Το μουνί της Ιρέν

by Louis Aragon, Ιωάννα Αβραμίδου (Μεταφράστρια)

Πόσο μόνος αισθάνεται το 1926 ο Αραγκόν στη γαλλική επαρχία! Η σουρεαλιστική περιπέτεια έχει ήδη ξεκινήσει και ο ίδιος είναι ο ταλαντούχος συνοδοιπόρος του Μπρετόν· μόλις είχε ανακαλυφθεί εκ νέου η ελευθερία του λόγου μέσα από την ελευθεριότητα των ηθών και το όνειρο. Γράφει ασταμάτητα το ογκώδες βιβλίο με τίτλο "Η υπεράσπιση του απείρου" το οποίο στη συνέχεια θα το απαρνηθεί, θα το ξεχάσει, θα το καταστρέψει. Η Ιρέν είναι μόνο ένα κεφάλαιο αυτού του βιβλίου και δημοσιεύτηκε ανώνυμα το 1928.

Πόσες ιστορίες γράφτηκαν γι’ αυτό το βιβλιαράκι, πόσες φήμες διαδόθηκαν, πόσους κλυδωνισμούς προκάλεσε η επέμβαση της αστυνομίας, καταδεικνύοντας σε ποιον βαθμό η κοινωνία της εποχής ήταν πάντα σε άμυνα όταν διαισθανόταν μια φυγή προς το άπειρο!

Genres: Fiction, Erotica, France, Novels, French Literature, Literature, Classics

104 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

French writer Louis Aragon founded literary surrealism.

Louis Aragon, a major figure in the avant-garde movements, shaped visual culture in the 20th century. His long career as a poet, novelist, Communist polemicist and bona fide war hero secured his place in the pantheon of greats.

With André Breton and Phillipe Soupault, Aragon launched the movement and through Paysan de Paris (Paris Peasant), his novel of 1926, produced the considered defining text of the movement.

Aragon parted company with the movement in the early 1930s, devoted his energies to the Communist party, and went to produce a vast body that combined elements of the social avant-garde.

Aragon, a leading influence on the shaping of the novel in the early to mid-20th century, gave voice and images to the art. He, also a critic, edited as a member of the Académie Goncourt. After 1959, people frequent nominated him for the Nobel Prize.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The finest of all works touching on eroticism.” – Albert Camus
Presumably the character of Irene was inspired by Louis Aragón’s passion for Nancy Cunard who was his mistress at the time he wrote the novelette and whom, earlier, Aldous Huxley turned into Myra Viveash in his effervescent Antic Hay .
The tale is something between a recollection, reverie and daydream.
To sleep, to dream…

Already a fine sweat beads the flesh at the horizon of my desires. Already the canvas of the spasm appear in the far reaches of the sands. They have walked, those travelers, carrying gunpowder in flasks and shoddy wares in crates with rusty nails, from towns of terraces and long paths of water damned by black docks. They have crossed the mountains. Here they are in their striped cloaks. Travelers, travelers, your soft fatigue is like the night. The camels follow them, carrying foodstuffs. The guide waves his stick and the sandstorm rises from the earth, Irene suddenly recalls the hurricane. The mirage appears, and its beautiful fountains… The mirage is sitting naked in the pure wind. A beautiful mirage of man entering the quim. A beautiful mirage strong-limbed like a pile driver. A beautiful mirage of springs and heavy melting fruit. Here are the travelers raving mad, rubbing their lips. Irene is like an arch above the sea.

Irene's Cunt, despite its ostentatiously shocking title, isn’t dirty or vulgar – it is rather poetic than pornographic.
And although Louis Aragón in his later years repudiated the novelette, it remains one of the key texts of the entire surrealistic movement.

The erotic idea is the worst mirror. The reflection of one’s essence in it makes one shudder.

But it’s love that makes us tick.

[Milton Cubicle · Rating 5 out of 5]

its such a moving story about irene and her best friend, her c**t. Biten by a radioactive spider her c**t comes to life in this hillarious and tragic holocaust black comedy romantic drama.

[yórgos]

θα μπορούσα να διαβάζω αραγκόν αιώνια ακόμα κι αν δεν είχε γράψει ούτε μία λέξη.

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

The French have a way with things we won't even talk about.

[Gohnar23 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books read & reviewed: 1️⃣6️⃣1️⃣🥖4️⃣0️⃣0️⃣
Date: Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Word Count: 16k Words, very short classic book

3.8🌟 on average.

