Lutz’s Partial List of People to Bleach: expanded
From Future Tense Books: Partial List of People to Bleach (expanded 2013 paperback edition) By Gary Lutz Even as a chapbook, it was one of Time Out New York’s Ten Best Books of 2007, and now we’re proud to publish an expanded paperback edition of Partial List of People to Bleach, with six previously uncollected […]
The Paradox of Romance
So much for the narrative arts, you might think – but it’s a shame that Baudelaire didn’t pursue what little prose he wrote, for Fanfarlo is a great piece of work, it just could have done with being longer. Samuel Cramer is a promising young rou é along the lines of Clovis Sangrail or Dorian Gray. In describing him, Baudelaire captures perfectly disaffected young adulthood, full of big dreams without concomitant effort and discipline: ‘One of Samuel’s most natural failings was to deem himself the equal of those he could admire; after an impassioned reading of a beautiful book, his unwitting conclusion was: now that is beautiful enough for me to have written! – and, in only the space of a dash, from there to think: therefore, I wrote it.’ He adds: ‘In today’s world, that sort of character is more widespread than we think; such beings teem on the streets, in public walkways, taverns, and all the refuges for strollers.’
Max Dunbar reviews Charles Baudelaire‘s Fanfarlo.
Canicule: Vanishing
Sometimes life is just a long farewell. That’s when we know the flesh is sadder than all the books. Rimbaud thought he’d acquired supernatural powers and then in disgust buried his imagination, pagan words and memories in his belly. He discovered rapture in destruction and rejuvenation in malevolence. Dying, he ‘summoned executioners to bite the butts of their guns’ and plagues to ‘smother him in sand, and blood.’ Armand’s characters are always intense, shedding more tears than God demanded.
Richard Marshall reviews Louis Armand’s Canicule.