Irene's Cunt by Louis Aragon

Author:Louis Aragon [Aragon, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Surreal, Erotic, Fiction
ISBN: 9781908694461
Publisher: Elektron eBooks
Published: 1928-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

NOTES TO “IRENE’S CUNT”

[1] Fallières Phosphatine. A 1934 issue of L’Illustration carries an amusing advertisement for this doubtless wholesome beverage (sold with or without cocoa content) for toddlers. “Force et santé” are promised to an Ovaltiney-like “armée des petits soldats fosfatins” [sic].

[2] Henry Bordeaux (1870–1963). The only fleeting mention of this author in André Billy’s La Littérature Française Contemporaine (1927) is in a section entitled `The Provinces’. Bordeaux `described the Savoie in most of his books’, and this provincialist disciple of Paul Bourget was a thoroughly traditional writer who especially reflected, and appealed to, the French bourgeoisie. Bordeaux was an Academician by 1919, and Aragon’s subversive humour places a now-forgotten novel in the hand of a whore in a brothel.

[3] Galeries Nancéiennes and the sardonic comment on the town of Nancy are also possible allusions or in-jokes referring to Nancy Cunard [see Introduction].

[4] Gobelin tapestry. Heavily traditional and detailed scenes of hunting and forests.

[5] The adjective faubourien is also a punning slang reference to the buttocks.

[6] Mount Ida. On this celebrated mountain the shepherd Paris awarded the prize – in what may have been the first ever beauty contest – to the goddess Venus. Covered in green woods, and overlooking the Hellespont and the adjacent countries, its slopes (according to classical poets) were frequented by the gods during the Trojan War.

[7] Nymphe. The French term for labia minora.

[8] L’Enfer, or Hell, is the section of the French National Library corresponding to the British Library’s Private Case, i.e. that devoted to erotica. Apollinaire’s work cataloguing erotic books for the former was well known to Aragon and his fellow Surrealists, hence the punning in-joke.

[9] tête-bêche. Pair of stamps next to each other on a sheet, one with the sovereign’s head printed upside down through printing error. This philatelic rarity may indeed suggest 69, but the nonsensical rendering `the swarthy head-to-foot positions’ will not do. It occurs in the only other translation of this work I’ve ever seen, Lowell Bair’s 1969 American version, now out of print and in any case generally inaccurate.

[10] cons. Ambiguous in French slang usage. Stupidity and contempt are implied, as well as the central genital image of the book.

[11] Massimo Bontempelli (1878–1960). Italian author who rejected 19th century ideals and, after being a Futurist for a time, developed his own aesthetic theory, a form of magical realism. Active and influential around 1928/30, and now remembered mainly for his novel The Life And Death Of Adria And Her Children (1930).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.