Moravagine

By Blaise Cendrars

Book Overview

At once truly appalling and appallingly funny, Blaise Cendrars's Moravagine bears comparison with Naked Lunch--except that it's a lot more entertaining to read. Heir to an immense aristocratic fortune, mental and physical mutant Moravagine is a monster, a man in pursuit of a theorem that will justify his every desire. Released from a hospital for the criminally insane by his starstruck psychiatrist (the narrator of the book), who foresees a companionship in crime that will also be an unprecedented scientific collaboration, Moravagine travels from Moscow to San Antonio to deepest Amazonia, engaged in schemes and scams as, among other things, terrorist, speculator, gold prospector, and pilot. He also enjoys a busy sideline in rape and murder. At last, the two friends return to Europe--just in time for World War I, when "the whole world was doing a Moravagine." This new edition of Cendrars's underground classic is the first in English to include the author's afterword, "How I Wrote Moravagine."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590170636
• ISBN13: 9781590170632
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: New York Review of Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

The Lying Beauty Within the Deep Ugliness of Human Perception

It is obvious that this book is one of Cendrars most ambtious novels. It is so well written that each minor and major shock create a seamless flow within a paradox of uncontrolled energies on one level - yet controlled energies on other levels - coupled with an almost invisible hatred of the human for the entire human condition. To me, it is the most frightening book I have every read. ALso, it is in the realm of the greatest of classics. I cannot help but wonder where or not Blaise Cendrars was or had been an avid reader of Balzac (This is based upon some of his structuring of the story).

Moravagine is modernity

Every time I read this there is a new layer of meaning that jumps out; from the adventure story examining the limits and constraints of human nature to Cendrars' brilliant digressions in which each one paragraph could be fodder for entire books. It will have you rethink what it means to be human.

Exquisitely depraved travelogue

This may be described as an exquisitely depraved travelogue of regions both geographic and psychological. Other reviewers have more than adequately laid out the storyline and in that regard I have nothing to add. I will simply admonish readers that this is not a book for the queasy, the timid, or those of a markedly nervous disposition. That said, if you took pleasure from Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray, J.K. Huysmans' A Rebours (Against Nature), or, stretching a bit, even the fantastical satire of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, then this decadent, entertaining romp may be just what the "doctor" ordered. But you have been warned: I accept no responsibility for psychotic breaks triggered by this gruesome literary morsel.

...this is about beauty of experience through contrast.

One of the best books I have read. But it doesn't surprise me that I never hear about it. The end of the millenium and the vocabulary that people would use to describe it is taboo.... mmm... I would say this is about beauty of experience through contrast. Read it. Go through and beyond.

An underappreciated masterpiece for writers to enjoy

This is a depraved and beautiful book that should be read by everyone. It is the literary equivalent of the best meal you've ever eaten to the point of sickness--you wouldn't want to do it every night but you don't want to die without ever having done it once. Everyone who cares about literature, especially the decadent literature of this century, should check this out.