➽──────────────❥

My DID system's agreeableness scale:

4️⃣3️⃣🥖1️⃣0️⃣0️⃣

12th read in "Discovery for the (DID) system's majority agreeable ✨Good✨ book" April

——————————————————————
➕➖0️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣6️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣🔟✖️➗

P- 1️⃣: 🌟,

P- 9️⃣: 🌟,

P- 1️⃣7️⃣: 1️⃣🌟, not only do i not read classics, i also don't read books that have the word "Cunt" as its title.

P- 5️⃣2️⃣: 5️⃣🌟,

This wish spoke volumes about my underlying idea of all truth.

Irene's Cunt is not just your average erotica book, it is a book that explains the depths of sexuality and what it takes for a man to be fully engulfed in it, giving up from the pressures of everyday living to a point in time where sexuality is the only sole dea that someone can conceive.

I don’t much like thinking about a person’s sex life, yet I must acknowledge that mine is over.

"Mine is over", because of the insanity upon helplessness and brokenness as he nvigates through brothels hoping for a pleasurable experience to possibly forget his current situations and realities. "Escapism" is the correct term in here. Where he eventually stood up upon and wrote a fictional story about a grandfather falling in love with his granddaughter namely Irene.

It pleases me... those words stop me. It would not please me were it to be just the same. To mix someone up in all this, someone seemingly quite uninvolved at the time, someone I now know meant far more to me than I wanted to believe.

The created story is a reflection of his living. The taboo, the illegal, the immoral and the wrong. Fully stripped from each and every sanity.

The gaze of lovers demarcates between the two limits of the couple a zone where atten tion is concentrated and personalities dissolve. It is at these confines, when the light of desires decays from delirium red to self-consciousness purple that the percep tible miracle imperceptibly occurs.

All of it as he slowly slowly forgets everything and fully embraces his sexuality.

In the depths of pleasure there remains only a faint memory, regretful reflection, of the desire that was its source.

The source of all problems seemingly being forgotten. The solutions brough up through instant means. To be fully consumed and to finally be...

a Maniac

Young bourgeois industrious workman and you, high-ranking civil servant of this Republic, I’m granting you a glance at Irène’s cunt.

O delicate cunt of Irène!

At this part of the novel it transforms from his story to a full blown erotica of Irene and her…Cunt, nothing else matters, everything is gone, only her cunt exists. This is a full manifestation of Hedonism and a conclusion created with an abrupt end to all erotic meanings

As much as i would hate saying this but...this guy's immaturity 👇 with the Goodreads search bar led me to a majestic prose about insanity and sexuality.

P- 1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣: 5️⃣🌟, I i'm proud to say that i just finished Irene's Cunt HAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAA THE GOODREADS SEARCH BAR IS A VERY INTERESTING PLACE 🤣🤣🤣

P- 9️⃣6️⃣: 5️⃣🌟, No criticisms, French authors from the 1920s just has a way with things.

P- 2️⃣4️⃣: 🌟,

P- 1️⃣9️⃣4️⃣: 3️⃣🌟, I thought since because of the very explicit and 'in your face title', i would think that this is a splatterpunk extreme horror book but no, this is a CLASSIC book. In which i don't particularly hate but i don't particularly like either, two books are already at fault of this, "Lolita" and "120 Days of Sodom" which in itself is a good commentary so societal issues, but is definitely not what I would read. It reminds me so much of "Paradise Rot" but way more complicated and much more fits the Classic genre.


─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

⟡₊ ⊹ Meet the judges for "Discovery for the (DID) system's majority agreeable ✨Good✨ book" April!!! ⟡₊ ⊹



P- 1️⃣: "HAIIIIIIII uwu (⁠^⁠^⁠)"

P- 9️⃣: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LOVE ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT"

P- 1️⃣7️⃣: "i don't know shit to say, i was dragged here, i just want to watch motocross"

P- 5️⃣2️⃣: "I have no patience for poor books, only those of true depth and quality are worth my time and attention, the rest are mere paper."

P- 1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣: "it ain't that deep bro 💀"

P- 9️⃣6️⃣: "There's always something to criticize within a book"

P- 2️⃣4️⃣: ":((((((((((((((((( mmmmmm uhh, just make it good :⁠0"

P- 1️⃣9️⃣4️⃣: "Most disturbing books in the world is my comfort books ❤️‍🔥, (unless it's meaningless child rape, by then get out of my face)"

[d · Rating 5 out of 5]

Escrito como los dioses, con una furia y un ritmo de poesía que se lleva todo puesto. Te obliga a leer cada vez más rápido, y a detenerte en cada metáfora. No hay ni una página que no sea sublime. No exagero:

