Antologia

by Henri Michaux, Margarida Vale de Gato (Translator)

Henri Michaux defies common critical definition. Critics have compared his work to such diverse artists as Kafka, Goya, Swift, Klee, and Beckett. Allen Ginsberg called Michaux “genius,” and Jorge Luis Borges wrote that Michaux’s work “is without equal in the literature of our time.” This anthology contains substantial selections from almost all of Michaux’s major works, most never before published in English, and allows readers to explore the haunting verbal and pictorial landscape of a twentieth-century visionary.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Short Stories, France, Art, Literature, Anthologies

293 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Henri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian poet, writer and painter who wrote in the French language. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism. Michaux travelled widely, tried his hand at several careers, and experimented with drugs, the latter resulting in two of his most intriguing works, Miserable Miracle and The Major Ordeals of the Mind and the Countless Minor Ones.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Darkness Moves is an artistic and tortuous journey through human life and psyche.
Life is the big fight:
“Abrah! Abrah! Abrah!
The foot has failed!
The arm has broke!
The blood has flowed!
Gouge, gouge, gouge,
In the big pot of his belly there’s a great secret
You hags all around us crying into your handkerchiefs,
We’re amazed, amazed, amazed
We’re watching you
We’re looking for the Great Secret, too.”
So Henri Michaux fights reality in order to know its Great Secret and to turn it into his absurd, surreal and abstract tales.
And his fine tales are like exotic insects:
“…insects with huge eyes like graters and latticework corselets like miners’ lamps, others with murmuring antennae; some with twenty-odd pairs of legs that looked more like staples… Finally, there were transparent ones, bottles with hairy spots, perhaps: they came forward by the thousands – glassware, a display of light and sun so bright that afterward everything seemed ash and product of dark night.”
And life is also a labyrinth:
“The prison opens on a prison
The corridor opens another corridor…”
And what is man?
“Man – his essential being – is only a point. It is this point alone that is swallowed up by Death. That’s why he must be careful not to be encircled.”
So we keep fighting and we keep moving through the labyrinth of life trying to escape and not to be encircled…

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I write so that what was true should no longer be true. Prison revealed is a prison no longer.

If there is a fault to this book it is that it exists at all. Michaux needs defragmentation, not further splintering. To be sure, a noble effort was made here to create an anthology, and yet Michaux resists anthologizing at all turns. He was too all over the place in subject, scope, and form. A consummate explorer of the inner realms, he wielded many forms of expression to communicate his journeys. He sought to penetrate to the core of being itself. What greater purpose can one pursue through art. An editor can't effectively condense a lifetime of this pursuit into a single volume. Not only then (in this English-language collection) is there an artificial construct of translation surrounding Michaux's words, but there is also the interference of a third party through the act of selection and arrangement. Nonetheless this book exists and I read it, so I am complicit in the grand conspiracy. I took three months to read it to allow time for evolution of the gills I require for deeper water ahead.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not quite a Surrealist, not really a Huxleyesque mescaline psychonaut, Michaux is one of those artistic outliers for whom the 20th century has to shift a little to fit. His writings tweak the Cartesian split with a myth of subjectivity that’s entirely plastic, with the skin between inside and outside stretched or folded in as psychic circumstances demand. His menagerie of weird creatures and imaginary lands teeter between avant-garde lit and primitive myth; in a way his writings are all versions of a myth for a people that consists of exactly one. This is a full selection of Michaux’s work, the largest I think in English, but it left me wanting to read the individual books in their entirety. I guess that’s a mark of its success.

[Edita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I write to go through myself all over. Painting, composing, writing: going through myself. That is the adventure of being alive.
[…]
My imaginary countries: like buffer-States for me, so as not to suffer from reality.
[…]
In the past, whenever I had a bad experience, I was only in difficulty for the short time I had to face it alone. As soon as I had found a character (when I had “retreated” into him), my difficulty disappeared and so did my suffering (at least the worst of it, the intolerable part). It’s up to you now! That’s why the foreign country was the occasion, the provocation for characters, to whom I gave the job from then on—both of having pleasure and of suffering from foreign, hostile, people and things.

[Teresa · Rating 1 out of 5]

"No melão, batia um coração."

Na badana deste livro há um texto, de um tal Jean-Charles Gateau, dizendo que Michaux fala à nossa intimidade e na sua obra nos reconhecemos e aos nossos medos e demónios.
Creio que ainda não alcancei a (in)sanidade necessária para sentir estes poemas - que só me parecem delírios de um louco...


