Moravagine (1926)

[Dave Monroe]

Moravagine
By Blaise Cendrars
Translated from the French by Alan Brown
Introduction by Paul La Farge

At once truly appalling and appallingly funny, Blaise Cendrars's
Moravagine bears comparison with Naked Lunch—except that it's a lot
more entertaining to read. Heir to an immense aristocratic fortune,
mental and physical mutant Moravagine is a monster, a man in pursuit
of a theorem that will justify his every desire. Released from a
hospital for the criminally insane by his starstruck psychiatrist (the
narrator of the book), who foresees a companionship in crime that will
also be an unprecedented scientific collaboration, Moravagine travels
from Moscow to San Antonio to deepest Amazonia, engaged in schemes and
scams as, among other things, terrorist, speculator, gold prospector,
and pilot. He also enjoys a busy sideline in rape and murder. At last,
the two friends return to Europe—just in time for World War I, when
"the whole world was doing a Moravagine."

This new edition of Cendrars's underground classic is the first in
English to include the author's afterword, "How I Wrote Moravagine."

http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?product_id=3671

http://books.google.com/books?id=xzaznIuTHKIC

Paul West on Blaise Cendrars' Moravagine

http://ajourneyroundmyskull.blogspot.com/2008/08/paul-west-on-cendrars-moravagine.html