Cortina, suspiras como un seno.
Se diría la proximidad del amor. Cuando una inminente tormenta hace rodar ya en el oscuro escenario de las nubes sus poderosos hombros de luchador, cuando una tormenta pesa sobre una región oprimida donde el malestar se despereza en las casas aisladas que precisamente limpiaban las criadas con gran acopio de agua abandonados los zuecos y con el cepillo en el extremo de la escoba que empujan sus pies descalzos, cuando el sudor chorreante coge ya a toda una población por los sobacos, y cuando las mujeres ociosas abandonen la tarea que se imponían con benevolencia para contemplar silbando la compostura y, sin saber por qué, abriendo la blusa sobre su piel húmeda, el ir y venir de los chicos de la granja armados de horcas o escardillos, y para seguir, con los ojos, con sus ojos pesados y apagados como bolas de billar, los torpes cuerpos de esos hombres jóvenes que su indumentaria parece querer abandonar en la gran transpiración de la primavera eléctrica, entonces la cortina de percal que se hinchaba con toda la fuerza, con todo el poder de la atmósfera, vuelve a caer con un chasquido, un restallido puro.
Dicen que hay que cerrar puertas y ventanas cuando se acerca una tormenta.

[buttercup · Rating 4 out of 5]

i requested this book through interlibrary loan and i was v embarrassed to receive it from the librarian. she made me say the title of the book into the loudspeaker and everyone in the library gave me looks of judgement. it was worth it though because i enjoyed reading irene's juicy taco with my gay boyfriend. im a noob but i would say if u enjoy lautreamont or story of the eye, you'll find this book worth reading, and worth being humiliated by your librarian

[Hind · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite its ribald and suggestive title, the book is a long reverie of a man's scorn at the world, at writers, at eroticism, and even at himself.
It is not a concupiscently vulgar book as it may entail at all, rather it is a florid, intricate reminiscence of a love gone wrong, a woman named Irene who makes our main lad lose his head, and amusing voyeuristic stories.

Although, once again, my exhilaration and presupposition of what the book is to make me feel evanesced before my eyes, they were replaced with rather interesting looks on an overabundance of things. It was very well written too, and it was poetic, surrealist, and most of all it had a delicate flow.

Perhaps at that time it was very indecorously jarring and scandalous to read it, or even shocking for people to comprehend what it is written in it, but to me it was only an entertaining past time.

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ha ha. The page progress status says I "Finished Irene's Cunt"...
So let me do some clean up...

The French, who gave us "Claire's Knee," give us "Irene's Cunt."

So, given all the hype, I ordered the book through interlibrary loan, eager to get my hands on "Irene's Cunt." (I know, the cheesy jokes are endless; I'll stop.)

It's probably appropriate that the cover deceptively suggests a vagina, when in fact it is a pair of face lips turned sideways, because, in truth this cult classic bit of erotica from 1928---long suppressed---promises more than it delivers.
First, this is a very odd book, not a standard narrative at all; it's an unusual blend of obscurantist poetic prose, vague philosophy, surrealistic dreaming and narratives within narratives.

The few reviews of this seem unable to summarize the book, that is, to say what it's ABOUT, so I shall make an attempt. At the same time, I have to admit that large swaths of copy here went right over my head. I make no apologies.

The story is told by a man who seems to have given up on life. He's lost all his money in bad business dealings and has been offered lodgings in the country with relatives he can't stand. He tries to stay away from their house as much as possible, hanging out in taverns and such to allay the boredom, but it doesn't work and he just grows more bored. He finds himself often horny and goes to the local brothel where he prematurely ejaculates and feels disgust with himself, and is goaded by his whore de jour to watch three guys bang a fat whore in all her orifices simultaneously. Then, in another room, they peep at the mayor of the town getting his. Even these things seems to bore him, and eventually he holes up in his room and withdraws into a fantasy world in which writes and creates the story about a powerful family who operate a large farm. The first part of the story is told from the first person by the crippled, syphilis-ridden patriarch of the house. He sits helpless and drooling but revels in his own mental interior life, seeing and imagining the sexual exploits of his wife, his daughter Victoire and his granddaughter, Irene. He finds himself having incestuous desires toward his progeny. He is mocked as an idiot, yet betrays an optimism and intelligence unknown to them; as his mind has not wasted like his body.
Later the story perspective shifts back to the main narrator, the original man, the loner/writer, who begins to describe Victoire and Irene, mother and daughter. Victoire and Irene are both insatiably sexual. The former even prone to using lesbianism to consolidate her power over the women who work the farm. Irene, though she has engaged in same-sex action, does not relish it like her mother, but is rather a hard-eyed temptress who loves the company of men and takes many to her bed; just as quickly kicking them out when she has had her orgasm.
From that description, you'd think this was a rollicking good story, yet very little detail of the erotic encounters, or anything else for that matter, is described in any depth and it's usually related blandly by the narrator, almost like a story sketch than a living breathing story.
Amid all this, the narrator engages in various poetic ramblings on sex and death and nature and so forth, some of which actually make sense.
The first chapter even starts off a bit Gertrude Stein-ish, a tad too avant-garde for my palette, but afterwards veers into a relatively straightforward narrative, alternating with poetic passages and some mildly disorienting changes of character perspective
The book is definitely not as straightforward as "Story of the Eye," another perverse bit of French literary erotica published in 1928, which I just finished and enjoyed.

There were times early on when I was inclined to give this book five stars -- such as when the main narrator was describing his boredom and self loathing and the exploits inside the brothel; this I thought was first-rate storytelling -- but Aragon, through his alter-ego narrator here says sensible stories are for bourgeois minds. So, in the end I found all of this a bit perfunctory to me. It might very well be some kind of masterpiece, and I'm glad I read it, but overall it just didn't blow me away.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting and surprising book this was. It grabbed me from the first line (“Don’t wake me up, for God’s sake, you bastards, don’t wake me up, look out I bite I see red.”), which continued on into explosive prose expressing the desire to remain in bed. It continued to hold me even in portions that were hard to interpret. I guess I should warn you that the book has very explicit passages, so if that doesn’t appeal to you, you should skip it (and this review!).

In a nutshell, a young man who has apparently had his heart broken goes into the provinces to be with his relations. There isn’t a whole lot to do and he has a cynical attitude towards life there – bored with everything, and finding fault with it all. He visits a brothel and sees some pretty squalid scenes of debauchery there, one prostitute being described as “writhing like a soul in hell.” He only finds release in writing, and sometimes feels the presence of his old lover while he does so. He can’t figure out what to write about until he’s wandered the countryside a bit, then the idea for a young woman named Irene comes to him.

The book then segues into a description of Irene, her mother Victoire, and her grandfather, who has been paralyzed and in a wheelchair for 40 years, a victim of syphilis contracted at a brothel. Comically (and painfully), the grandfather can still become aroused, and watches helplessly on as farm maidens occasionally engage in oral sex in front of him, as if he was part of the furniture. He’s scorned by all, but in reality he feels “true freedom in my apparent slavery” even as he sees his own daughter, a sentiment which was quite a surprise to me. The last vision the young author has of Irene makes it clear that she behaves ‘as a man’ when it comes to sex, just taking physical pleasure in it and not looking for any emotional attachments, and that her mother is known in the community for her lesbian affairs.

As I think about what “de Routisie” (now believed to be Louis Aragon) was trying to say with these three characters in the country, it’s interesting to me that they all find complete freedom and acceptance in their conditions, particularly as it relates to sex, while the young author cannot find cathartic pleasure in physical relations, and envies those who can. To him sex is more of a curse, as his body occasionally requires an outlet. The sex scenes are blunt and I suppose shocking, but brief, and surrounded by what seems to be a surrealistic painting. I believe that’s the other point of crafting the novel as he did - it’s a story within a story, there are a couple different narrators, and the style of the prose occasionally becomes stream of consciousness. It’s hard to know what’s ‘real’, and indeed this mind-bending is a central part of the surrealist movement that Aragon was a part of in 1920’s-1930’s France.

As he puts it at the end, “arranging everything into a story is a bourgeois mania”, and “imbeciles see novels, romantic ballads, everywhere”. This is not a conventional story, it’s a set of dreamlike images. It’s surreal in its unconventionality, and yet real in its depictions of sex, and it was intended to provoke a reaction. (btw I’m happy the original title in French was, uh, ‘shortened’ in this translation). For Aragon, sex seems to be both at once sad and banal, the somewhat disgusting action no better than dogs, but at the same time powerful enough to briefly transcend the human condition, for those who are able to channel this ability (and for this reason, he says “how I would like to be an ordinary pervert”, which brought a smile).

Camus said it was the ‘finest of all works touching on eroticism’. I don’t know about that, but it’s certainly one of the most artsy, and unique.

Quotes:
On feeling someone who is not there:
“I sometimes tried desperately to see you, by closing my eyes, or on the contrary opening them very wide on the shadows of the room. But you were there suddenly. Your walk. Your dress. It seemed that you chose to come precisely at the time when I was writing at my narrow table, with only the wall before me. Then the room with all its nooks and corners, and the area where the carpet was turning blue, belonged entirely to you. I knew you were walking back and forth behind my back, mute. Sometimes you came close to me. My heart would pound. I knew that to turn around would be to make you vanish. I did not turn around. I wrote. Little by little you became bolder. I felt your breath. I did not turn around.”