"MALDITO

Dentro de seis meses o mais tardar, ou se calhar amanhã, estarei cego. É a minha triste, triste vida que continua.
Os que me puseram neste mundo hão-de pagar-mas, dizia eu comigo antigamente. Até hoje ainda não pagaram. Porém, eu agora tenho de apartar-me dos meus dois olhos. A sua perda definitiva há-de livrar-me de atrozes sofrimentos, é tudo o que se pode dizer. Uma manhã terei as pálpebras cheias de pus. Depois é só o tempo de fazer inutilmente algumas experiências com nitrato de prata, e acaba-se com eles. Há nove anos, a minha mãe disse-me: «Preferia que não tivesses nascido.»"

"O falo, neste século, tornou-se doutrinário."

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite work of Michaux is a short story written as a letter: I Am Writing To You From A Distant Country, a haunting description of a place faraway and very surreal but with the human touches that make his work far from nonsense. It ends with the lovely sentence: "When will I at last see you again..."

[Michael A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have not read a book quite like this before. It is a various collection of Michaux's writings, which are quite eclectic. In this book you will read poetry, travelogues of imaginary lands, the misadventures of Plume, a character plagued by misfortune who, in one story, ends up in a comically Kafkaesque situation involving ordering something "not on the menu" (despite the waiter bringing it to him). You will read trip reports of his usage of mescaline (he took the drug for 10 years).

The tone of the book ranges from earthy wisdom, pithy aphorisms, bad trips, descriptions of the art of mental institute patients, about 30 of his own artwork in the middle of the book. Subjects of the book include hallucinogens, death, how horrible having a face is. He has some meditations on aesthetics towards the back of the book. He creates monsters, has sex with caterpillars and fights of flies who try to do the same to him.
But the centerpiece of the book, for me, is his short story "Space of Shadows", presumably written from the perspective of his dead wife - who tragically died in 1948 when her nightgown caught on fire. The aesthetic of this story and a few others are like the nightmares of Lautreamont. This particular one is like if Lautreamont wrote sci-fi.

I don't think it would entirely be inaccurate to consider Michaux a surrealist author, but I think he is so much more - I think Darkness Moves is sui generis - it offers a lot more than surrealism does.

[Andrew]

Worth it for the poems and some of the prose, which are some of the finest surrealist writing I've read. What's not worth it is anything even resembling nonfiction, which comes off as the worst sort of self-aggrandizing bullshit, and that goes double for the drug sections. You ever been in some college dorm room while some guy -- albeit an intelligent guy, one who does truly have a few things to say -- drones on about how much his outdoor mushroom trip changed his life? Yeah, that.

[Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nearly sixty years of thorough & unflinching excavations of a shadowed inner landscape.

[Marcus Mennes · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Michaux we get many people, or in certain cases many creatures – see “A Few Days of My Life Among the Insects” pg. 278. In fact, Michaux is quoted as stating: “We are not made for just one self. We are wrong to cling to it…There is not one self. There are not ten selves. There is no self. ME is nothing but a position in Equilibrium” (emphasis in original).

It is often speculated we humans only use 10-20% of our brain powers, albeit such claims are unreliable. With Michaux we get 60% perhaps, but how to quantify such phenomena?

Michaux was a savant I imagine. For one man to produce such disparate, palpable creations…delving his own psyche in some arcane, experimental alternate universe…

Compared with other savants, e.g. contemporary figures like Glenn Gould (music) or Kim Peek + Daniel Tammet (in terms of memory & superhuman mental abilities)…take their gifts of composition, recall, patterning, and multiply it to the 53rd power & you approach something like Michaux’s imaginative output. We have, me thinks, a 5 Star rating.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a charming collection. There are lots of Michaux's "Plume" stories of a befuddled buffoon that are like an existential Jacques Tati movie. I love befuddled hardluck characters, and there's a good deal of those. Also, hallucinogen inspired writings, which can, of course, be awful because of the heavy handed profundity they are imbued with, but they often avoid that and are actually quite interesting meditations in a number of areas. A surrealist-friend but with fixations and ambiances quite delightful and personal. The styles of writing collected range quite a bit, which is always a bit tough for me, especially with such short pieces, -->impulses to move around the book, identify central motifs, things like this, makes me wish this were like 8 small books. Bad habits. But the short stories and miscellaneous writings are wonderful taken on their own.

[August · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection. A great compilation of Michaux's work. I'll certainly revisit this book often.

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is prefect for opening to a random page and reading a passage. These writings are so strange and completely inspiring.

[Ryan (Glay)]

I remember first hearing about Michaux back in about 2009 when I was reading something about the French author J.M.G Le Clezio who had just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Le Clezio had written a Thesis on him and Michaux sounded interesting to Me, a Traveller and a Hallucinogens experimentor. a searcher in both inner and outer worlds.

I don't always love his writing, a lot of it I don't find interesting but he has got some pieces that I do really like! Starting with his Poem 'Labyrinth', his fantastical descriptions of make-believe peoples (I think?), and digressions on the nature of Self. But even in the writings I don't like that much there is something about his Vision or Mission of discovery that I really like and relate to.

This selection is good but would have liked if there had been some selections from his Travel books 'A Barbarian in Asia' (which I have read) and 'Ecuador: A Travel Journal' (which I haven't read)

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inspired insanity - dark and disturbing.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

He grabowerates him and grabacks him to the ground;
He rads him and rabarts him to his drat;
He braddles him and lippucks him and prooks his bawdles;
He tackreds him and marmeens him
Mandles him rasp by rip and risp by rap.
And he deskinnibilizes him at the end.

The other hesitates; he is bittucked, unapsed, torsed and ruined.
He'll be done for soon.
He mendles and marginates himself... but in vain,
The far-rolling hoop falls down.
Abrah! Abrah! Abrah!
The foot has failed!
The arm has broke!
The blood has flowed!
Gouge, gouge, gouge,
In the big pot of his belly there's a great secret
You hags all around us crying into your handkerchiefs,
We're amazed, amazed, amazed
We're watching you
We're looking for the Great Secret, too.

- The Big Fight, pg. 3

* * *

While circulating through my accursed body, I came to a region where the parts of myself were few and far between; to live there, you had to be a saint. In times gone by, I had truly aspired to sainthood, but now that illness was forcing me into it, I struggled against it and I still struggle, and it's obvious that I'm not going to survive like this.
If I had been given the opportunity, fine! but to be forced into it - no, I just can't stand it.

- A Saint, pg. 11

* * *

And aller, aller et allero
And bitch!
Sarcospell on Sarico,
Andoran for talico,
Or'll andora your adogo,
Adogi.
Crass, crass like Chicago,
And ass-kicks to poverty.

- Articulations, pg. 18

* * *

An ant doesn't worry about an eagle. The furor, the ferocity of the tiger means nothing to him, the ferocious eye of the eagle does not fascinate him, not in the slightest.
In an anthill, there is never any question of eagles.
Little waves of light don't worry a dog at all. However, a microbe who sees the light coming in (parts of the rays just a bit smaller than it is, but numerous, numerous and hard) gets desperate when it feels the innumerable beats that are going to dismember it, shake it to death - even the cursed gonococcus that does so much to complicate relationships between men and women is seized with despair, and, against its will, gives up its difficult life.

- Everybody's Little Problems, pg. 32

* * *

As I was shaving this morning, spreading and pulling up my lips a bit to get a tighter surface that would resist the razor nicely, what do I see? 3 gold teeth! And I've never been to the dentist in my life!
Oh, oh!
And why?
Why? To make me doubt myself, and then to take my name of Barnaby away from me. Ah! they're pulling hard on the other side, hard, hard.
But I'm ready too, and I hold on to IT. "Barnaby," "Barnaby," I say softly but firmly, and then on their side all their efforts are reduced to nothing.

- They Want to Steal My Name, pg. 51

* * *

In the night
In the night
I have united with the night
With the endless night
With the night.
Mine, queen, queen of mine.
Night
Night of birth
Filling me with my cry
My flowering spikes.
You, invading me
with howl howl swells
all over ocean swells
smoking dense
and bellowing,
are the night.
Here lies the night, relentless night.
And its brass band, and its beach,
Its beach drinking, with its weight king, sinking things beneath,
Beneath it, beneath thinner than a thread
Beneath the night
The night.

- In the Night, pg. 56

* * *

Life, a labyrinth, death, a labyrinth
Labyrinth without end, says the Master of Ho.

Everything hammers down, nothing liberates.
The suicide is born again to new suffering.

