Liberty Or Love!"In those days, my door was open to mystery". So speaks the hero of Desnos' novel: Sanglot the Corsair. Mystery, the marvellous, a city transmuted by love, Sanglot's pursuit of the siren Louise Lame, such are the essential ingredients of this the last masterpiece of early Surrealism to remain untranslated into English. It was originally published in 1924 to immediate and lasting acclaim - except from the public authorities who immediately censored whole sections (here restored). Impossible to describe a novel of such virtuosity and bravura, and one which consistently refuses to behave as one expects, characters appear and vanish according to whim or desire, they walk underwater, nonchalantly accept astounding coincidences. It's a hymn to the erotic, an adventure story darkly illumined by the shades of Sade, Lautreamont and Jack the Ripper, a dream both violent and tender, an obsession, in fact the perfect embodiment of the Surrealist spirit: at once joyful, despairing, and effortlessly scandalous. |
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adventure André Breton Aragon beautiful Bébé Cadum beneath Benjamin Péret Bibendum blood boats body boredom breasts chanteuse Christ Club corpse Corsair Sanglot Crevel dark dawn death desert despite dreams dressed erotic eternal eyes feet Feuillants finally fish flesh forest gardens going guillotine hand hero horizon imagination Jack the Ripper Jacques Rigaut Joan of Arc-of-the-Rainbow Julien Torma kisses Lame's landscape Liberty or Love light lost Louise Lame lover magnificent Marquis de Sade marvellous memory mermaid Michel Leiris mouth mysterious naked night nonetheless novel o'clock Paris passion Péret poetic psychic automatism Rimbaud Robert Desnos roll Rrose Sélavy sand sense shadows silence skeleton sleep sound Sperm Drinkers sphinx of ice sponge-seller sponges star strange streets Surrealism Surrealist Terry Hale thighs tiny tomb trees Victor Noir walking waves white-helmeted explorer wind window wings woman women word young girl