On an orgasm; I smiled at the ‘caravans of the spasm’ and imagery which followed:
“Already a fine sweat beads the flesh at the horizon of my desires. Already the canvas of the spasm appear in the far reaches of the sands. They have walked, those travelers, carrying gunpowder in flasks and shoddy wares in crates with rusty nails, from towns of terraces and long paths of water damned by black docks. They have crossed the mountains. Here they are in their striped cloaks. Travelers, travelers, your soft fatigue is like the night. The camels follow them, carrying foodstuffs. The guide waves his stick and the sandstorm rises from the earth, Irene suddenly recalls the hurricane. The mirage appears, and its beautiful fountains…The mirage is sitting naked in the pure wind. A beautiful mirage of man entering the quim. A beautiful mirage strong-limbed like a pile driver. A beautiful mirage of springs and heavy melting fruit. Here are the travelers raving mad, rubbing their lips. Irene is like an arch above the sea. I have not drunk for a hundred days, and sighs quench my thirst. Huff, huff. Irene calls her lover. Her lover with an erection at a distance. Huff, huff. Irene agonizes and contorts herself. His erection is like a god above the abyss. She moves, he flees from her, she moves and strains forward. Huff. The oasis leans down with its tall palms. Travelers, your burnooses turn in the scouring sand. Irene pants to the breaking point. He contemplates her. Her cunt is misty with expectation of his prick. On the illusory saline lake, the shadow of a gazelle…
Let your damned in hell jerk off. Irene has come.”

[Vasilis Manias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ο Κώλος της Άννας ήταν καλύτερος. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't remember this at all. No doubt I read it b/c it was porn written by a Surrealist. The back cover tells me that it's about a paralyzed old man who gets his sexual experience by watching other people have sex thru peepholes. The real translation of the original French title wd be "Irene's Cunt" but Grove probably cdn't get away w/ that at the time.

[Angela Meyer]

Beautiful and strange. Eroticism, obsession, imagination and the abyss. True to surrealism in its dream-states (it begins, 'Don't wake me, for God's sake...') and its depictions of flesh, from poetic admiration to the grotesque. And outside-inside, inside-out. In one part, an invalid's sex life lives only (but vividly and even gleefully) inside his head. Camus liked it. I did too.

[Kristopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book of Aragon’s that I’ve read, and I have to say that I’m thoroughly impressed. It’s not every day that you pick up a work of French erotica whose author is a founding member of the surrealist movement.

Irene’s Cunt (Le Con d’Irène), published in 1928 under the pseudonym Albert de Routisie – who we now know was Louis Aragon. It’s a surrealist-erotic short story, or prose, that garnered much attention upon publication.

The finest of all works touching on eroticism. ALBERT CAMUS

There are no doubts over the authorship of this book. However, Aragon would never acknowledge it as his own.

History
Released in the same year as Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye, Irene’s Cunt went under the radar, probably due to its graphic title. Much like its counterpart, both play on their bitter humour, curiosity and a helpless father figure.

Republished in 1968 under the name Irene prevented from being banned under the seizure of pornography. This work is considered highly biographical.

To understand this, we first need to take a look at Louis Aragon. Who was he? What did he do? And why should I care?

Surrealist Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon was born in Paris on 3rd October 1897. He became involved in the Dadaism movement between 1919 for five years before becoming one of the founding members of surrealism in 1924. Along with André Breton and Philippe Soupault, surrealism, and its movement was born.

The poverty of the French language compels us to employ words which our happy government, today, with great good sense, reject; we hope our enlightened readers will understand us, and not confuse absurd political despotism with the despotism of the very delightful perversions of libertinage. LOUIS ARAGON, IRENE’S CUNT

In 1927 Aragon joined the French Communist Party having been involved with them for many years. This was also the case for many surrealists.

Aragon has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on four occasions. Overall, that’s a tremendous feat for any author.

Adding Context
This work takes on a whole new perspective of erotic fiction. I’m no expert in the subject of eroticism, with Henry Miller being the only author in that category, and that’s a push. However, I do share a keen love of surrealism having been fascinated from an early age by the works of; Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Man Ray, Joan Miró, André Breton, and one of my favourite directors of all-time Luis Buñuel.

Now I’m aware that none of those names are writers, but I want to share with you my passion none the less.

Anyway, back to the book…

The enjoyment of this book comes from Aragon’s use of sensual language mixed with harsh realities. For instance, being unable to speak and barely able to move, he suffers constant torture from his racing mind that demands sexual attention. These thoughts of his that drive him wild with envy as he sees the passing of Irene’s lovers, coming and going.

The old man senses the passing of his time. His daughter becomes ever distant. His power over the family has dwindled, and his house is slipping away from him. In conclusion, he expresses this power shift through sensual linguistics that portrays colourful scenarios and the fading of the seasons.