The prison opens on a prison
The corridor opens another corridor:

He who thinks he is unrolling the scroll of his life
Is unrolling nothing at all.

Nothing comes out anywhere
The centuries, too, live underground, says the Master of Ho.

- Labyrinth, pg. 88

* * *

I also have my man-sling. You can shoot them far, very far. You have to know how to deal with them.
And yet it's hard to shoot them far enough. To tell the truth, you never can shoot them far enough. They come back to you forty years later sometimes, just when you thought you could breathe easy at last, whereas they're the ones who breathe easy, coming back with the measured step of a man who is in no hurry, who was still there five minutes ago, who was going to come right back.

- The Man-Sling, pg. 146

* * *

Face not saying not playing
not say yes, not no.
Monster.
Dark space.
Face
reaching,
moving,
passing,
slowing, budding toward us...
Lost face.

- The Unfinished, pg. 151

* * *

How much less hateful men would be if every one of them did not wear a face.

* * *

At the age of eighty, I still dreamed of being granted plant status.

* * *

"Do not come," said the shark, and he ate him. The shark was a man-eater, but the era was polite.

* * *

Inside the melon, a heart was beating.

[...]

- from Slices of Knowledge, pg. 172

* * *

In silence, stoned to death by their thoughts

Still another day on a lesser level. Shadowless gestures
What century must we look at, to see?

Ferns, ferns, they might be sighs, everywhere, sighs
The wind scatters the loose leaves

Strength of stretchers, eighteen hundred thousand years ago people
were already born to rot, to die, to suffer

We've already had days like this
so many days like this

days that swallows up the wind
day of unbearable thoughts

I see men motionless
lying in barges

Out of here.
Whatever else, out of here.

The long knife of the wave will stop the Word.

- The Day, the Day, the End of Days, meditation on the end of Paul Celan, pg. 236

[Manon · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘In the corridors of the hotel, I met him walking around with a little lock-eating animal. He would put the little animal on his elbow, and the animal was happy and would eat the lock. Then he would walk further, down the hall, and the animal was happy and another lock would be eaten. And so on for several, and so on for many. The man was walking around like someone whose home had expanded. As soon as he opened a door, a new life would begin for him.’

[Joe Olipo · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Everyone enjoys economy for its relation to a certain morality,"
— Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be

On Wasted Years

One wonders what excuse Michaux employs when he visits his bourgeois in-laws who are always asking about his current project. Perhaps he would claim to be working on a sequel to those Mr. Plume pieces everyone loved so much, and which, after witnessing their success in various salons, he could never bring himself put to paper again. Walter Benjamin, who always has the Arcades Project in his back pocket (in the sense of Capitalist Economies), was nowhere as economical as Michaux (in the sense of "Economy Class"), who one imagines rarely writing anything good in his pocket diaries and therefore saving quite a bit on chap-books over the years. In this way, many a Parisian has saved on shoe-leather by never visiting the Louvre. Such a thing is life. By the end of his career, Michaux has written perhaps five good sketches altogether (detailed below). On the subject of these un-productive years spent on mescaline, a (paraphrased) Arendt would recall, "well, he was neither the first nor the last to be ruined by [economy]."

Michaux's brightest moments are humorous investigations of the so-called "miraculating" moment; i.e. moments so "taken-for-granted" that they give the impression of having come into existence out of nothing. It takes a bit of real thought to suss out these hidden moments of origin and put something strange in their place.

On Bad Writers
"There may easily be thousands of sentences in a chapter and I've got to sabotage every one of them" (22).

On Catholic Virgins
When you come home on your wedding day, if you stick your wife in a well to soak all night she is flabbergasted. Even if she had always been vaguely worried about it . . . "Well, well," she says to herself, "so that's what marriage is like. No wonder they kept it all so secret. I've been taken in by the whole business" (28).

On Behavior in a Tragedy (for Insects and Man)
"The Wasp Relates: It is often not difficult to enter the dwellings of men. When you want to leave, it has happened more than once that you suddenly come up against an extraordinary, absolute prohibition. In vain do your eyes roam over the whole field of the visible. Flowers wave quite near you in the breeze. All you get are peremptory knocks on the head as soon and as many times as you try to reach them. So what can you do? Giving up all reasoned action, you have to throw yourself into the most violent delirium and, flying around blindly in all directions . . . suddenly you find yourself outside, safe and sound! This is the Secret. We don't know any other way of getting out of that jam" (162).

