Brain Pain discussion

This discussion covers Fifth and Six Canto, pg. 173 – 238, and
Conclusions/Book as a whole


Let the reader not be angry with me if my prose does not contain something to please him. You must agree that my ideas are at least singular. What you say, respectable man, is the truth, but a partial truth. But what a rich source of errors and mistakes all half-truths are! (Fifth Canto)

The first stanza of the Fifth Canto is where the Manifesto behind this work is posted. The flock of starlings as a metaphor for how the stanzas work. The explicit rejection of the mainstream ("There are other axioms too which are firm, and run parallel to yours"). The distaste for caramel.

Even here, dissembling and misdirection abound. "I speak from experience, and am not here to play the part of a provocateur." Ducasse may not have bumped uglies with a shark for reelz, but he seems to want us to think so.

Back to you, Zad, on whether it matters whether the author "speaks from experience".

Enjoyed the 3rd stanza of the 5th canto, on sleeplessness.

Usually I scoff at the literary device of a character that has not slept in years (and initially, I did so at this one). There's just no way to go through extended periods (i.e., 4+ weeks) of wakefulness without hallucinations and the eventual mental breakdown, and no verified cases of anyone having done so.


But Ducasse uses sleeplessness as an opportunity to declare Maldoror's absolute autonomy: no spirit is ever in charge of his mind but his own. It's an admirable thought.

I think this is the work of juvenile - intelligent, but a juvenile, playing at being a 19th century male goth - body piercings in all the wrong places, with lots of skull tattoos.

There was no Internet, television, cable, movies, only underground texts and books, maybe dirty photographs. He could either have got his ideas from being there or conversations; I am putting my money on his having attended a lot of alcohol and drug-fueled male artist-aristocrat parties, with a variety of prostitutes, including boys, who he then either found abandoned wrecked places to rape or he became involved in a group grope or jerk-off as so many of these 'fun' drug parties become.

A lot of alcohol-drugs give thoughts schizophrenic madness; I was sure the author's health would be awful when I read this; when I read his bio (what there is), apparently it may have been as bad as I guessed - even if he only starved to death from Napoleon's war - but I suspect he was physically diseased as well.

Male Literature critics always love these intelligent, talented, drugged-out alcoholic writers of genius whose lifestyle invariably involves abuse of women and children, prostitutes, while living in decrepit attics with shitty filth on the floors-walls and insects crawling on them in their stupified sleep, starving from having spent whatever cash they had on alcohol/drugs. Some of these authors ARE very good, but others seem to have become totally psychotic and took up a pen while blitzed or having an episode of mental derangement. And why not? The world of male Literature applauds wildly and buys every copy printed.

This guy sounds like he lived like Dorian was hinted to have lived in the book 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. I've read many half-disguised male autobiographies now; I am beginning to not only find them tedious, but the male admiration and Literary Tour-De-Force label attributed to writers with verbal nightmare diarrhea about their substance-abuse-caused lifestyle choices or dreams based on real experiences is showing itself to be a pattern that is becoming all too familiar to me. What is most revealing is many male writers of the 20th century are not familiar with these male addicts of the 17th and 18th century, yet they show the same pattern of nightmarish reveling and relishing of living in filthy abodes and getting blitzed with drugs-alcohol and associating with/abusing powerless women and children, about which they then write a 'novel' which becomes infamous at first, secretly passed around, and then eventually brought out to be taught in universities, soon to be given a book review in 'The New Yorker' about its groundbreaking influence.

Sigh. That said, history has shown the author was a huge influence on much Art produced later, and men writers, like all of the college boys who went to Mexico after reading 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac, hoping to find some girl child prostitutes and guilt-free drug-abuse. To me, he simply transformed style ideas from Revelations from the Bible, with the idea perhaps of throwing in his current lifestyle events and attempting to make it Art by tossing writing conventions (particularly subject - I, you, me, they) out the window, cynically calling it Art, like someone putting a frame around a fireplug, taking a picture, hanging it in a gallery and calling it 'god's penis.'

Cphe wrote: "At one stage I did wonder if the author had syphyllis - just a thought."

Me, too. He writes as if he was so afflicted.

aPriL eVoLvEs (ex-Groot) wrote: "I think this is the work of juvenile ...skull tattoos...[something about molesting and parties and stuff]..."