[Illustrations have been removed from Goodreads review. See link at the bottom for more]

Closing Thoughts
Despite its often described vulgar title, Irene’s Cunt is anything but. Above all, poetic, charming and stimulating this book is an accurate reflection of the great Louis Aragon.

In addition to using surrealisms key points, black humour and aggression, this book goes well beyond the irrelevancies of most surrealist literature. Poking fun at his own bourgeoisie status, Aragon said, ‘I come of what you would call the upper middle class, the bourgeoisie. And it is only by being a traitor to my class that I am able to function as a revolutionist.’

This point is never more accurate than in his telling of fortune and power skating away into the night.

Have you read Irene’s Cunt? What did you think of it? Good, Bad, Indifferent? Let me know in the comments below.

This review was first published: Kristopher Cook | Eclectic Book Blog

[Melve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Er kanskje ikke enig med Camus, men jeg kan sette pris på lovord og lek

[Michael A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surrealist text that opens up with stream-of-consciousness word play that transitions into an actual narrative. I believe the gist of the story revolves around the syphylitic paralyzed old man, his daughter Victoire, and his grandaughter Irene. I believe the brothel scenes imply how the old man contracted syphilis. It not is not quite as shocking as Story of the Eye but I found it profoundly more sad: the paralyzed old man is teased and things are done in front of him as if he is not even a human. His own daughter grows to hate him and he ends up lusting after Irene. The story then transitions into the relationship between Victoire and Irene, and how Victoire opportunistically uses lesbianism to attract peasantry while Irene doesn't really care. Aragon seems to disavow everything he wrote as he repeats "Arranging everything into a story is a bourgeois mania."

Recommended for people who enjoy surrealist literature and/or Story of the Eye.

[Signor Mambrino · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've wanted to read this for years, but after finally reading it, I've forgotten why. It's a bit too clever for me. Too cunty if anything.

[Geraud · Rating 1 out of 5]

Quand je fais l’amour, je ne supporte pas la grossièreté. C’est comme ça. Ça me coupe mes effets. Et un truc qui m’afflige, c’est que pour beaucoup d’hommes, il faut que le sexe soit grossier. Il n’y a qu’à voir le langage utilisé pour la pornographie.
Il semble que pour que ce soit sexy, beaucoup considèrent que la langue doit être sale et avilissante. Ce qui est confondant de stupidité. C’est une des raisons qui me font aimer la chanson « le blason » de Georges Brassens dans laquelle il se désole du vocabulaire employé pour désigner le sexe féminin.

Quelle déception de découvrir qu’Aragon, poète majeur de la langue française, ne s’élève pas au-dessus de ceux qui créent les titres des vidéos sur youporn. Ah ! il est beau l’auteur des « yeux d’Elsa » !
N’attendez donc pas trop du potentiel érotique de cet opuscule. L’histoire est un galimatias d’élucubrations pseudo poétiques d’un auteur qui fait des phrases et les saupoudre de gros mots graveleux.

Mais bon, c’est de ma faute je me suis laissé happer par la jolie couverture de l’édition des mercures de France (ce n’est plus celle figurant sur la miniature ci-contre) qui est assez érotique, elle.

Alors, me direz-vous, faut-il vous achetez ce livre ?
En fait, je vous le recommande, mais surtout ne le lisez pas, vous perdriez votre temps.
Par contre, vous pouvez le mettre en évidence sur une table de salon ou sur votre bibliothèque, comme je le disais, la couverture est très réussie et fort jolie. Vos visiteurs pourront la découvrir aux côté de, par exemple, une intégrale de la « recherche du temps perdu » de Proust, après tout, c’est un livre d’Aragon, et vos invités vous trouveront tout de suite des goûts intéressants, vous leur apparaîtrez comme un intellectuel légèrement subversif, ce qui est toujours de bon ton. Si quelqu’un prends le livre, passez-vous la main dans les cheveux d’un air désinvolte et exclamez-vous « Ah ! Aragon !... », d’un air entendu. Laissez planer le mystère de vos lectures sulfureuses.
Vous devriez monter sensiblement dans l’estime de vos amis.
Ne lisez pas le livre.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK, let’s get the sophomoric jokes out of the way:

This title leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth …

Well that title is certainly on the nose …

“Class, please open Irene’s Cunt. We’re going to take a deep dive into this one…”

But in all seriousness, I was expecting this to be either shock for the sake of shock (like Bataille) or just an indulgence in a bit of erotic vulgarity (like Cocteau’s The White Paper ). Instead, Aragon presents the sordid reality of sexual congress in all its corporeal grossness. If pornography can be said to titillate or excite, then this is the furthest thing from it. Aragon explores the vast distance between the ideal of sexual union – which is more of a psychological fantasy – and the physical act itself, mired in sweat, grime, odors, unpleasant sounds, and myriad threats (of pregnancy, disease, rejection, embarrassment, emotional emptiness, etc.).

