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In the Deep
An autobiographical incantation of adolescent shame, religious masturbation, and the salvation embodied in the creative act. I believe that destiny is the hesitation between whorehouse writing and poetry, Evil and Good. In my body almost deadened to stupidity by its growing length, I am carrying that destiny.
—from In the Deep A hypnotic account of three days and nights plucked from the summer of 1955, In the Deep maps the origins, development, and meaning of Pierre Guyotat's creative vocation. To read it is to inhabit the life of an adolescent boy who is just discovering his calling to write, while also tormented by the questions left unanswered by his Catholic upbringing. Faced with his faith's failure, he feels the need to invent another one—one much darker and conflicted—which he believes will be his destiny. In the Deep leads us through the foundations of Guyotat's infamous “beat-sheet”: the masturbatory writing practice that caused a scandal in the 1970s when he first disclosed it, and which—although he has since disowned it—remains fundamental to any understanding of Guyotat's oeuvre. Unlike Guyotat's other works, which deploy the sustained and taxing invention of an altogether other language—and another reality beyond any notion of morality-— In the Deep is written in an almost classical language, borrowing its timeless rhythmic prose from Latin syntax, and riddled with interrogatives that are part of a French tradition harking back to Rabelais. Nonetheless, as a contemporary De Rerum Natura , at once comic and profound, this narrative explores the same issues that run through all of Guyotat's the always precarious grounding to sex, humanity, ethics, and God.
—from In the Deep A hypnotic account of three days and nights plucked from the summer of 1955, In the Deep maps the origins, development, and meaning of Pierre Guyotat's creative vocation. To read it is to inhabit the life of an adolescent boy who is just discovering his calling to write, while also tormented by the questions left unanswered by his Catholic upbringing. Faced with his faith's failure, he feels the need to invent another one—one much darker and conflicted—which he believes will be his destiny. In the Deep leads us through the foundations of Guyotat's infamous “beat-sheet”: the masturbatory writing practice that caused a scandal in the 1970s when he first disclosed it, and which—although he has since disowned it—remains fundamental to any understanding of Guyotat's oeuvre. Unlike Guyotat's other works, which deploy the sustained and taxing invention of an altogether other language—and another reality beyond any notion of morality-— In the Deep is written in an almost classical language, borrowing its timeless rhythmic prose from Latin syntax, and riddled with interrogatives that are part of a French tradition harking back to Rabelais. Nonetheless, as a contemporary De Rerum Natura , at once comic and profound, this narrative explores the same issues that run through all of Guyotat's the always precarious grounding to sex, humanity, ethics, and God.
408 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2010
7 people are currently reading
171 people want to read
About the author
Pierre Guyotat
37 books112 followersBorn in Bourg-Argental, Loire, Guyotat wrote his first novel, Sur un cheval, in 1960. He was called to Algeria in the same year. In 1962 he was found guilty of desertion and publishing forbidden material. After three months in jail he was transferred to a disciplinary centre. Back in Paris, he got involved in journalism, writing first for France Observateur, then for Nouvel Observateur. In 1964, Guyotat published his second novel Ashby.
In 1967, he published Tombeau pour cinq cent mille soldats (later released in English as Tomb for 500,000 Soldiers). Based on Guyotat's ordeal as a soldier in the Algerian War, the book earned a cult reputation and became the subject of various controversies, mostly because of its omnipresent sexual obsessions and homoeroticism.
In 1968, Guyotat became a member of the French Communist Party, which he left in 1971.
Eden, Eden, Eden came out in 1970 with a preface by Michel Leiris, Roland Barthes and Philippe Sollers (Michel Foucault's text was received late and therefore didn't appear as a preface). This book was banned from being publicized or sold to under-18s. A petition of international support was signed (notably by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Boulez, Joseph Beuys, Pierre Dac, Jean Genet, Simone de Beauvoir, Joseph Kessel, Maurice Blanchot, Max Ernst, Italo Calvino, Jacques Monod, and Nathalie Sarraute). François Mitterrand, and Georges Pompidou tried to get the ban lifted but failed. Claude Simon (who won the Nobel Prize in 1985) resigned from the jury of the Prix Médicis after the prize wasn't awarded to Eden, Eden, Eden.
In 1967, he published Tombeau pour cinq cent mille soldats (later released in English as Tomb for 500,000 Soldiers). Based on Guyotat's ordeal as a soldier in the Algerian War, the book earned a cult reputation and became the subject of various controversies, mostly because of its omnipresent sexual obsessions and homoeroticism.
In 1968, Guyotat became a member of the French Communist Party, which he left in 1971.
Eden, Eden, Eden came out in 1970 with a preface by Michel Leiris, Roland Barthes and Philippe Sollers (Michel Foucault's text was received late and therefore didn't appear as a preface). This book was banned from being publicized or sold to under-18s. A petition of international support was signed (notably by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Boulez, Joseph Beuys, Pierre Dac, Jean Genet, Simone de Beauvoir, Joseph Kessel, Maurice Blanchot, Max Ernst, Italo Calvino, Jacques Monod, and Nathalie Sarraute). François Mitterrand, and Georges Pompidou tried to get the ban lifted but failed. Claude Simon (who won the Nobel Prize in 1985) resigned from the jury of the Prix Médicis after the prize wasn't awarded to Eden, Eden, Eden.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 13, 2015
Not Guyotat's best book, but his narrative voice somehow manages to drive the story despite the most... self-ingratiating of topics (I'm not quite sure how to describe the obsessive emphasis on Guyotat's masturbation "ball of orgy", which is kind of like a sperm diaper). Everything revolves around his obsession with his self-identified perversion and his poetry which manifests from the beating of his tireless member.
However, only reading this book to the end did I finally recognize what exactly I was reading. This is a trauma narrative and Guyotat's effusive, if at times nauseating, recount of this week or two of his life is raw and truthful in the Rousseau sense. His account of the incest he witnesses by the Turkish toilets, his imaginations regarding the raped, drowned boy, his own nomadic roaming wearing nothing but his "ball of orgy" - are all both gruesome and terrifying.
I would recommend his book Coma before In The Deep, but it's still good.
However, only reading this book to the end did I finally recognize what exactly I was reading. This is a trauma narrative and Guyotat's effusive, if at times nauseating, recount of this week or two of his life is raw and truthful in the Rousseau sense. His account of the incest he witnesses by the Turkish toilets, his imaginations regarding the raped, drowned boy, his own nomadic roaming wearing nothing but his "ball of orgy" - are all both gruesome and terrifying.
I would recommend his book Coma before In The Deep, but it's still good.
May 1, 2024
is pussy/bussy just a myth???
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews