Disaster Was My God
Published on 17. November 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
356 pages
978-1-84668-527-9 (ISBN)
Description
In the space of one year,1871, with a handful of startling poems, Arthur Rimbaud transformed himself from a teenaged bumpkin into the literary sensation of Paris. He was taken in, then taken up, by the older, married poet Paul Verlaine in a passionate affair. When Rimbaud sought to end it, Verlaine, in a jealous rage, shot him.
Shortly thereafter, just shy of his twentieth birthday, Rimbaud declared himself finished with literature. His resignation notice was his immortal prose poem 'A Season in Hell'. In time, Rimbaud became a prosperous trader and arms dealer in Ethiopia. But a cancerous leg forced him to return to France, to the family farm, with his sister and loving but overbearing mother. He died aged thirty-seven.
Bruce Duffy takes the bare facts of Rimbaud's fascinating existence and brings them vividly to life in a story rich with people, places, and paradox. He conveys, as few ever have, the inner turmoil of this calculating genius of outrage, whose work and untidy life did much to anticipate the twentieth century's culture of rebellion.
Shortly thereafter, just shy of his twentieth birthday, Rimbaud declared himself finished with literature. His resignation notice was his immortal prose poem 'A Season in Hell'. In time, Rimbaud became a prosperous trader and arms dealer in Ethiopia. But a cancerous leg forced him to return to France, to the family farm, with his sister and loving but overbearing mother. He died aged thirty-seven.
Bruce Duffy takes the bare facts of Rimbaud's fascinating existence and brings them vividly to life in a story rich with people, places, and paradox. He conveys, as few ever have, the inner turmoil of this calculating genius of outrage, whose work and untidy life did much to anticipate the twentieth century's culture of rebellion.
Reviews / Votes
Verdict: Intriguing, at times disturbing, and always compelling, Duffy's latest nonfiction novel is hard to put down. Highly recommended for fans of Duffy's other work, including his fictional biography of Wittgenstein, The World as I Found It; those interested in French poetry, history, and historical novels are sure to like this too. * Library Journal * The writers and rockers, the teenage malcontents-Duffy will have many of them at hello. Strongly flavored with the urgent rhythms of the poems themselves, the novel matches the poet's intellectual intensity and inclination to observe, condense, and vivify. * Book Forum * Duffy revels in his intense characters: brilliant and feral Rimbaud, his ogress of a mother and long suffering sister, and, most sympathetically, absinthe-poisoned poet Paul Verlaine, who abandoned his young, pregnant wife for a doomed affair with scoundrel Rimbaud. Impassioned and melodramatic, keenly detailed and hallucinogenic, Duffy's reeling novel avidly encompasses the terror and beauty, despair and ecstasy of high-pitched lives and tradition-shattering art. * Booklist * There are many lovely touches in Duffy's novel. ... [He] persuasively penetrates the layers of myth and produces characters who suggest the real people they once were * The New Yorker * Mr. Duffy's take on the Rimbaud mystery shapes a novel that...pleases. [His] hyperbolic prose style...grows on you * New York Times * Derangement of the senses is what Bruce Duffy has achieved in his astonishing novel about Rimbaud, Disaster Was My God. ... By an extraordinary feat of fictional imagination, Duffy has joined [Rimbaud the] artist and [Rimbaud the] gunrunner. ...[I]t is the content and quality of the scenes that achieves the join. Duffy has created a fiery mosaic of brilliantly conceived and written pieces...the adorned texture of [his] writing becomes addictive. Among other things, Disaster is the rare example of a page-turner whose pages are richly weighted. * Boston Globe * Bruce Duffy is an author who possesses the powers of imagination to construct biographically inspired fiction that transcends the aims and limits of biography. ... the literary results, once again, are impressive. * San Francisco Chronicle * A wonderful and wise contribution to the Rimbaud library.Book of the week -- Paul Burston * Time Out * Wit, panache and page-turning invention throughout. -- Adam O'Riordan * The Telegraph *
More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Profile Books Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 135 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
470 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84668-527-9 (9781846685279)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
New editions
Bruce Duffy
Disaster Was My God
Book
11/2012
The Clerkenwell Press
€31.13
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Person
Bruce Duffy is the author of the The World As I Found It, a fictional life of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Last Comes The Egg. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.