Much as Cocteau does for the gay male shower room (less “sensuality” and more “brutal primal urgency”) Aragon does for the straight male searching through brothels to satiate a purely psychological need. It is a “search for nourishment,” as Aragon writes on the final page, that can never be attained through physical means. And so the classic surrealist “obscure object of desire” – the objet petit a of Lacanian thought, never to be obtained because it is the very engine of desire rather than the end goal – is named right there in the title. Irene is a fantasy of the protagonist’s making, and no matter how often he seeks her treasure with woman-after-woman, he is left empty and wanting. That's because what he really desires is the search itself, not the attainment of the object. “Desire is the desire of desire.”

[WillemC · Rating 3 out of 5]

"De kut van Irène" is een samenraapsel van heel wat verschillende soorten teksten - prozagedichten, realistische passages, pornografische vertellingen - die aan elkaar verbonden zijn door een rode draad van hunkering, wanhoop en een liefde voor de taal en waarvan Aragon nooit heeft toegegeven dat hij de auteur is. Als novelle is het mij wat te fragmentarisch om echt te werken, maar er staan toch enkele zeer goede stukken in. Voor fans van Bataille en Blanchot, al zit er een pak minder extatische wanhoop in dan bij de eerste en is het makkelijker te lezen en minder hermetisch dan het werk van de tweede. "De kut van Irène" maakte trouwens ooit deel uit van "La défense de l'infini", een gigantisch romanmanuscript waar Aragon in de jaren twintig van de vorige eeuw aan werkte en dat hij op reis in Spanje bijna volledig verbrandde. De editie die ik las - de enige Nederlandse vertaling, De Arbeiderspers, 1996 - bevat enkele illustraties van André Masson. 3.5/5

"Vanaf het bed waar ze op neer was gevallen bracht ze als een beest dat helemaal los van haar stond haar mond naar me toe, waarin ik een door een goedkope plombering blauwe tand zag."

"Ik hees mijn broek op. Wat school er toch een verdomde treurigheid in alle verwezenlijking van de lusten!"

"Wie tijdens de paringsdaad nooit aan de dood heeft gedacht, mag me hier onderbreken."

"Iemands opvattingen over erotiek zijn de meest meedogenloze spiegel. Wat je daarin van jezelf ziet is huiveringwekkend."

[Jógvan Helge · Rating 3 out of 5]

horejesus

[Paula Martín · Rating 1 out of 5]

Erótica surrealista: poca erótica, mucho surrealista (menuda fumada)

[a pair of m. c. escher reading glasses · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jestli jste alespoň jednou v životě milovali nebuďte mě jestli jste milovali!

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This came up as a recommendation from my ‘naughty classics’ list, written in 1928. It is a rather short novella by an early surrealist founder Louis Aragon (a once friend of Andre Breton). It is a strange mix of surrealism, art, autobiography and rather sexually explicit with little developed story – Albert Camus apparently liked the novella.

It appears to be a reflection of Aragon’s relationship with Nancy Cunard, a roaring Twenties English femme fatale. It is basically a foul mouthed but readable version of Breton’s ‘Nadja’. I think it is designed more to shock and be challenging, than be simply adult titillation. The underlying story is that the grandfather invalid and immobile, as a result of syphilis, watches his granddaughter Irene behaving promiscuously like his wife. He visualises Irene’s intimate region being the most sexually explicit few pages of the book, hence the title. The narrator himself sees the goings on and has his own sexual hang-ups after a lost love, and thereby we too become voyeurs and too see life as we grow old and infirm.

The ebook addition included another work (apparently the first time in English) by Aragon call “The adventures of Jean-F**K, The Cock”. This is a second surrealist novella from 1929. This is a more absurd, surreal and strange tale of individuals sexually personified and on display (Freud would have a field day on this novella). Jean is a walking phallus reacting to meeting women equally explicitly portrayed (anuses on their hands, vagina faces etc). Again this is not simply adult titillation and the last half the book diverges to something different and less overtly sexual”. I was a little suspicious about the book since the translator uses the phrase ‘radio phones’ – these were not around until about 20 years later; but I guess it’s probably just be a missed comma (radio, phones) ?

There are 5 ink drawings included in the ebook edition by Andre Masson which appear to be groups io naked individuals having sex – not immediately clear how they relate to either novella.

I think I've got to score 4 stars simply for the unique style - literary surrealist explicit erotica - odd very odd.

