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    Aseroë
    Aseroë
    Aseroë
    Ebook112 pages2 hours

    Aseroë

    By François Dominique

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    “A singular novel.” —Lydia Davis, author of Can’t and Won’t and Essays One

    “An exhilarating adventure!” —Alberto Manguel, author of The Library at Night and Fabulous Monsters

    “Extraordinary. . . . Brings to mind the great mushroom scenes of the film Phantom Thread. How not to be aroused by this whopping treat of verbal virtuosity?” —Mary Ann Caws, author of The Modern Art Cookbook

    Aseroë, the mushroom, as object of fascination. First observed in Tasmania and South Africa, it appeared suddenly in France around 1920. It is characterized by its stench and, at maturity, its grotesque beauty.

    Aseroë, the word, as incantation. Can a word create a world? It does, here. François Dominique is a conjurer, who through verbal sorcery unleashes the full force of language, while evoking the essential rupture between the word and the object. An impossible endeavor, perhaps, but one at the very heart of literature.

    The narrator of Aseroë wanders medieval streets and dense forests, portrait galleries, and rare bookshops. As he explores the frontiers of language, the boundaries of science, art, and alchemy melt away, and the mundane is overtaken by the bizarre. Inhabited by creatures born in darkness, both terrible and alluring, Aseroë is ultimately a meditation on memory and forgetting, creation, and oblivion.

    François Dominique is an acclaimed novelist, essayist, poet, and translator. He has received the Burgundy Prize for Literature and is the author of eight novels, including Aseroë and Solène, winner of the Wepler Award and Prix littéraire Charles Brisset. He has translated the poetry of Louis Zukofsky and Rainer Maria Rilke and is the cofounder of the publishing house Ulysses-Fin-de-Siècle.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBellevue Literary Press
    Release dateSep 15, 2020
    ISBN9781942658795
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    Reviews for Aseroë

