Reviews

Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars

bukukurasi's review

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.5

racist, misogynist, disgusted

paul_viaf's review

4.0

Courageous absurdity. Audacious luster. Unequivocal bloodlust. Dragging existentialism across the muddied battlefields at the heart of man’s inextinguishable conflagration, this book bestows the chattering of the primal inescapably intertwined with the human spirit. Nihilism rants from the gutters of humanity speaking that inexcusable, uncomfortable & unapologetic truth. The mirror reflects a monstrosity but what else was there to view but man devouring its own flesh, shitting out ideals only to fertilize the destruction that lay ravaged heaping with steaming germination. Yes they rebuilt the milieu but with raw & inconsolable exteriors. Blood barely drying. This book unveils the animosity that harkens from our core as if the duality dominated our path of discovery. Cendrars is almost a victim. Moravagine is almost a hero. The reader is most assuredly an accomplice. The story begs the question, what is at the very base of man. The traveling of the two characters makes for great conflict. The adventures introduce many eccentric characters. His descriptive style generates energy. He invites you into the madness as an accomplice or as a hostage, you are not sure whether to have fun or fear for your life. This book seems like it is meant for heathens & perhaps this is why I enjoy it so much. Certain halves of man irreconcilable. Cendrars writes as if he is if to suffocate the reader in madness, the reader becomes a sadomasochist in the process, torturing the reader with its suppression of oxygen, almost on the point of death, until he releases your submerged head & finally allows you to breathe & oh the air is so sweet when escaping from such a dreary womb. The tale has extreme contours, wild & unforeseen twists of tone & plot. The variety is quite pleasing & puts on full display the author’s flexibility & diverse tastes. There is mention of the Idiot, but what of the devil, the butcher, the mystic, the subversive, the baron, the lecher, the committed. The endless sides to the psyche of Moravagine make him an extraordinary character. The contrast between the two main characters only adds to the robust flavor of this recalling. This exotic flower singed by the bomb & sullied by the whore’s lipstick impaled by the sounds of political nonsense. It pushes wisdom deep into the nether regions of your mind like a lobotomy incision. Compels you to leave your comfort to venture into the very pulse of a supreme virility. A potency exists, exclaims & wails with fright & sheer bliss. The psychotic cackle of someone truly free from societies’ boundaries, from law, from conscience from judgment by god, beast or man truly resonates. A freedom that extinguishes itself with a fury. It brings to mind what society found vulgar then & what is found vulgar now, what is deemed obscene. It's an aborted fetus sprinkled with glitter. Indeed whimsical carnage bedazzled with the jewels of elegant words. A diamond covered in shit. The book is littered with amazing quotes & insight. I especially appreciated reading about his hardships in writing & finalizing the book. It makes me feel less guilty about my hardships in the same manner. The combination of all of this made it a very enjoyable read for me. Cheers to the mad!

sloatsj's review

1.0

I would have liked to like this book.

I would have loved to like this book.

I would have appreciated something more than the tedium I felt in the face of its forced exuberance.

I much enjoy Cendrars's poetry, and think I shall be sticking to that in the future.

dustypaw's review

challenging dark informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, War, Racism, Mental illness, Murder, Child death, Rape, Toxic friendship, Violence, Cultural appropriation, and Death

anti_formalist12's review

4.0

Deeply strange, somewhat upsetting, hysterically funny, and overtly misogynistic, this is perhaps the strangest book I have ever read. But I very much enjoyed it.

xolotlll's review

5.0

This book is a powerful mixture of brutality and tenderness. A rollicking adventure that periodically flowers into some of the most beautiful and thought-provoking prose I've ever read. My only complaint is that the title character - by far the most interesting part of the book - sort of wanders in and out of the story and is effectively absent for large stretches of mundane but enjoyable adventure. It's more than made up for by those moments when he does come to the forefront, however, like Blaise's description of the madman's childhood romance, and his oddly tragic demise.

jakemooreorless's review

adventurous challenging dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.0

anniebee443's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

5.0

timbo001's review

4.0

A melange of Rasselas, Gulliver's Travels, Whitman, de Sade, and Kerouac. A magnificent prose whose ideas border on the dangerously insane.

cmcrockford's review

4.0

An absurd misogynist existential novel, not sure if it can be separated from the raging weirdness towards women but I have been both the psychiatrist and Moravagine himself in my life and can't separate myself from the overall message of this one. “What are you looking for? There is no Truth. There's only action, action obeying a million different impulses, ephemeral action, action subjected to every possible and imaginable contingency and contradiction, Life."