Michaux's elegiac pieces (mostly on the subject of pure suffering), are somewhat less brilliant, albeit tinged with the inventiveness of the absurd (though Michaux is not an "Absurdist").

Magic (good poem, work poem)
I used to be quite nervous. Now I'm on a new track:
I put an apple on my table. Then I put myself inside the apple. What peace!
It looks simple. And yet I'd been trying for twenty years; and I would never have succeeded if I had wanted to begin like that. Why not? Perhaps because I would have thought myself humiliated. This is possible. Then, too, I had to grope around, experiment—there's quite a story behind all this. Setting out isn't easy and neither is explaining it. But I can tell it to you in a word. 'Suffering' is the word. When I arrived in the apple, I was ice-cold" (33).

Dragon (good poem. cancer patient poem)
A dragon came out of me. He pulled out a hundred tails of flames and nerves.

What an effort I made to force him to rise, whipping him over me! His lower part a steel prison: I was locked inside. But I kept at it and his furor I withstood and the bars of the implacable jail finally came apart little by little, forced by the impetuous whirling motion.

It was because everything was going so badly, it was in September (1938), it was on a Tuesday, that's why I had to take on this peculiar form in order to live. And so I fought for myself alone when Europe was still hesitating, and set forth as a dragon, against the endless paralysis that arose from what was happening, over the voice of the ocean of mediocre men whose immense importance was once again suddenly, dizzyingly, revealed (36).


The best Plume sketch (the one about the solicitious surgeon) concludes with the punchline: "and besides, you may change," as if one could part with personality as easily as plume parts with his index finger — The implication being that one despairs of giving up these ghastly personality traits (in this case, the hatred of "cripples") even more than one despairs of giving up a slightly-swollen digit. Perhaps this applies also to such (antiquated) notions of personal economy, "wasted years," a life-work, and so on. It would be better to let such things go . . .

VII. Plume's Finger was Hurting him
Plume's finger was hurting a bit.
"You'd better see a doctor," said his wife. "Often all it takes is a little ointment." And Plume went.
"One finger to cut off," said the surgeon, "no problem at all. With anesthesia, it takes six minutes at the most. Since you're rich, you have no need for so many fingers. I'll be delighted to perform this little operation for you. After that, I'll show you several models of artificial fingers. Some of them are extremely graceful. A bit expensive no doubt. But naturally there's no question of cutting corners. We'll give you the best there is."
Plume sadly looked at his finger and apologized.
"Doctor, it's the index finger, you know, a most useful finger. In fact I was just going to write my mother again. I always use my index finger when I write. My mother would be worried if I put off writing her any longer; I'll come back in a few days. She's a very sensitive woman, she gets upset so easily."
"No problem," the surgeon said, "here's some paper, white paper, with no letterhead of course. A few heartfelt words from you will put her right. Meanwhile I'll call the Hospital and tell them to set everything up, so all we'll have to do is get out the sterilized instruments. I'll be back in a minute . . . "
He was back in a flash.
"Everything's perfect, they're waiting for you."
"So sorry, Doctor," said Plume, "you see, my hand's shaking, there's nothing I can do about it . . . umm . . ."
"There, there," said the surgeon, "you're quite right, it would be better not to write. Women are terribly sharp, especially Mothers. When it's their son, they can spot a bit of hesitation anywhere, and then make a mountain out of a molehill. For them, we're just little children. Here's your hat and your cane. The car is waiting for us."
And they went into the operating room.
"Listen, Doctor. Really . . . "
"Oh!" said the surgeon, "don't worry, you're being over-scrupulous. We'll write that letter together. I'll think about it while I operate on you."
And bringing the mask to his face, he put Plume to sleep.
"At least you could have asked my opinion," said Plume's wife to her husband.
"Don't go thinking it's so easy to find a lost finger once again. I don't much like the idea of a man with stumps. As soon as your hand gets a bit too bare, you can just forget about me. Cripples are nasty, they become sadistic right away. But I haven't been brought up the way I was brought up just to live with a sadist. You probably thought I'd volunteer to help you with those things. Well, you were wrong, and you should have thought before you . . . "
"Look," said Plume, "don't worry about the future, I still have nine fingers, and besides, you may change."

[Rauan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of different types of poems here. Mostly in prose. An extremely hard-working poet. (this alone is inspiring).

