Only poets are innocent enough to invent such monstrosities.

Perhaps I should have enjoyed this more. It appeared jerky, fissured with jump cuts and unsettling twitches. I realized early that this reminded me of Balzac , who handles this theme better. It has been a strange 10 days and this may have bled into my reading.

A misfit man of letters encounters a childhood flame and helps to fix a man doing his lady wrong. This is achieved by wooing the wrong. This won't dissuade me from my Baudelaire fascination, though I may be making more room for Brecht, Beckett and Genet in coming days.

Postscript: Sometimes sleeping after a review will forge an additional vantage. Not this time. I would like to read Sartre's book on Baudelaire. ( )

Firstly, this is a 50 page short story; this edition of the book looks more meaty because it also contains the entire text in French.

Generally, I like Baudelaire and there are moments when the prose of "La Fanfarlo" shows some of his wit and poetic sensibility. But much of the story suffers from his pretension and his need to drop unnecessary and distracting literary references all over the place. It's a young man's book; so these are not surprising errors. The book is very much in dialogue with the French authors that Baudelaire wished to dethrone and it prevents his authentic and individual voice from emerging.

Though it does have a few interesting thoughts on jealousy, attraction and relationships. Some good parts: "Men caught in the snare of their own mistakes do not like to make an offering of their remorse on the alter of clemency."

" . . . sitting on the edge of the bed with the insouciance, the triumphant serenity of the adored woman . . . "

"What aura of such magical charm does vice cast around certain creatures? What crooked, repulsive aspect does their virtue impart to certain others?" ( )