Poet's Corner: Charles Baudelaire

I finished reading Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal and have picked out six favourites, which I will post in two separate entries. As far as I can tell, and I am no scholar, Baudelaire was banned for writing poems about lesbians, sex, and vampires. So, in other words, win, win, win! All of these that I am posting are English translations by Richard Howard. I have included a link to the original French in the title. Baudelaire was a rather gloomy poet, as well as a good one, and I like that. And he rhymed! In French, at least.

Epigraph for a Banned Book by Charles Baudelaire [translator: Richard Howard]

Gentle reader, being - as you are -
a cautious man of uncorrupted tastes,
lay aside this disobliging work,
as orgiastic as it is abject.

Unless you’ve graduated from the school
of Satan (devil of a pedagogue!)
the poems will be Greek to you, or else
you’ll set me down for one more raving fool.

If, however, your impassive eye
can plunge into the chasms on each page,
read on, my friend: you’ll learn to love me yet.

Inquiring spirit, fellow-sufferer
in search, even here, of your own Paradise,
pity me … If not, to Hell with you!

( Spleen (I) & The Clock )

Poet's Corner: Two more by Baudelaire

Two more poems by Baudelaire. I can't find a cut-and-pasteable version of "Jewels," which is another one I liked.

The Voice by Charles Baudelaire [translator: Richard Howard]

Above my cradle loomed the bookcase where
Latin ashes and the dust of Greece
mingled with novels, history, and verse
in one dark Babel. I was folio-high
when I first heard the voices. 'All the world,'
said one, insidious but sure, 'is cake -
let me make you an appetite to match,
and then your happiness need have no end.'
And the other: 'Come, O come with me in dreams
beyond the possible, beyond the known!'
That second voice sang like the wind in the reeds,
a wandering phantom out of nowhere, sweet
to hear yet somehow horrifying too.
'Now and forever!' I answered, whereupon
my wound was with me - ever since, my Fate:
behind the scenes, the frivolous decors
of all existence, deep in the abyss,
I see distinctly other, brighter worlds;
yet victimized by what I know I see,
I sense the serpent coiling at my heels;
and therefore, like the prophets, form that hour
I've loved the wilderness, I've loved the sea;
no ordinary sadness touches me
though I find savor in the bitterest wine;
how many truths I trade away for lies,
and musing on heaven, stumble over trash...
Even so, the voice consoles me: 'Keep your dreams,
the wise have none so lovely as the mad.'

( Metamorphoses of the Vampire )

Book Bingo: June 2020 - Final

First and last, a big thank you to kingstoken who provided the card and thus made a fervent wish (to do a book bingo) come true for this reader.



Banned Book: Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire [translator: Richard Howard]. I loved this book, and I bought it, and it's a keeper. But to be fair, this was my process for each poem: read in French, listen to French (on librivox.org), read English. It was the first book in a long, long time that I have actually had to look up words (the English words!) and that makes me very happy. That's a poet translating a poet and making another poet very happy. And Baudelaire was a miserable bastard (and so am I, these days) so I feel a kindred spirit when I read these poems. Also, lesbians and vampires.

Classic: The Brothers Karamazov by Fydor Dostoevsky. 700 pages of ugh. I even read the Cliff Notes along with it so I understood better what I was reading but still, ugh. There was one line that reminded me of Crowley (of Good Omens) and my Season of Kink bingo card.

But he is not Satan: that's a lie. He is an impostor. He is simply a devil — a paltry, trivial devil. He goes to the baths.

I had planned to read Orlando by Virginia Woolf but the opening scene of that book is Orlando playing sword-fighting with shrunken African heads hanging in his family's attic. I couldn't go on after that. The boys' father is African and the decapitated heads of Africans are not toys for children to play with. It makes me rather ill. So I literally googled 'classic literature' and scrolled across the listing to find one that I hadn't read and that I would consider reading. I didn't realize how long The Brothers Karamazov was when I picked it out but I am stubborn and when I did figure it out, I was too stubborn to quit. Also, I am very tired of the 'village idiot girl' gets pregnant trope.

( Other thoughts on reading; tw: cutting )

So here's the full list:


The First Book in a Series: A Death in Vienna by Frank Tallis [ebook]
Diverse Reads: The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
More than 300 pages: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides [audiobook]
Humour: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
Non-fiction: The Interior Castle by Saint Teresa of Avila
Book Mentioned in Another Book: Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Book on Display at the Library: Transcription by Kate Atkinson [audiobook]
Movie/TV tie-in: War Horse by Michael Morpurgo [audiobook]
Banned Book: Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire [translator: Richard Howard]
An Animal on the Cover: Devotions by Mary Oliver
Set in Your Country: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson [audiobook]
Classic: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky [e-book]
FREE SPACE: The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin [audiobook]
Mystery/Crime: This Poison Will Remain by Fred Vargas
Food/Cooking: Tea Cyclopedia by Keith Souter [e-book].
Title has a Name in It: Lord Darcy Investigates by Randall Garrett (e-book)
Children/YA: Clay the Cromer Crab and the Invasion of the Jeellyfish by Salena Dawson
Colour in the Title: Colour Scheme by Ngaio Marsh [ebook]
Award-winning Book: Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie
Dystopian: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Published in 2020: Slippery Creatures by K. J. Charles [e-book]
Romance: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
An Author You've Never Read Before: The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie [audiobook]
100 pages or less: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
POC Author: The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu