Now is the Time

Thu, Nov 16, 2006

A textual note about “Matinee D’Ivresse”: “ASSASSINS dans le ms est en plus grand caracteres et souligne” (Pleiade, 1963).

You can also learn, at least in this edition, about the then-recent vogue for Robert Faurisson’s topo-typo-erotic interpretation of “Voyelles,” along with some suitably apoplectic remarks from Etiemble. Perhaps the unhappy fate of that controversy is what turned Faurisson mad; perhaps he always was. Granting his premise, his reading of “O”’s “l’extase finale,” however, given what we know of Rimbaud’s tastes, might have been a bit off the mark. I wonder how long it took someone to point that out.