    3.5/5

    18 ratings7 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I was pleased to have been gifted an ARC, and from the publisher description fully anticipated an enjoyable novel -- even (perhap especially) if it ended up being something other than expected. Yet like Moss before it (another ARC gifted by the same publisher), I must admit I've retained almost nothing of plot, characters, or themes. Even after reviewing my notes, I am left without a clear impression of Aseroë.As with Moss, the experience prompted me to reflect on my expectations and why the experience I had feels so much more to be about my reading than about the text that I read. This isn't always the case. Though I reliably weed out works I won't enjoy, I do recognise when a book fails to measure up to my standard for a good read. This doesn't feel like that kind of situation. Reviewing my notes and revisiting quotes I marked when reading, I find many examples of musings on word and image, memory and perception, joined to imaginative scenes illustrating these abstractions. Separately, like the publisher description before, I find them intriguing and suggestive. Somehow they never cohered. I'll return this to my shelf and plan to revisit.
    • 4/5
      One of those indescribable books that will be a delight to the right people, into whose hands I sincerely hope it falls, and irritating nonsense to everyone else. There’s not a plot here so much as a series of puzzling, semi-surreal episodes that may or may not be happening to a narrator who may or may not be the author (though he certainly is AN author). Am I not making it sound like much fun? I did like it. Its poetry never overwhelms the ease of its expression. The writing is often quite beautiful, meditating on everything from the fungus so touted by the jacket copy—which, disappointingly, turns out to play only a background role—to the Othering of strangers to the longing for a LIBER MUTUS, “that ‘silent book’ whose mysterious and vacant meaning was the only grail that ever seemed worthy of ... pursuit” (158). ASEROË flirts with serious subjects like the Holocaust, but ultimately is more of an intellectual pleasure than an emotional one.
    • 4/5
      A brief post-modernist meditation on the ephemeral nature of existence and the multifarious interpretations of meaning. Words, books, women, and sensations as totems, full of indeterminable meanings. Aseroë begins with a fascinating journey through mycology, with a uniquely French take on the highly descriptive names given to certain mushrooms, then wanders off to other realms, too many to mention. At times a completely mesmerizing read, but perhaps too disjointed to be considered completely successful as a cohesive novel. For literary comparison, Pascal Quignard's works come to mind.
    • 3/5
      Aseroë by François Dominique follow the narrator as he attempts to reach a plane of existence (or simply a plane of thought-existence) beyond language, through language and things that yield, or perhaps don't yield, easily to language. From the beguilingly strange fungus that gives the novella its title to a portrait that is embodied to an "idiot" girl who can read his mind, the narrator recounts twelve digressions/attempts that are loosely connected. Sometimes his observations are precise and rendered in beautiful language (the irony!) and sometimes the prose is overburdened by references to other works that may serve a purpose, but fail to create something entirely novel. As the narrator makes heady, philosophical forays into the depths of what language enables or takes away from being, the stories convulse between clarity and a sort of fugue. Overall, the effect is mesmerizing, yet, at times, confusing. Recommended for those who like paintings, Orpheus, wine, bistros, and, of course, mycology.Thanks to the publisher and LibraryThing for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest opinion.
    • 4/5
      Disclaimer: I received an ARC of the English translation via a Librarything giveaway.The one thing that most people remember from the story Orpheus is his inability not to look back. His death tends to be if not glossed over, then not widely discussed. He was ripped about. Which, when you think about it, speaks entirely to the power of music – it can move us in a variety of ways.Orpheus features in this short novella that at first blush seems to be a man’s interest in mushrooms, but is really about art, writing, food, dance, and life.The narrator of the novella, who may or may not be Dominque himself, starts with a mediation on mushrooms that will, at the very least make the reader never look at a mushroom the same way again. And when you think about mushrooms are pretty interesting, and the shapes are so interventive. If Dominique or his narrator is correct, then maybe mushrooms decide for themselves what their shapes are going to be.The book is split into 12 (a complete number) chapters or sections that are only somewhat interconnected. It is better, though, to think of the book as a mediation.It is chocked with references’ to artists and artwork, and for the most part the book syncs. The only exception is a brief sexual encounter, (but a book about creation without sex would have been too weird).Perhaps the book isn’t about creation, but about beauty and what makes life beautiful. Not only that, but how it makes the mind work. We follow the narrator though parts of France and Europe as he hikes and studies art. His study and his observations increase the reader’s understanding and observations of art.There is such beauty in this work, and the amount of time that you spend unraveling it, thinking about it, wondering about it, is worth it.(less)
    • 3/5
      As I was reading this book, I found myself thinking, "This feels like a throwback to a certain kind of late 20th century continental post-modernism." It wasn't until I finished and read the translator's note at the end that I discovered that is exactly what this book is. It was originally published in France in the 1980s and is only now being translated into English.As someone who read a fair amount of--and enjoyed--post-modern fiction, I was a bit disappointed in this. I did not feel like it all came together particularly well. The main themes around forgetfulness, the difficulty of language and thought, and the inwardness of the narrator's thought are all common in post-modern literature, but here they never cohered into any sort of insight or epiphany. Still, it's a quick read with some beautiful sections. I just wouldn't consider it a must-have addition on your post-modernism book shelf.
    • 5/5
      Thanks to Edelweiss for my ARC.Aseroe is stunning. Newly translated works are my jam and this one even more so. Its got a stinking Aseroe mushroom on the cover! and beautifully rendered to boot! If you know anything about mushrooms just the choice alone for that as a cover and the fact that its the name of a mushroom. Just a spectacular choice and marketed for people like me. The Aseroe is grotesquely beautiful and when mature super stinky. I mean the cover and name just speaks volumes to the potential literary power that just might lay beyond.Much like the Aseroe itself Aseroe is a grotesque beauty. It is fully mature and it reeks with concentrated does of literary perfume. Francois Dominique is a master and are the translators Richard Sieburth & the late Howard Limoli. To have distilled whatever precious gem the original French is into the masterpiece that the english is must have been a monumental effort. Also very thankful that this book closes with the note on translation and the uncannly Orphic circumstance around the passing of Howard Limoli and passing on of work to Richard Sieburth. Aseroe exists at a busy and beautiful intersection and that is to say the intersection of literature, science, poetry, nonfiction, memoir, and mythology. This is an endlessly fascinating and beautiful work. Dominique is a master writer and his use of language, in any language it seems, is uncanny and powerful. Dominique conjures up a story and it exists he is a creator by means of literary dark magic. Aseroe begins as if speaking about a beautiful woman but it quickly becomes clear its about the Aseroe and the description is funny and insightful and disturbing. The narrator goes on to wax poetic in the most stunning set of pages about fungi I have ever read. Throughout this immensely entertaining, insightful, frightfully disturbing, jaw-dropping beautiful novel the narrator traverses all sorts of places and muses on history and science and art to explore the bizarre and uncannily dark world of fungi. Its a masterful work taking on the themes of death of live of utter annihilation and memory and mythology and how or if even humanity fits into it all. One thing is clear Francois Dominique has spirited up an Aseroe that you do not know. But you will because he created it."I have, unfortunately, every reason to believe in the reifying power of certain words that have no other use in ordinary life than to arouse the senses and thus merely lead the flesh to orgasm or disgust." I mean - COME ON! damn beautiful work. Pick up Aseroe - read it reread it. Get it and weep and laugh and get spooked out at how damn good it is. 2020.08.11 - Update - I received the PRINT galley and it is a beauty. The cover is stunning in print and I am looking forward to further supporting this book with a preorder of the US release in September of this year. Pairs well with:Michael CiscoJeff VandermeerFungi (Anthology) ed. by Orrin Grey & ilvia Moreno-GarciaThe Weird (Anthology) ed. by Ann & Jeff VandermeerBezoar: and other unsettling stories by Guadalupe NettelMoss by Klaus Modick

    Book preview

    Aseroë - François Dominique

    1

    Aseroë

    SHE HAS ALWAYS AROUSED special feelings in me. Every year, at the outset of summer or sometimes as late as mid-autumn, I never fail to pay her a visit. It doesn’t take me long. While others might pass within a few feet of her, I see her from a distance, I recognize her, I approach her and bend down over her and in a soft voice speak the words that suit her, the name she bears. She immediately starts to blush. Her slender, elegant foot—as with all her kind—is attractively flushed.

    I have no illusions: I know this slight flush is not a response to any affectionate words I might address to her, but a reaction to the properties of the ambient air, to the amount of carbon dioxide that the natural respiration of plants (or just my tainted breath) is likely to increase.

    Once picked, she takes on a more vivid coloring, as though indisposed. She’ll be just as sweet to the taste, crisp and scented, so long as you don’t spoil her aroma with garlic and spices or smother her in common meadow mushrooms.

    Amanita rubescens is the only apparently sentient mushroom I can name.

    People are right to avoid that very ancient but very foolish tendency to project human attributes onto nature. I stroll through the woods, overwhelmed by the scenery—the dawn’s light, the lofty peaks, the crystal springs—and my mind is stupefied by the flood of metaphors that invade me.

    Determined not to dabble in tawdry imagery, I wondered whether a state of mind might exist—or rather, a state of matter—in which words and things were not separate. If so, this discovery would open up a radically new field to all the forms of creation. As I idly posed to myself this curious question, I couldn’t begin to suspect the inhuman character of the artificial reality that would inevitably ensue.

    I think the moment has come to explain my experiment. Let me first point out that mushrooms make up a very vast and almost infinite collection. When experts suggest the figure of 120,000 species of mushrooms, they know this figure has to be increased over the course of years: the multiplication of varieties, the abrupt mutations, the disclosure of new forms whose spores have been lying dormant for centuries force us to add endlessly to the matrix of a rigorous classification system already encumbered with unclassifiable types as well as with strange subspecies and their offspring. Besides, certain of these mycological abortions are so odd that you wonder whether the classification system itself, so patiently worked out by Quélet, Kühner, Pilát, Romagnesi and so many others, shouldn’t be reopened for examination.