Just checking: Are you aiming to be as facetious as Ducasse, or have you just lost your mind? I mean, he did warn that was one potential effect of reading his book, but...

But a single work by Lautremont is far superior than all the insipid works of Austen and her followers. Remember though, this is a work of art, not autobiography.

BTW I thought Lautreamont was just describing the thoughts that went through the typical male adolescent's brain on an average day...ho hum!

By the way, what I wrote was a light tease, and not meant to be as contentious as it sounds.

Jonathan, I think you've got it right.

Basically, I'm staggered by the talent this author demonstrated at a young age, and I could easily suppose he was a much older man, except for the one fact that younger, debut authors have a greater tendency to write sensational or shocking literature.

It seems odd to imagine the author having a character even remotely like the description above about fake-cynical artists and drug users, etc. But what do I know.

My life has been rather tame in comparison April. Maybe that's why I like this sort of literature; it doesn't seem to be connected to any sort of reality to me and has an almost cathartic feel to it. For me it's a bit like Tom & Jerry.

I would love to have seen what a mature Lautreamont would have written. I think we would have been surprised.

aPriL eVoLvEs (ex-Groot) wrote: "I think this is the work of juvenile - intelligent, but a juvenile, playing at being a 19th century male goth - body piercings in all the wrong places, with lots of skull tattoos."

Pretty much. I was hoping that methodology proposed in the fifth canto would actually materialize, and that the novella of the sixth canto would be worth of the rambling prelude.

Nope. It's just a kid changing his mind as he writes, believing every word too sacred to suffer review or edit.

@April, I think you've noticed the author expresses cynicism, that reminds you of certain people you've known, and thus you've leapt to outrageous conclusions. It's a superficial way of judging someone, like assuming that a man who drinks espresso and has a moustache has deep feelings of inadequacy and is conflicted over his sexual identity, and anyone who reads hard books is trying to make an impression but can't actually enjoy what they read.

Important Note: You will notice that I removed several of April's posts. In my judgment as moderator, the posts were not within the rules and spirit of the group. I copied and sent the deleted posts to April so she would have a copy of her ideas.

An important element of any respectful discussion is to be, of course, respectful. Attacking a work of literature by backing up the attack with specific citations from the book is reasonable and respectful. However, a wholesale condemnation of the book, the author, male writers and artists, as well as the art world in general, is not in the spirit of this group, especially when those attacks are funneled through one's personal tragedies, and without specific textual citation to support the opinions.

I hope you will all understand my reasoning here. To be a moderator is to make judgment calls about what is reasonably appropriate for a safe and respectful discussion.

"Zadignose - Do you hate thinking that anyone could possibly have ever been through any scenes in the book in real life?"

I would prefer to think that no one has swum out to sea and fucked a shark immediately after murdering the survivors of a shipwreck, and I think there are one or two other scenes in this book which may have been fiction, which is probably for the best.

I think, earlier in the discussion, I was accused of assuming Ducasse was a child molester when I made no assumption. Now am I being accused of believing there are no molesters in the world?

However, Dostoevsky successfully wrote, plausibly, from the perspective of a murderer. I don't think we can fairly assume that he actually was guilty of double homicide himself. Nor do I think Francois Rabelais was necessarily a giant large enough to spawn entire human civilizations in the gaps between his teeth.

If Ducasse wrote in a way that reminds you of the thoughts of actual depraved individuals, I think he might have been going for that. But you can't reasonably assume anything about his real life drug use, sexual sadism, tattoos (!!) or... well, anything else. Health condition? Hmmm...

If an author writes "The best means of showing our gratitude to [God] is to console mankind, to relate everything we do to mankind; to take it by the hand and treat it as a brother," will you assume the author is morally upright, and a bit of a prude, probably with little experience of life's cruelties?

But, honestly, I think everyone's going to find their own perspective on this work, and it's probably a good thing if you see a reflection of some aspect of reality in it. But I think it's a very paradoxical work, and trying to deduce almost anything about the author's intention is bound to leave one a bit mystified. To think one can sum it up easily, or to think you've got a handle on the complete work, and further that you know pretty much everything you could know about the author, is surely a mistake.

As I wrote in my earlier review of this book: " I think if you assemble twelve fans of this book, they will all eye one another very suspiciously. None will trust the others' motives or rationale for liking--or loving--this book. Then, one may also feel a bit uncomfortable looking in the mirror after reading this. You may suspect your own reflection, or may recoil in shame at the piercing and accusatory glance which confronts you."

Perhaps I should have expanded that to include readers in general, whether they like it or not. Critics will have very disparate reactions too.

Ah, I was in the process of composing the above response before the edit to the thread. So, I didn't intend to pile on or escalate, but only to address the relevant issues of whether or how we could reach certain judgments.

Zadignose wrote: " But I think it's a very paradoxical work, and trying to deduce almost anything about the author's intention is bound to leave one a bit mystified. To think one can sum it up easily, or to think you've got a handle on the complete work, and further that you know pretty much everything you could know about the author, is surely a mistake..."

Very much in agreement, both for this book and for fiction in general. Lautréamont goes out of his way to "nod, nod, wink, wink" with the reader as he introduces each canto. As gruesome as some of his imagery may be, I think there is little to be deduced about Ducasse the person, beyond his imagination and willingness to gross-out his readers and make them squirm, à la John Waters' Pink Flamingo-type imagery.

Zadignose wrote: "Ah, I was in the process of composing the above response before the edit to the thread. So, I didn't intend to pile on or escalate, but only to address the relevant issues of whether or how we coul..."

No harm, no foul. You were responding to April in a respectful fashion. 'nuff said.

I've finally arrived at chant 5 (I keep wanting to call them cantos, for some reason). I agree that the beginning of that chant is probably what Ducasse thinks he is doing, or would like to be doing, but I think I also agree that I'm not sure that's what he's actually done.

At first I was very involved and excited by the constant destabilization of...I guess of everything. But at this point I'm finding it a little tiresome. I also think, at a certain point, refusing to take any kind of position with respect to anything can start to be a kind of cowardice, or something that is not as deep and thoughtful as it appears, like that guy that just refuses to not make a joke of everything, all the time. Also in theory it can go on forever.

If only he had left us in the mud with the toad, I would have been so happy with this.

Finally, is there some kind of prize for finishing dead last?

Nicole wrote: "Finally, is there some kind of prize for finishing dead last?..."

You win bragging rights and a bottle of Bordeaux - Saint Estephe or Saint Emilion - your choice...

It is a strange book and it does maybe last a bit longer than it should. Canto 6 wraps everything up, at least in the author's opinion....

Done! Plz send wine.

I think if I were to develop some kind of obsession and go back through this (I'm not, btw, going to do that), the key for me would probably lie in the patterns of images about nature. Not nature as a rosy back to our roots thing, nor as a blustery gothic glamorous thing, but nature seen through the lens of scientific inquiry and classification as a kind of casually and innocently cruel thing. If his meaning has any kind of anchor of consistency, I think it's here.

If.

There are also some acts and images that he returns to more than others, in a way that almost makes me suspect a personal issue on the part of the author (which is not a tactic I normally care for). The abuse of a child or adolescent, and also that weird obsession with his chest. These links seems more tenuous, more like obsessions or favorites than like patterns. Perhaps that's why they start to read like personal problems for me, though obviously they could just be favorite images.

Nicole wrote: "Done! Plz send wine.

I think if I were to develop some kind of obsession and go back through this (I'm not, btw, going to do that), the key for me would probably lie in the patterns of images abo..."

You're on to something about nature and patterns. For me, I perceived ideas of cycles of creation and destruction - aka, life and death. Despite all the ghoulish imagery, Les Chansons are a meditation on these cycles, done in a kind of adolescent gross-out motif.

These cycles are as old as human consciousness, which at some point meditated on the fact that for one thing to live, another must die. Shiva and Kali; Oedipus, who must metaphorically destroy the father and create life with the mother; and on and on it goes. Lautréamont pits "The Creator" against Maldoror "the destroyer".

And so, Les Chansons are nothing new, other than that Lautréamont decides to fuck with our heads and make us look VERY close at how these cycles manifest when we are at our worst, i.e., as defilers, rapists, and murderers. He rubs our faces in the stench of steaming lice, and laughs at us all the way through, le bâtard!!