BlackShanglan
Silver-Tongued Papist
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2004
- Posts
- 16,888
It was the strangest book he had ever read. It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him. Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually revealed. [...] One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book.
I have had the pleasure of being poisoned by the book from which this passage is taken - Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray." It has a remarkable power over me; I've read it as often as three times in six months, and seem incapable of putting it down once I have taken it up. (No doubt even hunting out that quotation will start me afresh; I have neither the will nor the inclination to resist.)
I have also been allowed the joy, now, of being poisoned by the third of the three known inspirations for the (unnamed and fictional) book that poisons Dorian Gray.
The first I read was Walter Pater's "Studies in the History of the Renaissance," which is a beautiful thing, entracing, enspiriting, beautiful, and joyous. It offers a sort of innocent sensuality and bright, sweet pleasure in sensation that is remarkably charming. It enunciates a beautifully cultured and artistic hedonism; it elevates the art of receiving and loving beauty to a spiritual calling.
The second was Huysmans' "A Rebour." This is a truly remarkable, seductive, and dangerous text. Barby d'Aurevilly said "After such a book, it only remains for the author to choose between the muzzle of a pistol or the foot of the cross." The reader is presented with very nearly the same choice. That book still has the power to utterly intoxicate me, and leave me for days drifting between reality and an opiate world of refined and fantastic sensation. I warn the reader: it will haunt you. You will throw it down in disgust; you will take it up again. You will put it from your mind; it will return in the strangest moments and whisper treason in your ear. You will think that you have put that book from you at last; you never will.
Imagine, then, the trepidation with which I took up "Marius the Epicurean." It is the last of the three venomous tomes. It has a fine pedigree; Wilde salutes it, and Yeats, in relating another notable literary poisoning, describes Mohini Chatterjee arriving at their first meeting "with a little bag in his hand, and a copy of 'Marius the Epicurean' in his pocket." I have opened it at last, and let myself sink within.
It is incomparably beautiful. Hemlock, I find, has a savor all its own.
Have I any companions in being entranced, seduced, and poisoned - by a book?
Shanglan
I have had the pleasure of being poisoned by the book from which this passage is taken - Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray." It has a remarkable power over me; I've read it as often as three times in six months, and seem incapable of putting it down once I have taken it up. (No doubt even hunting out that quotation will start me afresh; I have neither the will nor the inclination to resist.)
I have also been allowed the joy, now, of being poisoned by the third of the three known inspirations for the (unnamed and fictional) book that poisons Dorian Gray.
The first I read was Walter Pater's "Studies in the History of the Renaissance," which is a beautiful thing, entracing, enspiriting, beautiful, and joyous. It offers a sort of innocent sensuality and bright, sweet pleasure in sensation that is remarkably charming. It enunciates a beautifully cultured and artistic hedonism; it elevates the art of receiving and loving beauty to a spiritual calling.
The second was Huysmans' "A Rebour." This is a truly remarkable, seductive, and dangerous text. Barby d'Aurevilly said "After such a book, it only remains for the author to choose between the muzzle of a pistol or the foot of the cross." The reader is presented with very nearly the same choice. That book still has the power to utterly intoxicate me, and leave me for days drifting between reality and an opiate world of refined and fantastic sensation. I warn the reader: it will haunt you. You will throw it down in disgust; you will take it up again. You will put it from your mind; it will return in the strangest moments and whisper treason in your ear. You will think that you have put that book from you at last; you never will.
Imagine, then, the trepidation with which I took up "Marius the Epicurean." It is the last of the three venomous tomes. It has a fine pedigree; Wilde salutes it, and Yeats, in relating another notable literary poisoning, describes Mohini Chatterjee arriving at their first meeting "with a little bag in his hand, and a copy of 'Marius the Epicurean' in his pocket." I have opened it at last, and let myself sink within.
It is incomparably beautiful. Hemlock, I find, has a savor all its own.
Have I any companions in being entranced, seduced, and poisoned - by a book?
Shanglan
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