O Senhor de Bougrelon

by Jean Lorrain, Aníbal Fernandes (Translator)

Sobre "O Senhor de Bougrelon" André Breton escreveu: «A esta obra admirável não vejo nada equivalente na nossa literatura. Um destes deuses da poesia que nós, em suma, recentemente descobrimos.» A sua admiração é compreensível; porque Breton considerava a «estética decadente», com a sua «sensualidade mística e loucamente perturbadora», elemento essencial da poética surrealista. Mas O Senhor de Bougrelon também é, vendo-o menos complicado pelas suas alucinações, um transformador das realidades pungentes em nobreza, um esteta perverso e atormentado, um ser de hesitações entre a fealdade humana e o esplendor da arte; e tem um fogo interior que ele sopra para recusar o real. «A mais nobre insolência de Jean Lorrain», disse-o em 1887 Philippe Julien. Chamou-se Paul Duval em 1855, quando nasceu, e preferiu-se na literatura como Jean Lorrain. Em 1884 Jean Lorrain já era, na capital, um jornalista; um odiado jornalista, ora intelectual, ora mundano, de flechas envenenadas. A 30 de Junho de 1906 morreu; em Paris, inesperadamente, e com o cólon perfurado.

Genres: Fiction, France, Classics

112 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 1897

About the author

Jean Lorrain, born Paul Duval, was a French poet and novelist of the Symbolist school.

Lorrain was a dedicated disciple of dandyism, and openly gay. Lorrain wrote a number of collections of verse, including La forêt bleue (1883) and L'ombre ardente, (1897). He is also remembered for his decadent novels and short stories, such as Monsieur de Phocas (1901) and Histoires des masques (1900), as well as for one of his best novels, Sonyeuse, which he links to portraits exhibited by Antonio de La Gandara in 1893.

Reviews

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Imaginary pleasure, Messieurs, as only this cloudy country's atmosphere of dreams and fog can produce!"

You know, sometimes you find a book that you just fall in love with, and once again for me it's written by Jean Lorrain, of whom I've lately become a total fangirl, devotée, or whatever you want to call it. While fin-de siècle or decadent literature may not be everyone's idea of a great time, it is slowly becoming mine as I learn more about it and read more books written during this time period. Lorrain's books Nightmares Of An Ether Drinker and Monsieur De Phocas I've found to be absolutely brilliant, and now that brilliance continues in his Monsieur de Bougrelon, a stunning novel which anyone even remotely interested in this author needs to read. It is outlandish, darkly funny, definitely incorporating elements of decadence, and yet it is strangely poignant as one heads toward the end of the novel. It is a beautiful book and I am so grateful that yet another translation of Lorrain's writing has made its way into my reading orbit.

Thanks so much, people at Spurl, for making it happen.

for the full monty, you can click here to get to my reading journal.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine a more druggy, horrific Oscar Wilde and you're pretty close to Jean Lorrain.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Vertiginous and glaucous, it contained the whole Atlantic Ocean, Messieurs, and the whole Pacific, and all the Indies and America too. It was some indescribable, transparent green vision, soaked in shadows and sun, a reremembered vision that had navigated past algae, glints of light, and masts, swaying algae, fallen masts, and lost glints, the depths of the ocean, as I already said. All the sorrow, all the regret of planned departures, of aborted dreams, of unfulfilled joys, floated in that jar. Nostalgic and mysterious, it was a place of reverie, haunted by specters and debris; there were ancient shipwrecks and ghosts of dead lovers in it."

You know you're reading a late 19th-century French Decadent novella when the author spends close to an entire page describing an object in the above manner (for the curious, the object in question that brought about these joyfully overwrought rhapsodies was a preserved pineapple).

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ornate window into the world of French decadence in the wake of Huysmans. Side Real Press published the edition I read in a volume suited to its topic, oversized, very limited, and illustrated by period fashion artist Drian in a series of striking color images; reading the book is a sensual pleasure the artist might well have approved. Brian Stableford, who has made a career out of translations of nearly lost works of imagination and ennui, provides the translation. The stories themselves, sketches really, are atmospheric and evocative of their era. Really, the only thing the book lacks is an accompanying glass of absinthe approximately the color of the binding.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A charming and wonderfully written novella that explores nostalgia and the stasis of ennui, led by one of the most bemusing characters I've yet to come across in literature.

[Olicorta · Rating 3 out of 5]

2eme partie de soirée de Bruges la Morte (où il sera question d’un caniche réincarné, de Hollandais en forme de courges et de Hollandaises musquées comme des rosbeef, d’un ananas fascinant, d’une Espagnole aux seins tatoués qui s’incruste des rubis dans le cou en souvenir de brigands mexicains, et d’admirer Barbey d’Aurevilly)

[Steven Felicelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://themillions.com/2017/08/behin...

[Francesca Penchant · Rating 5 out of 5]

“To have had the happiness of loving a place, and there to have known the joy of living and letting live; to have had such vertigo from a feeling that you could pass your shivers to others, and then dare to return, to hope to revive the dead without thinking for a minute that the irrevocable hour turns everything that we live into dust and nothingness, that the past is a mass grave, and that, outside of our heart, everything down here is a sepulcher!”

This novella is a great find: a perfect example of French Decadent prose. Make sure to read the afterword by translator Eva Richter, whose love and knowledge of Decadent literature revives the heart.

[Rob Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memorably divine decadence.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A startling mixture of memory and imagination. Monsieur de Bougrelon is nostalgia in its most interesting form: as a character. He leads these two "protagonists" out of a rainy stew of ennui through a museum of memories, recollections, stories, all decayed and softened by the mists of time.

Looking back through it all, longing for a past that can never be made real ever again, is a certain kind of beautiful melancholy. Reading this was both luxurious and terrifying. It made me think about my own nostalgia and that of my generation. Can it ever be made real again? Was it ever all that real to begin with? Check back with me in twenty years when I'll be the fabulous, disheveled tour guide of my own misty streets. ("This was OUR movie theater! These were OUR iPhones, messieurs. Feel, can you not, the vibrating throb of bygone texts?").

[brahski microsoft · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this on my shift at work. I went into it with wildly different expectations, which made me very hard on the first 30 or so pages. Then I went ahead and read Eva Richter's afterward, because I was clearly not operating on Monsieur de Bougrelon's level (and this was the only book I'd brought to read). It was a great move because I did end up liking this a whole lot more. Might love it on a second read, so we'll see if I get around to that.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

It reminded me, pleasantly, of Huysmans, but drained of all mysticism and I much prefer this translation to other Lorrain translations I have read. It is too short by far, but any more would have been too much.

[Matthew Kinlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am an idea in an era that has no more of them.

[Andrew De Sousa · Rating 4 out of 5]

8.5/10

[Jess Linde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought on a whim because of the cover, pretty fun!

[Abbymerrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

charming / macabre lil curio i found in the swap meet area of my apartment, randomly. seems appropriate place to encounter - google the author, sounds like a dandy and a raconteur!