A couple of quotes from Irene
“I’m going to scream I’m screaming brutes sons of sows buggered by prayer stools abortions of dirty underpants latrine sludge ladders in whores’ stockings menial toads purulent mucosa vermin let go of me rhododendron-blight armpit-hairs candles louse-clippings rat-grease shavings shavings black dejecta let go of me I’ll kill you I’ll crush you I’ll rip off your balls I’ll chew your nose I’ll I’ll trample you”

“Bodies, bodies, bodies of all the people around, my nailed down hands were tearing off your clothes, tearing off the clothes that revealed your damning curves”

A quote from J-K
“These tumours are dressed in black petticoats, no doubt intended to cast some uncertainty on their sex. But where those petticoats barely close, one notices, through a half open tear, a pale and thin tool hypocritically twisted around a rosary. It is a group of young Catholics”

[Krzy Pie · Rating 4 out of 5]

W ramach przezwyciężania słabości, w tym wypadku pruderii (młodzieńcze rezon i buta już za mną) napiszę i o tej minipowieści. Surrealista mierzy się z erotyką i nie wiem czy to polskie tłumaczenie, czy globalne wyzwanie, ale języka nie starcza, języka nie staje by opisać bujnie seks bez wulgaryzmów i tu na szczęście krztyny infantylizmów. Są ciągi wolnych skojarzeń, w których łatwo się zgubić, ale czasem przeziera przez nie ta nieuchwytna, podświadoma istota sprawy. Trochę trzeba się oswoić z zestawieniem tak literackiego języka z treścią, ale to odświeżające. Opisem Tytułowej trafia w samo sedno. Aż wstyd bierze, że do tej pory sam nie byłem skory do tak kwiecistego opisu i adoracji. Poza tym struktura, nielinearna narracja, nienasycenie i niezadowolenie narratora, drobne wtręty fantasmagoryczne budzą żywe skojarzenia z Moscoviadą Jurija Andruchowycza, ale ta w zestawieniu wydaje się grzeczniejszą. Najbardziej zaskakuje progresywność obyczajowa (1928r.) i bynajmniej nie idzie tu o fantazyjność lubieżności (już starsze utwory były dalej idące), co o samą Irenę i jej matkę lesbijkę Wiktorię. Silne kobiety, zarządzające folwarkiem, wiedzące czego chcą i sięgające po to bez wahania. W tym gatunku tak często przedmiotowo traktowane, tu są nie tylko podmiotem, ale też obiektem nie tylko fizycznego podziwu. A mężczyźni jawią się na słabych, nazbyt instynktownie działających. „(…) zrozumiała, że mężczyźni są dobrymi służącymi, lecz panami żałosnymi”.

[Benoît · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louis Aragon, whose household name sounds like a culinary herb, was a surrealistic writer. With Irene's Cunt, fierce in passion, implicitly critical, and anonymous, he was partly breaking free of the movement. Irene's Cunt is not quite a manifesto, it is very short, a fragment of a longer text. The 100 pages are composite and entertaining in form. I really appreciated the density of the text, its sensual rush, its powerful poetical moments. The couple pages of the ode to the female sex are maybe the best here, but the other chapters are also enjoyable, not so much for the story they hint at but for their stylish erotic tension.

[Sesho Maru · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really the most shocking thing about this book was its title but the actual novel itself was pretty sedate. There's nothing in here much worse than Henry Miller and even though it's labeled as "Surrealist Erotica" on the back I didn't feel it was "surreal" at all. But maybe I'm looking at it through a 21st century POV instead of 1928, when this was published. Aragon was one of the founding members of Surrealism but that doesn't make this book surrealist. It was a decent short read, but pretty much a sidenote to his more important work.

[Rihab Kiidmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un texte immense qui aurait été épuré par le temps. Tout ce qui est superflue, maladroit, redondant, agressif a été érodé, gommé. Seul l’essentiel demeure. J’aime les associations, insolites, inattendues, décalées..L'absence de verbes donne des idées, ouvre une porte. On se sent à la ligne de partage des eaux, on ne sait si le flot va s'orienter vers la mer mediterrannée ou vers l'atlantique. Il y a une certaine pleinitude dans le désespoir.. J'ai tout simplement adoré !

[L'Occitane littéraire · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai été captivée et fascinée par ma lecture au même titre que repoussée et dérangée à certains moments. Je suis arrivée à la fin avec une sensation de faim au vue de la brièveté du livre. Une narration incisive et inhabituel sur l'érotisme et l'amour que je vous recommande fortement : http://bookymary.blogspot.co.uk/2016/...

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the somewhat shocking title, this is a
compelling and brief novel of delicate and lyrical eroticism.
A similar theme of a man afflicted with paresis is in Hamsun's Hunger- who becomes a voyeur to his family . While it has a dreamy quality to it, I do not consider this a surrealistic story,