Depressing French authors - Europa's top 13 circa 1991

[linearb]

Story of the eye Georges Bataille
Our Lady of the Flowers Jean Genet
Chants of Maldoror Lautreamont
No exit and three plays Jean Paul Sartre
Fleurs du mal Charles Baudelaire
Étranger Albert Camus
Immoraliste André Gide
Là-Bas / Down There J. K. Huysmans
Nadja Andre Breton
Hiroshima mon amour Marguerite Duras
Blue of noon Georges Bataille
Huis

Comments

[delicatetbone]

Do sex and depression go hand-in-hand for the French? Out of the books I've read up there (Story of the Eye, Our Lady of the Flower, Fleurs du Mal, No Exit) nearly all of them are overtly sexual.

Outside of Story of the eye, I've only ever read Bataille's poetry (not so good)....and books about him.

[_fool]

story of the eye remains the most sexy book i've ever read. i bought a lot more bataille and foundered about 10 pages into all of it :/

[delicatetbone]

I agree. A friend of my wrote a screenplay for it as his thesis in school -- it was very controversial and beautiful.

[lassiter]

Weird to realize that I've read more of those than I suspected.

But life's too short - I totally abandoned any interest in depresssing French lit several years ago, though I still keep a special place on my dark little heart's altar for Maldoror. :)

Boo on Genet

[paddy_garcia]

He would probably enjoy hearing it, but Our Lady of the Flowers was la merde (and I don't mean it like when the kids say "oh man, that new song is la merde!"). Thief's Journal is slightly better.

Enough with the lubricant talk already. I suspect his life was far more interesting than his writing. Camus could whip him any day with two hands behind his back (and a dick in the ass to boot).

[aethyrflux]

hmmm... over half of those books are on my mind daily... and although i ocassionally have bouts of depression... ocassionally, my angst leads me to profound states of consciousness in which i am able to manifest my dreams