Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"The interconnected works of Volodine—think Faulkner, but after an apocalypse—constitute the most exciting project in contemporary French literature."—Maria Clementi
That is what we had called post-exoticism. It was a construction connected to revolutionary shamanism and literature. . . . It was an interior construction, a withdrawal, a secret welcoming land, but also something offensive that participated in the plot of certain unarmed individuals against the capitalist world and its countless ignominies. This fight was now confined solely to Bassmann's lips.
Like with Antoine Volodine's other works (Minor Angels, We Monks & Soldiers), Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven takes place in a corrupted future where a small group of radical writers—those who practice "post-exoticism"—have been jailed by those in power and are slowly dying off. But before Lutz Bassmann, the last post-exoticist writer, passes away, a couple journalists will try and pry out all the secrets of this powerful literary movement.
With its explanations of several key "post-exoticist" terms that appear in Volodine's other books, Lesson Eleven provides a crucial entryway into one of the most ambitious literary projects of recent times: a project exploring the revolutionary power of literature.
Antoine Volodine is the author of dozens of books under a few different pseudonyms, including Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger. These novels—several of which are available in English—articulate a post-exoticist universe filled with secrets, revolutionary writers, and spiders.
J. T. Mahany is a graduate of the University of Rochester's MA in Literary Translation Studies program and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Volodine's books (Minor Angels, Naming the Jungle) aren't so much novels as bizarre games of alternate reality, chronicling the lives and works of the fictitious "Post-Exotic" writers, whose complex and challenging novels and poems have led to their being imprisoned, persecuted, or assassinated outright. This book begins with an account of the death of Lutz Bassmann, last of the Post-Exotics, then explores the origins of the movement in "revolutionary shamanism" and lays out a wonderfully baffling catalog of sub-genres that only vaguely resemble any real existing literature. Volodine introduces stalwart underground "mercenaries of speech" like the mad poet Ellen Dawkes, and provides excerpts from Post-Exotic romances, novellas, and critiques of titles like Mirrors of the Cadaver; there is also a list of invented techniques such as "narrative scansion" and the "under narrator," as well as an appendix listing all 343 known Post-Exotic works several of which "Volodine" has actually published under a variety of pseudonyms. Taken as the sum of its parts, this book isn't much more than a curiosity, but as a primer for Volodine's fascinating career project, it's required reading. By redefining the role of writers in society and building a fantasy universe where they are both revered mystics and enemies of the state, Volodine carries literature into a realm that only the likes of Borges and Calvino could have anticipated.
