Tag: surrealist

Belle de jour by Joseph Kessel

Posted September 4, 2015 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Erotica / 0 Comments

Title: Belle de Jour (Goodreads)
Author: Joseph Kessel
Translator: Geoffrey Atheling Wagner
Published: Overlook Books, 1928
Pages: 188
My Copy: eBook

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Belle de Jour is the story of Séverine Sérizy, a beautiful young housewife married to a successful doctor. Her life is pretty great, except she feels like she cannot fulfil her sexual affinity for masochistic desires with her husband. She gets a job as a prostitute under the pseudonym Belle de Jour, only working from two to five each week day, so she can return before her husband gets home. Her job gets her involved with a young gangster named Marcel who allows her to explore all her sexual fantasies. However this relationship of thrills becomes far too much and life gets complicated for Séverine.

Most people will know the story of Belle de Jour as it also a classic piece of French cinema from 1967. Directed by Luis Buñuel and staring Catherine Deneuve, the film explores the exact same story in a richer and interesting way. Buñuel is a Spanish director who has worked on movies in Spain, Mexico and France; he is also acclaimed for his avant-garde surrealist style. I was blown away by this movie and I only saw the movie recently. The concepts of the movie kept swimming through my mind that I needed to read the book to find out more.

What I have found is that the story in the novel is very similar but the surrealist nature of the movie was not there. I did however gain a few insights into the life of Séverine Sérizy that I never picked up on. There is some interesting observations to be made between the connection in literature and fetish, especially with sexual sadism and sexual abuse. This has been a common problem found in books like Fifty Shades of Grey and other novels that deal with BDSM. It is a little sad to think this trope steams all the way to 1928 and maybe further. I think French erotica is really interesting and it is weird to think this was written so long ago.

If you have seen the movie Belle de Jour, then reading the book is not really beneficial. Joseph Kessel does not offer anything interesting and I think everything that made the movie great was all original content from the mind of Luis Buñuel. I plan to re-watch the film sometime so I can write a review of it. As for French erotica, I plan to read more and I am not sure what to read. I think might have to read The Story of O, but I am open to more suggestions.

My Art Adventure

Posted September 12, 2011 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Art / 9 Comments

While normally I don’t write blog entries about myself, I feel inclined to share some experiences I’ve had recently that do link to the overall theme of this site. I was in Spain and France for a holiday, which was an experience in itself but there was a few cultural activities that were done that I want to talk about.

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

First stop was the Museo Reina Sofía, which is dedicated to 20th Century Spanish art. This meant a lot of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Recently I did a few posts about Picasso and the main reason I went to this museum was to see his masterpiece Guernica. I have to admit seeing this in real life was an experience in itself, there is no pictures out there that really do this painting justice and I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of it anyway. It was awe inspiring, I’m not sure if all the Spanish history leading up to this picture made this an experience or if it’s the painting itself. But there are no words to describe this encounter for me.

A bonus was the Surrealist wing of this museum. There is something about surrealism that I love, it’s weird and wonderful. This wing consisted on a lot of Salvador Dalí paintings, which were exciting to see, but it also included a painting by my favourite surrealist Rene Magritte. Magritte has always been my favourite surrealist, his works are so distinctive, recognisable and often very witty. The painting I saw wasn’t one of his more famous pieces but it was still exciting to see. The particular painting was his 1930’s piece Pink Belles, Tattered Skies.

magritte — Rene Magritte - Pink Belles, Tattered Skies (1930)

Museo del Prado

The Del Prado is the Spanish National art’s Museum which features a lot of Velázquez, Francisco de Goya, Titian, Rubens and Bosch as well as a huge selection of Romanesque, Gothic and Early Renaissance paintings. I was fortunate enough to see my favourite Titian picture; Sisyphus (1548-1549) but the highlight of this museum and possibly the trip was the two Caravaggio paintings. Most readers will know my love of his work, so it was exciting to finally see some of it. On loan from the Vatican; was The Entombment of Christ (1602–1603) and from Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; David with the Head of Goliath (1607).

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

We were lucky enough to go to the Guggenheim during Aste Nagusia (an annual festival in Basque country) and experienced this museum with live Jazz music playing. The music definitely enhanced the experience. While I’m not sure how I feel about modern art, especially Abstract; it was interesting to see some Pollock and other bizarre pieces.

Musée du Louvre

Probably the most visited and even the largest museum in the world, but it’s interesting to see that most of the people go to see the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo. While it’s good to see both, there is so much to see and it would take you days to go through it all. The Louvre has a lot of sculptures and decorative arts to look at as well as paintings by the greats including Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and of course The Death of the Virgin (1606) by Caravaggio. While there was some amazing art at the Louvre, it was so spread out the experience wasn’t as enjoyable as the other museums.

Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio, 1606 — Caravaggio - The Death of the Virgin (1606)

It’s been quite an adventure and later I will tell you more, I just wanted to share with you the great museums and art I saw along the way. There really is nothing like seeing the art in real life, it was a real eye opener.

William S. Burroughs & Surrealist Writing Methods

Posted November 19, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature, Writing / 2 Comments

Post-modern author, William S. Burroughs is best known for his experimental writing style. He was a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major influence in popular culture as well as literature.

In 1959, he released Naked Lunch which he described as “Automatic writing gone horribly wrong”. Previously, I have posted about Automatism, but it is a process of writing where the writer tries to avoid conscious thoughts. Burroughs has said that Naked Lunch wasn’t a book he wanted to write, but he had no choice but write it: he couldn’t write anything else. When it came to using André Breton’s method of automatism; where the subconscious focuses on one image or phase, Burroughs found his subconscious was taken over by a hostile entity. The results speaks for its self, Naked Lunch is not only full of obscene language but completely weird.

William S. Burroughs moved to Paris in the 1960’s where he met a painter named Brion Gysin. The two of them are often credited for rediscovering an old surrealist method known as Cut-up. This technique is when you take a finished piece of text, cut it up and rearrange it for a completely new novel. Burroughs experimented with this technique, which resulted in The Nova Trilogy; also known as The Cut-up Trilogy. The first book in the trilogy, The Soft Machine, was the result of the two on a journey (with the aid of some recreational drugs) to find hidden meanings in Naked Lunch. Using the cut-up technique, Burroughs wanted to find the answer to the question that had been plaguing him; the question of control; why did he have no control over the writing of Naked Lunch? The Soft Machine was first published with 182 pages; though in the second edition Burroughs removed 82 pages, replacing them with another 82 pages & with the other 100 pages, he rearranged and restructured using further cut-ups.

William S. Burroughs will always be known for his Beat influences, political trenchancies, cultural influences, his satirical writing and hopefully his experimental use of surrealist writing methods.