I imagine some of the early stuff's where Edson took encouragement for his sensibility. But this stuff rarely is just absurd in the way many of Edson's poems can.

The section I enjoyed the most is late in the book. Late in Michaux's life. When he was in his last 70's. The poems about the paintings of mentally ill patients. Insane people's paintings. The poems "describe" them.

[Andy Dávila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nov. 29, 2024

a fascinating book on Michaux’s overarching themes from 1927 to 1984, his construction of self, his aversions to language, incredibly interesting.

research lead me to this book, but I also read it for pleasure.

Jan. 26, 2025

re-read for my research, and this book was honestly a little frustrating? I think I have found much better translations of many of the texts in other articles and books, but the last section Passages was very helpful

this book was not as helpful as I thought it would be, though

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Physics of savagery, delight, and the sacred?

"A savagery unknown as referring us to a delight, beyond all delight to the highest as to the innermost transgression, where the ineffable remains secret, sacred."

Agreed.

It seems like if you want to understand the American prose poem after Edson you have to read this. Maybe.

[vanya klecherova]

unfortunately here - http://books.google.com/books?id=9p4Q... , is only an excerpt from the book. i really like what i read, it's a pity that i can't find the complete book....

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best gatherings of Michaux's work, showing his full force and breadth.

[Felicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird. Very weird.

[akemi · Rating 3 out of 5]

i wish i had properties :(

[Mirror · Rating 3 out of 5]

The dream-logic katabasis in the aftermath of his wife's death is an immense piece of writing, but I'm not sure this is the best collection.

[Esforçonulo · Rating 5 out of 5]

5*: canónico, essencial. o Michaux está para além do gôsto. lamento dizer-vos, mas se a frase "No melão, batia um coração" nada vos oferece, procurai pois outro meio. ler não é pa vocês. saiam daqui.

numa situação totalmente michauxesca, o meu livro começou a abrir. dele iam saindo páginas, conforme as lia. e se seguíssemos este rumo, num texto que poderia pertencer ao autor, essas páginas iam sendo substituídas por outras, que nada tinham a ver com as previamente escritas. após a última palavra ser lida, o mesmo se sucedia, nascendo uma nova página. e assim por aí a diante. mas eu não sou o Michaux nem tenho interesse neste tipo de coisas.

Margarida Vale de Gato assina uma BRILHANTE tradução: captou a essência do Michaux talvez melhor que o Herberto, não sentido qualquer martelagem do texto: é fluido, totalmente fluido.
devia falar um bocadinho sobre o Michaux, sobre os textos dele, mas não o vou fazer. porque não me apetece. agora apetece-me comer o meu delicioso almoço. o que tenho a dizer é que isto foi muito bom, muito muito bom. faz rir e faz chorar. e isso é que interessa.

[Martine]

very strange. known for taking hallucinogenics and writing about it. half of it really got down to it, and the other half was just kinda why. also why is there so much imagery of raping (metaphorical?) especially involving animals. that part no. liked parts of plume and the experience of madness in miserable miracle.

[Myhte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mother always predicted I'd be wretchedly poor and utterly worthless. Fine. Up to this land she has been right; after the land, we'll see.

As for books, they harass me more than anything else. I just can't leave a word with its original meaning or even its form. I catch it and after a few tries I uproot it and lead it definitively away from the author's flock. There may easily be thousands of sentences in a chapter and I've got to sabotage every one of them. It is absolutely essential to me. Occasionally, certain words remain like towers. I have to go about it a few times and then, when my demolition has already gone pretty far, all of a sudden, while passing by an idea, I can see that tower again. And once the whole book has been read, I lament, for I haven't understood a thing... naturally.

a display of light and sun so bright that afterward everything seemed ash and a product of dark night

Deprived of water, it dies, the rest is mystery.

Under the low ceiling of my little bedroom is my night, a deep abyss.

The difficulty is to find the place where you're in pain. Once you've got yourself together, you go toward that spot, groping in your night, trying to circumscribe it, since nervous people can't concentrate, they feel pain everywhere, then, as you enter it, you aim at it more carefully, for it gets
small, very small, ten times as small as the point of a pin; still you keep watching over it without letting go, with increasing attention, throwing your euphoria into it until you no longer have any point of suffering before you. That means you've actually found it. Now you have to stay there without pain.

Alas, now he really seems to be moving toward total deafness, and one wonders, with terror, what will happen when he reaches it.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect anthology.