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Princess Sappho (Léon Genonceaux), The Tutu, morality of the fin-de-siècle, Atlas Press, 2013. [1891.]
A great "lost novel". Published in 1891, it was never released to bookshops, since its author quickly realised it would see him jailed. The novel remained totally unknown for a hundred years and even then only a handful of copies came to light. Described by French critics as a cross between Alphonse Allais and Lautréamont, this is the most outrageous "decadent novel" ever penned. At once appalling and funny, it recognises no taboos whatsoever, and one can only speculate what its influence might have been had it appeared when it was written. The author was the publisher of Rimbaud's poems and Lautréamont's Maldoror. Hardback.
The nineteenth-century French writer and publisher Léon Genonceaux (1856-?) is as much of an enigma as those two legendary enfants terribles whom he was the first to publish: Arthur Rimbaud and the Comte de Lautréamont. After he had done so, a conviction for publishing indecent literature followed, and Genonceaux fled to London, returning to Paris around 1900 and then disappearing forever around 1905, leaving behind a wild, stupefying masterpiece called The Tutu. The Tutu is one of those mythical beasts-a great lost book; a book that, if it had been published when it was written (in 1891), would have been one of the defining works of late nineteenth-century French literature. In fact it was published, but was never distributed to bookstores, and today only six copies of the original edition survive. Willfully scatological, erotic and gleefully Nietzschean in its dismemberment of fin-de-siecle morality, The Tutu is at once a sort of ultimate Decadent delirium and also a proto-modernist novel in the vein of Ulysses. Its existence was first posited in 1966 by a famous literary hoaxer, and until a handful of copies turned up some years later, in the early 1990s, it was presumed to be a fabrication. This is the first English translation.
The Tutu is a genuine literary mystery: a lost masterpiece. Published in 1891, it never made it to bookshops. Its existence was only revealed in 1966, by a famous literary hoaxer. It is the ultimate 'decadent novel', but also outlandishly modern; it is excessive, repellent, infantile and riotously funny. Yet despite its absurdities, its eccentricities and its extravagance, in the end it somehow manages to appear compassionate, poetic, tender...even rational.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Princess Sappho (Léon Genonceaux), The Tutu, morality of the fin-de-siècle, Atlas Press, 2013. [1891.]
A great "lost novel". Published in 1891, it was never released to bookshops, since its author quickly realised it would see him jailed. The novel remained totally unknown for a hundred years and even then only a handful of copies came to light. Described by French critics as a cross between Alphonse Allais and Lautréamont, this is the most outrageous "decadent novel" ever penned. At once appalling and funny, it recognises no taboos whatsoever, and one can only speculate what its influence might have been had it appeared when it was written. The author was the publisher of Rimbaud's poems and Lautréamont's Maldoror. Hardback.
Had The Tutu appeared when it was written in 1891 it would have been one of the defining works of late nineteenth-century French literature. Juan Goytisolo is among its admirers, and noted that: “The Tutu has been described as the most mysterious novel of the nineteenth century, it is probably one of the strangest, and certainly one of the most fascinating… We find in it a clear presentiment (one cannot say influence, since no one read this book) of the audacities of Jarry, Roussel, Breton, Ionesco and Queneau…”
Its author, the publisher Léon Genonceaux (1856–?), is as much of an enigma as the two legendary enfants terribles whom he was the first to publish: Arthur Rimbaud and the Comte de Lautréamont. When he brought out The Tutu he was already in trouble with the police for “immoral publishing”, and realised that sending it to bookstores would certainly land him in jail. The book disappeared for nearly 100 years, and its author likewise — after 1905 nothing is known of him. Finally republished in the 1990s, The Tutu was hailed by reviewers as the bastard child of J.-K. Huysmans and Antonin Artaud.
Genonceaux appears to have been intent on outraging just about everyone, and The Tutu is gleefully Nietzschean in its dismemberment of contemporary morality. It is simultaneously a sort of ultimate “decadent novel” and outlandishly modern; it is also repellent, infantile and deeply cynical. Yet despite all its absurdities and extravagances, in the end it somehow manages to appear compassionate, poetic, funny… and even — most absurdly of all — rational.
The nineteenth-century French writer and publisher Léon Genonceaux (1856-?) is as much of an enigma as those two legendary enfants terribles whom he was the first to publish: Arthur Rimbaud and the Comte de Lautréamont. After he had done so, a conviction for publishing indecent literature followed, and Genonceaux fled to London, returning to Paris around 1900 and then disappearing forever around 1905, leaving behind a wild, stupefying masterpiece called The Tutu. The Tutu is one of those mythical beasts-a great lost book; a book that, if it had been published when it was written (in 1891), would have been one of the defining works of late nineteenth-century French literature. In fact it was published, but was never distributed to bookstores, and today only six copies of the original edition survive. Willfully scatological, erotic and gleefully Nietzschean in its dismemberment of fin-de-siecle morality, The Tutu is at once a sort of ultimate Decadent delirium and also a proto-modernist novel in the vein of Ulysses. Its existence was first posited in 1966 by a famous literary hoaxer, and until a handful of copies turned up some years later, in the early 1990s, it was presumed to be a fabrication. This is the first English translation.
The Tutu is a genuine literary mystery: a lost masterpiece. Published in 1891, it never made it to bookshops. Its existence was only revealed in 1966, by a famous literary hoaxer. It is the ultimate 'decadent novel', but also outlandishly modern; it is excessive, repellent, infantile and riotously funny. Yet despite its absurdities, its eccentricities and its extravagance, in the end it somehow manages to appear compassionate, poetic, tender...even rational.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
