I hate St Valentine's Day. Why can't you tell your dear one you love him/her without buying them a heart-shaped something? That remains a mystery to me.
If, like me, you're hoping to do something slightly more alternative that could maybe involve music and books, tune in tonight at 8pm (UK time) on Radio Joy and listen to punk legend Vic Godard reading from Robert Desnos’ novel Liberty or Love!
I've always been absolutely obsessed with Vic Godard & the Subway Sect, first because I spent my life feeling like a complete outsider anywhere I landed and used to see this band as a group of outsiders happy not to fit in and generally laughing back at the mainstream; second because I'm convinced I once passed an English exam only because I therapeutically listened to the Subway Sect's anthology "Twenty Odd Years" while preparing it. I interviewed Vic a couple of times in the past and his humbleness and openness made me love his music even more than I already did.
In case you've never heard of Robert Desnos, you'd better try and check out his works now. This year also marks his 100th birth anniversary (he was born on 4th July 4 1900 in Paris), so you can (re)discover him while celebrating this event.
Desnos was one of the first Surrealists together with writers Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard and André Breton and developed with them a writing technique that investigated the subconscious and involved drifting into a hypnotic trance and writing and drawing under it.
Desnos used to work as a literary columnist for the newspaper Paris-Soir and first started publishing his poems in various magazines while his collections of surrealistic aphorisms and poems were published in the 20s.
In 1927 he published La Liberté ou l’amour! (“Liberty or Love!”), but the book that was considered as obscene and immediately censored by the authorities.
A few years after Desnos broke from the Surrealists' rigidity of Breton and dedicated himself to writing radio scripts, such as Complainte de Fantomas (“Fantomas’ Lament”, 1932).
During the German occupation of Paris, he wrote under different pseudonyms a series of essays that mocked the Nazis that got him arrested. Desnos was sent first to Auschwitz, then transferred to other concentration camps and eventually taken to Theresienstadt where he contracted typhoid. The poet and writer died in 1945, a month after the liberation of the concentration camp where he had been deported.
Liberty or Love! is a bizarre, obsessive and mysterious tale à la de Sade that follows the erotic vicissitudes of Corsair Sanglot in pursuit of his love Louise Lame, so it's an ideal read for a truly alternative St. Valentine's Day, but it's also perfect for all those people interested in erotic novels and censorship.
Desnos was one of the inventors of radio communication, so it will be very apt to listen to his book being recited on the radio.
In case you miss tonight's broadcasting, don't despair, it will be later on archived here.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
http://www.boxxet.com/my/badgeBN.80.15.js?boxxetId=u23036
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
http://www.boxxet.com/my/badgeBN.160.30.js?boxxetId=u23036
Add to Technorati Favorites
http://www.lijit.com/wijitinit?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lijit.com%2Fusers%2Fabnet75&js=1Lijit Search