    What animal or vegetable species would be capable of evolving to the point of rendering obsolete the great divisions between vertebrates and invertebrates, cryptogams and phanerogams? Not a single one. That doesn’t prevent the animal or vegetable kingdom from creating new species (the innumerable varieties of orchids provide a good example), but in these cases the main lines of the classification system have reached a sufficient level of certainty to embrace all species, including those whose lives—yet to come—cannot be named.

    As for mushrooms, it’s another matter altogether. They don’t belong to a defined kingdom. In a number of ways, they are animals, protozoans or protophytes; in other ways, they’re vegetables whose growth is geotropic, like certain algae. Since their appearance on Earth seems to have preceded both the vegetable and animal kingdoms, people simply say that they share properties with both. Consequently, it will take, among all the subspecies yet to come, only a single mushroom whose properties clearly belong both to the animal and vegetable worlds for the great division between Basidiomycota and Ascomycota to collapse on the spot.

    I would have preferred my experiment to deal with the family of mushrooms called Amanitaceae fungi. They are elegant, finely colored, and always display—except for the fly agaric, or muscaria—a certain propensity toward solitude, which appeals to me. In addition, Amanita seem to want to behave as if they provide the most significant illustration of those problems that the life of silence and the power of naming share: gentleness and violence, good and evil, edible and nonedible, fertile and murderous. In this they resemble that good/bad thing that Plato submits to the hasty judgment of the young Alcibi-ades. Yet from the point of view of beauty, they escape contradiction: they are all splendid, without exception. The most beautiful and finest of them all (preferable to the morel and the truffle) is the Amanita of the Caesars, or True Orange, whose color evokes the fiery opal (first comparison), the sun’s disk at twilight (second comparison), or the mineral arsenic (number three). At the opposite extreme (but no less beautiful, all white and nacreous) is the Amanita phalloides (or death cap mushroom)—poison to the core. Horrible abdominal pains, profuse sweating, a burning thirst, shivering, cramps, progressive cooling of the extremities accompanied by terrible anxiety: such are the harbingers of the death, one to three weeks later, of any enemy who might eat it.

    Thus, two varieties of the same genus—the Amanita—offer the best and the worst. The mind is the only thing I can name that shares in such extremes.

    But I needed to find a different species, less fixed, more capable of abrupt mutations, which might simultaneously modify the order of things and the system of naming them.

    There is another type of mushroom, almost bastardized, an ill-defined member of the family of Phallaceae, which the experts have named Anthurus archeri and which occurs in the form of Aseroë.

    Having originated in Tasmania and South Africa, it appeared in France very suddenly in the fall of 1920, in the environs of La Petite-Raon, to the south of Saint-Dié on the western slope of the Vosges Mountains. One finds in the press of that period reports of a superstitious nature and accusations of witchcraft leading to investigations by the police. These new forms of Anthurus, which appeared so abruptly in the underbrush of the Vosges Mountains, were a definite cause for alarm. One doctor in Saint-Dié, named Lucas, went so far as to declare that this unknown fungus was a carrier of infectious germs introduced into French territory by German patriot extremists seeking their postwar revenge. An epidemic of flu over the course of the winter came just in time to back up his claim and to furnish a few certified lunatics with the basis for a legal action to be taken against the military authorities (Journal des Vosges, October 26, 1920, p. 3).

    Today the Anthurus has become common in Burgundy (near Cîteaux Abbey), in the Jura Mountains, and in Savoy. It should take only one or two generations for it to reach all the forests in Europe.

    The Anthurus archeri initially assumes the form of a round, firm, membranous egg. If one cuts it open, one observes in either half, embedded in its translucid and cartilaginous flesh, two ruddy structures whose curvature and folds evoke a twinned fetus in its first stage of gestation, before any

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