; but the commonplace elements discovered, or rediscovered, in the World (World = Language) by means of one of the accepted and actually used dictionaries.
Let's suppose that the word 'skeleton' has the following association-overtones: a), b), c), d). (They probably are different for different people). If the reader finds the word 'skeleton' in a prose text, he attaches the main importance to the fundamental tone (exact meaning) - to the thing called 'skeleton" If he finds the word in a verse, he seems to believe that the significance lies in a), b), c), and d).
Now, let's suppose that the association-overtones of the word 'bony framework' is p), of 'human body' q), of soft tissue' v), of decay' z), of 'remove' y). If now, instead of saying 'skeleton' I say 'the bony framework of a human body from which all the soft tissues have decayed or had been removed' (pp 11 and 12) I replace a), b), c), d) (familiar to the reader) by p), q), v), z), y) (forgotten by the reader) by means of which I rediscover for him this particular piece of reality called 'skeleton'. Instead of attracting his attention by my attaching to the skeleton some adjectives (white, small, big, terrifying, etc.) – which would individualise the skeleton (make it a particular individual, 'this one and not the other' of its class), I let it remain a universal, anonymous representative of its class, and I try to attract the reader's attention to it not by colouring the skeleton with some added qualifiers, but by finding the qualifiers in the thing itself, (bony structure, soft tissue, decayed, etc.), by enumerating the half-forgotten characteristics that make it a representative of its class, and thus offering the reader a new set of overtones - p), q), v), z), y). N.B. Thus a semantically developed description becomes a description of a part of the Universe, not merely of some of my impressions.
Am in bed with a slight fever, so you must forgive this too long and too incoherent letter.
March 16, 2017
When I was in my late teens/early 20s, I loved Dada & Surrealism.
No no: LOVED it. Defined myself by it, in many ways. Eagerly sought all I could find in art, writing, sound: name it. I took classes on it in university and spun my papers that direction whenever possible. Would've given my limbs to hang out in 1916 Zurich. The random and the weird was my home territory, a few manifestos the map.
And then like I kinda grew up idk.
That's it, right? Like we SO DEEPLY identify with something -- love it profoundly -- and then, little by little, it just sort of slips from our hearts. Without fanfare, without noticing, really, and then one day: oh, yeah, I used to love Dada.
Anyway: I bought this book back in 2009, when I was nearing the end of my love affair with weird-for-the-sake-of-weird. Finally decided to read it -- and probably should have done so years ago. These books are like territory that used to feel like home (and still does, in some ways), but increasingly doesn't. I preferred Bayamus, which was fucked up and surreal but at least had a bit of a narrative to latch on -- and was, in the end, seriously effective. Cardinal just seemed like that typical fuckuppery: how many weird graphic things/literary forms can I use and still sort of call this a book? I skimmed most of it, not gonna lie, but trust: I wasn't missing anything essential.
I still appreciate the point of Dada and Surrealism, and I still count it strongly among my influences -- but I need handholds. Intentional weird I can do -- random weird, not so much, these days. Meaning is starting to matter.
But then, maybe I just don't get it anymore ----- so I will keep bringing myself back to these kinds of books, from time to time, to remind myself of the tradition in which most of my current favourite authors play. That, if nothing else, is meaningful.
No no: LOVED it. Defined myself by it, in many ways. Eagerly sought all I could find in art, writing, sound: name it. I took classes on it in university and spun my papers that direction whenever possible. Would've given my limbs to hang out in 1916 Zurich. The random and the weird was my home territory, a few manifestos the map.
And then like I kinda grew up idk.
That's it, right? Like we SO DEEPLY identify with something -- love it profoundly -- and then, little by little, it just sort of slips from our hearts. Without fanfare, without noticing, really, and then one day: oh, yeah, I used to love Dada.
Anyway: I bought this book back in 2009, when I was nearing the end of my love affair with weird-for-the-sake-of-weird. Finally decided to read it -- and probably should have done so years ago. These books are like territory that used to feel like home (and still does, in some ways), but increasingly doesn't. I preferred Bayamus, which was fucked up and surreal but at least had a bit of a narrative to latch on -- and was, in the end, seriously effective. Cardinal just seemed like that typical fuckuppery: how many weird graphic things/literary forms can I use and still sort of call this a book? I skimmed most of it, not gonna lie, but trust: I wasn't missing anything essential.
I still appreciate the point of Dada and Surrealism, and I still count it strongly among my influences -- but I need handholds. Intentional weird I can do -- random weird, not so much, these days. Meaning is starting to matter.
But then, maybe I just don't get it anymore ----- so I will keep bringing myself back to these kinds of books, from time to time, to remind myself of the tradition in which most of my current favourite authors play. That, if nothing else, is meaningful.
December 6, 2017
Both of these novellas were wacky metafiction, oftimes amusing, cryptic, and self-involved to the point where I didn't get anything. Bayamus was greater of the two. I do like a good freak show.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews