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Plastic Sense
In 1971, Irving Weiss introduced in English one of the most original voices in Martinique and in Francophone literature in general. The aphorisms of de Chazal were biting, cynical, endearing, and brilliantly analytical visions of the body as metaphor; and the book soon acquired cult status, republished in later years by Sun Press. The original English edition, however, contained only a fraction of de Chazal's actual manuscript with its hundreds of aphorisms.
144 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1948
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About the author
Malcolm de Chazal
29 books15 followersMalcolm de Chazal was a Mauritian writer, painter, and visionary, known especially for his Sens-Plastique, a work consisting of several thousand aphorisms and pensées.
French writers such as André Breton and Jean Paulhan praised de Chazal's work.
French writers such as André Breton and Jean Paulhan praised de Chazal's work.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 8, 2014
Aphorisms, observations, and mini essays by a Mauritian poet and man of letters (and lovely "primitive" painter) whose favorite subjects are the Sun and flowers and faces and sex and light and wind and sounds.
From what I can tell Malcolm de Chazal was a Christian mystic (of the eccentric sort) and genteel oddball who settled on the aphorism as the mode of expression perfectly suited to his sensibility. And what a strange sensibility it was. One can open this small soft brick of a book at random and be struck immediately by his strangeness:
This could sound kind of odd for odd's sake (which is often ok by me), or it could be the fruit of long contemplation, or even a combination of both. It's hard to tell. But opening this book at random, and reading one then another and another, the reader is bound to realize he/she is in the presence of a singular mind, a mind that sees shapes and colors and textures and combinations of all these that few people see and even fewer put into words.
While living in the same world we all live in it's as if he was able to see another world in it.
* * * * *
Note: The copy I own is not the copy listed here, as mine has almost 800 pages and is nearly as thick as it is tall. It also has a profile shot of the man, not a frontal.
From what I can tell Malcolm de Chazal was a Christian mystic (of the eccentric sort) and genteel oddball who settled on the aphorism as the mode of expression perfectly suited to his sensibility. And what a strange sensibility it was. One can open this small soft brick of a book at random and be struck immediately by his strangeness:
The further back we go towards primitive man, the more the apex of the mouth and the centers of the eyes form an isosceles triangle. Civilization tends to elongate the face and draw the eyes closer together so that more and more profiles can be seen fitting into the full face. The human face is evolving into a bird profile.
This could sound kind of odd for odd's sake (which is often ok by me), or it could be the fruit of long contemplation, or even a combination of both. It's hard to tell. But opening this book at random, and reading one then another and another, the reader is bound to realize he/she is in the presence of a singular mind, a mind that sees shapes and colors and textures and combinations of all these that few people see and even fewer put into words.
While living in the same world we all live in it's as if he was able to see another world in it.
Light shining on a string of water droplets along a bamboo stalk transforms it into a flute.
Sexual pleasure is two living bodies hugging a corpse. The corpse is the body of time itself momentarily assassinated to become consubstantial with the sense of touch.
* * * * *
Note: The copy I own is not the copy listed here, as mine has almost 800 pages and is nearly as thick as it is tall. It also has a profile shot of the man, not a frontal.
December 1, 2024
Sens-Plastique is one of the weirdest great books and the greatest weird books. It’s easily parodyable, and if you memorize the sentence “a woman’s hips are like yellow flowers, because yellow travels faster through the eye than other colors” you’ve read about 60% off the book. But such a statement, while true, fails to convey what makes this book special, let alone great. Chazal, like the best mystics, is certain he knows things that perhaps no human has ever known, but he is also capable of conjuring up passages that are simply close observations of nature—
“A fearful toad swims as it runs, like a fish out of water that runs as it swims.”
—close observations of sensual experiences—
“The tip of the tongue tastes the food after serving the tongue itself, like a lackey who waits for his master to eat first.”
—conventional (larochefoucauldean?) aphorisms—
“Natures too much alike repel each other. A house full of saints would be an insane asylum.”
—surprisingly modern turns of thought—
“All in all, the laws represent a minority plot against the best interests of the majority, which is why there are always more policemen patrolling the other side of the railroad tracks than the center of town.”
—“shocking” Bataille-like weirdnesses—
“Like the body relieving itself by excretion, death is the bowel movement of the soul evacuating the body by intense internal pressure on the spiritual anus.”
—and something like regular philosophizing, which passages are probably too long to quote, but take as an aperitif:
“What is man, who dies without ever having entertained any thoughts of his own? We still mull over Plato two thousand years after his own death, long after he might have renounced his own ideas had he lived only a few years longer. So it goes, our heads bulging with the ideas of dead minds wiser than we could ever be, we handing them down to be crammed into the brains of more helpless others. Thousands of years of humans hoisting the water of knowledge out of nearby wells in a bucket we drink from before passing it along to others. And the children get to drink the last stale drops, themselves too small and weak to haul fresh dips out of the well themselves…”
Perhaps too many hips, but still a wonderful lens into several new worlds, which is, after all, what a book should be.
“A fearful toad swims as it runs, like a fish out of water that runs as it swims.”
—close observations of sensual experiences—
“The tip of the tongue tastes the food after serving the tongue itself, like a lackey who waits for his master to eat first.”
—conventional (larochefoucauldean?) aphorisms—
“Natures too much alike repel each other. A house full of saints would be an insane asylum.”
—surprisingly modern turns of thought—
“All in all, the laws represent a minority plot against the best interests of the majority, which is why there are always more policemen patrolling the other side of the railroad tracks than the center of town.”
—“shocking” Bataille-like weirdnesses—
“Like the body relieving itself by excretion, death is the bowel movement of the soul evacuating the body by intense internal pressure on the spiritual anus.”
—and something like regular philosophizing, which passages are probably too long to quote, but take as an aperitif:
“What is man, who dies without ever having entertained any thoughts of his own? We still mull over Plato two thousand years after his own death, long after he might have renounced his own ideas had he lived only a few years longer. So it goes, our heads bulging with the ideas of dead minds wiser than we could ever be, we handing them down to be crammed into the brains of more helpless others. Thousands of years of humans hoisting the water of knowledge out of nearby wells in a bucket we drink from before passing it along to others. And the children get to drink the last stale drops, themselves too small and weak to haul fresh dips out of the well themselves…”
Perhaps too many hips, but still a wonderful lens into several new worlds, which is, after all, what a book should be.
January 18, 2011
This isn't a book I'll ever stop reading, even though I've gone cover to cover. It's too wonderful, too immense. Best to keep it near, on a desk, a bedside table, maybe in the kitchen for a quick consideration when making a roux: anywhere it could be picked for a few moments for a few thoughts on color, or love, hunger, thirst, distraction, desire, the nature of sight. This edition from Green Integer is beautiful in its size as well, compact yet thick. It's nice in the hands.
December 9, 2010
Absolutely gold-mine deep book of aphorisms from the graces of sexuality through minute particulars of botany and sensuality to divine realities in a fine poetic sensibility that make the entire collection (and you can pick it up and read only a few at a time, as W.H. Auden suggests) a bedside or elbow-side companion into thinking mystically without mysticism and spiritually in a most imagistic and real way.
December 27, 2023
Yeah, five stars. It's magnificent! This unique collection (is it) is superreal, erotic, funny, mesmerizing. I gave this to a friend and they said they had lent it to their sister before reading it thoroughly. She returned it commenting on how "graphic" it is, ha ha. It does possess an eroticism that might surprise American or prudish readers. This is a wonderful book of poems, musings and equations of thought that remains very modern.
June 6, 2024
I’m finished with this book, for now, but that doesn’t mean I read the whole thing. This book is a fascinating piece of non- fiction, part science, part art, part fact, part opinion, and it’s often difficult to tell which is which. Because the book consists of short observations, in no particular order, it’s like listening to an eccentric uncle who philosophizes at the dinner table about science and art, but never seems to make a point. Fascinating on one level, and frustrating on others, maybe it’s something I’ll return to, but for now, I have other things to read.
June 4, 2025
Even flipping around, getting through this tome of aphorisms, natural observations and off-kilter mystic-science analects was something of a chore. Luckily, I don't mind chores. Or disposable ideas, the ebb and flow of sense. And I have a deep love the fragment genre in general. When a book could be 2 stars--sometimes even feeling like a 1--as well as 5, it's 5 every time.
March 15, 2022
An ambitious collection of aphorism, axioms, and allegories. Like more less cynical and floral Devils Dictionary
October 10, 2024
A world-reinventing goldmine of language. Malcolm de Chazal was a mysterious Mauritian writer and painter whose primary mode of expression was aphorisms, flights of imagination, wise proverbs, and poetic reflections that seek to describe reality. Like any of the most brilliant mystics, he wrote of known truths that are hardly acknowledged or understood. Here are hundreds of fantastic, often humorous, often otherworldly insights on the universe; nature, colors, emotions, senses, the body, sexuality, spirituality, the occult. It's best to take this slowly, absorbing each passage. I doubt I'll ever encounter another book like this, and it's so re-readable that I'm bound to return to it one day. I'll add that it's a great palette cleanser, a perfect alternative to scrolling social media.
August 20, 2011
This is my favorite book. It is a collection of strange aphorisms that have an inner wisdom. Hermetic. Andre Breton kicked Chazal out of the Surrealists because Chazal was into the occult. Sens Plastique is deeper and more powerful than Crowley's Book of Lies. Yet, unlike BOL, a non-pagan can also enjoy (and understand) it. It makes banality kafkaesque!
February 11, 2008
someone translate more
March 18, 2009
i am not reading this in French, they just didn't give me the option to chose the English edition. just an fyi.
November 10, 2009
Barry Schwabsky's review from Bookforum of the book is printed here:
http://greeninteger.blogspot.com/2009...
http://greeninteger.blogspot.com/2009...
February 17, 2013
Unbelievable in poetic elegance, insight and strangeness. Popular among my phenomenologist colleagues.
April 15, 2009
You can read my review at http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_....
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews