"Being perfect artists and ingenuous poets, the Chinese have piously preserved the love and holy cult of flowers; one of the very rare and most ancient traditions which has survived their decadence. And since flowers had to be distinguished from each other, they have attributed graceful analogies to them, dreamy images, pure and passionate names which perpetuate and harmonize in our minds the sensations of gentle charm and violent intoxication with which they inspire us. So it is that certain peonies, their favorite flower, are saluted by the Chinese, according to their form or color, by these delicious names, each an entire poem and an entire novel: The Young Girl Who Offers Her Breasts, or: The Water That Sleeps Beneath the Moon, or: The Sunlight in the Forest, or: The First Desire of the Reclining Virgin, or: My Gown Is No Longer All White Because in Tearing It the Son of Heaven Left a Little Rosy Stain; or, even better, this one: I Possessed My Lover in the Garden."
5 comments:
an image like that and no link to Death In June's "In the Torture Garden" ?
Is this anywhere near Maldoror or something romance-deranged as Thief's Journal?
discussed this novel with some italian anarchists some summers ago, and they claimed some a film adaption was made in the 70's... you heard of that? 'cause it seems impossible to track down, nobody knows anything... unheimlich...
not as sense-deranged as Maldoror... more considered and philosophical, almost disconnected in it's approach, as if the torture garden is designed to be assimilated and thoughtover and admired; none of the surreal rage of Maldoror... most of the book is rendered in rather blank verse....(though taht could be my translation) not sure about the Thief's Journal.. haven't read it...
never heard of a film but now i'm curious... sounds plausible..
there is definitely a DVD of this available...I have seen it several times where I work.
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