- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (28 April 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140186360
- ISBN-13: 978-0140186369
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.6 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 953,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Product Description
A young French doctor, specialist in nervous diseases, releases a murderer from a lunatic asylum and joins him in his travels through Europe. The author was at the forefront of the modern movement, as a poet, film-maker, nomad and novelist.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a strange modern classic written by Cendrars in 1926. It is a fantastic tale, a hint of `Master and Marguarita' crossed with Don Quixote with a hint of McCarthy's `No country for old men' but nothing supernatural occurs. I understand it has elements of autobiography ?. It is a linear but very descriptive and provocative narrative which occasional deviates to give opinions on war, women or revolution. The tale itself could not be said to be gory or `x' rated.
This is a tale not so much of Moravagine himself but of the unnamed psychiatrist narrator (Cendrars himself makes a cameo entrance near the end of the story) who travels with him. Moravagine is a 28 year old psycho locked up by his Austrian royal family in 1894 for murdering his arranged bride and other associated madness behaviour like killing his dog on a whim. The narrator seems to fall fascinated with Moravagine and quickly helps him to escape; Moravagine takes the opportunity to murder the first young girl he meets. The pair then undertake travels first to Berlin (which ends in a murder spree). They then go for a long period in Russia engaging in the revolutionary turmoil; a key character is a woman Mascha who Moravagine falls for. It is in Russian that Moravagine seems to control himself and thereafter appears to cease his mad murdering transposing as it were this to the violent era; the narrator and Moravagine appear to be quite happy to plant bombs - they end up needing to make a hasty escape to England and then America. They then meet Lathuille who takes them up the river Orinoco and some adventure with the head shrinking native Indians ensues - here Moravagine is most normal perhaps. The couple arrive in Paris to join WW1; Moravagine becomes a pilot and the narrator a soldier (there I'll say no more so as not to spoil the ending for you).
I started thinking the tale was going to be really really good but, after an initial excellent start, for me it never quite worked, and as a story I didn't really care so much for the characters or its varied and unreal style by the end. Moravagine's madness didn't dominate as much as I expected and he was neither villian nor anti-hero. There are clearly some clever, subtle and not so subtle reflections, contrasts and ideas in the narrative but somehow I always felt I was missing something (perhaps Cendrars just wasn't getting enough and wanted some 'more-vaginas'?).
Here are a couple of quotes that caught my attention and perhaps together summarise the book: "Good and evil shake my prison, and anonymous suffering too, that perpetual motion that defies nature's laws" and secondly "Woman is masochistic. The sole principle of life is masochism and masochism is the principle of death. For which reason existence is idiotic, imbecile and vain, without ultimate purpose. And life is futile."
This is a tale not so much of Moravagine himself but of the unnamed psychiatrist narrator (Cendrars himself makes a cameo entrance near the end of the story) who travels with him. Moravagine is a 28 year old psycho locked up by his Austrian royal family in 1894 for murdering his arranged bride and other associated madness behaviour like killing his dog on a whim. The narrator seems to fall fascinated with Moravagine and quickly helps him to escape; Moravagine takes the opportunity to murder the first young girl he meets. The pair then undertake travels first to Berlin (which ends in a murder spree). They then go for a long period in Russia engaging in the revolutionary turmoil; a key character is a woman Mascha who Moravagine falls for. It is in Russian that Moravagine seems to control himself and thereafter appears to cease his mad murdering transposing as it were this to the violent era; the narrator and Moravagine appear to be quite happy to plant bombs - they end up needing to make a hasty escape to England and then America. They then meet Lathuille who takes them up the river Orinoco and some adventure with the head shrinking native Indians ensues - here Moravagine is most normal perhaps. The couple arrive in Paris to join WW1; Moravagine becomes a pilot and the narrator a soldier (there I'll say no more so as not to spoil the ending for you).
I started thinking the tale was going to be really really good but, after an initial excellent start, for me it never quite worked, and as a story I didn't really care so much for the characters or its varied and unreal style by the end. Moravagine's madness didn't dominate as much as I expected and he was neither villian nor anti-hero. There are clearly some clever, subtle and not so subtle reflections, contrasts and ideas in the narrative but somehow I always felt I was missing something (perhaps Cendrars just wasn't getting enough and wanted some 'more-vaginas'?).
Here are a couple of quotes that caught my attention and perhaps together summarise the book: "Good and evil shake my prison, and anonymous suffering too, that perpetual motion that defies nature's laws" and secondly "Woman is masochistic. The sole principle of life is masochism and masochism is the principle of death. For which reason existence is idiotic, imbecile and vain, without ultimate purpose. And life is futile."
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A young physician with nihilistic leanings helps an "incurable" patient named Moravagine to escape from a lunatic asylum. Thereafter the two men embark on a globe-trotting escapade taking in, amongst other things, the Russian Revolution and World War I. This is a bold and entertaining novel written in a muscular style which is at once insightful, direct and, I suppose, pretty harsh in its outlook. Yes it could be said that, as a whole, it doesn't quite hang together (for instance: Moravagine's character seems to shift between Jack the Ripper, Quasimodo and Hugh Hefner), and sometimes he (Moravagine) appears to be tacked on as a freakish sideshow to the narrator's strange adventures and anarchistic thoughts. All in all I'd define the novel as an intense, flamboyant and peculiar vision, flawed only by its untamed ambition.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Exquisitely depraved travelogue
25 Dec 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This may be described as an exquisitely depraved travelogue of regions both geographic and psychological. Other reviewers have more than adequately laid out the storyline and in that regard I have nothing to add. I will simply admonish readers that this is not a book for the queasy, the timid, or those of a markedly nervous disposition. That said, if you took pleasure from Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray, J.K. Huysmans' A Rebours (Against Nature), or, stretching a bit, even the fantastical satire of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, then this decadent, entertaining romp may be just what the "doctor" ordered. But you have been warned: I accept no responsibility for psychotic breaks triggered by this gruesome literary morsel.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Unfathomamble Brilliance!!
1 Oct 2011
Format:Paperback
This was the first book I read from Cendrars with little thought that he would have the humbling effect on me that he did. To say this book is great, is an understatement! After you've read it ,you too, will understand why! The amount of research that had to be applied to this book is an amazing feat in itself, let alone the whole storyline which is genius, complex,and poetic,... like all the great authors! Moravagine...A psychological thrilling novel that confronts bare human emotion with an honesty unmatched by few.. brings us closer into the mind of an author, whose awesome talent for expression, sent tremors down the spine of the literary world, showing us life's true nature...macabre and yet beautiful!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
The Lying Beauty Within the Deep Ugliness of Human Perception
20 Sep 2009
Format:Paperback
It is obvious that this book is one of Cendrars most ambtious novels. It is so well written that each minor and major shock create a seamless flow within a paradox of uncontrolled energies on one level - yet controlled energies on other levels - coupled with an almost invisible hatred of the human for the entire human condition. To me, it is the most frightening book I have every read. ALso, it is in the realm of the greatest of classics. I cannot help but wonder where or not Blaise Cendrars was or had been an avid reader of Balzac (This is based upon some of his structuring of the story).
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
