Le avventure di Re Pausole

Di Pierre Louys

QUESTO LIBRO È A LAYOUT FISSO.

Nel panorama della letteratura erotica a cavallo tra diciannovesimo e ventesimo secolo, Pierre Louys ci regala una deliziosa e piccante commedia, che perpetua la tradizione petroniana di satira spinta ed amorale, sostenuta nel tempo da autori come Boccaccio e De Sade. In un immaginario regno proteso sul mediterraneo, al confine tra Spagna e Francia, Re Pausole, monarca incline più ad accondiscendere alle proprie debolezze che a governare, si trova a fare i conti con le pulsioni e i capricci erotici della figlia adolescente, la principessa Alina. Con l’ausilio di Taxis, il bieco eunuco-virile e consigliere di corte, e Giglio, un paggio con una saggezza superiore a quella dello stesso re, tenta di riportare alla ragione la figlia e di imporle un’ideale cintura di castità, atta a rendere più tranquillo il proprio ruolo di padre. Malizioso senza volgarità, “Le avventure di Re Pausole” ha ispirato il regista Alexis Granowsky che, nel 1933, ne ha realizzato l’omonima versione cinematografica.

Pierre Louys nasce il 10 dicembre 1870 a Gand e muore a Parigi il 5 giugno 1925.
Amico di Andrè Gide, il suo gusto estetico decadente si adeguava al clima di tardo simbolismo.

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Edizioni Clandestine
• Data di uscita: 5 gen 2016
• ISBN: 9788865961568

Pierre Louys

Pierre Louÿs (* 10. Dezember 1870 in Gent; † 4. Juni 1925 in Paris war ein französischer Lyriker und Romanschriftsteller. Neben de Sade, Verlaine und Mirabeau gilt er als Meister der erotischen Literatur Frankreichs. (Wikipedia)

Anteprima del libro

Recensioni su Le avventure di Re Pausole

[gbill_7 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

This little bit of playful French fluff is part male fantasy, part social satire, and part political manifesto – probably in that order. Pierre Louÿs was the author Colette had young Claudine reading at school, and in reading him, you can see just how inappropriate that was.In this book, the mythical kingdom of Tryphemia off of the French coast is ruled by Pausole, a laissez-faire king (in this case, lazy-faire king?-) who has a few general principles, but doesn’t really want to be bothered by administration, or much of anything for that matter. He instead leaves it to his advisors, one of whom, a minister and court Eunuch, he grants control for half of the day, the other, a page who is always after the women (and consistently succeeds with them), the other half. How’s that for delegating? The king’s daughter has run off, and they engage in what amounts to a low-speed pursuit, running into various subjects along the way.The positives for the book all center around its concepts of freedom. The kingdom’s ‘Code’ is the epitome of small government, and individual liberty, consisting of two rules: (1) Thou shalt not harm thy neighbor, and (2) This being understood, do as thou wouldst. He allows religious freedom “to experience the consolations of the various Paradises in turn”, and his subjects at all levels praise him for leaving them the hell alone. Indolent as he is, he says “the citizens of Europe are tired of feeling at every moment the hand of authority on their shoulder, an authority which is made unbearable by being omnipresent.” He allows sexual freedom, recognizing non-binary sexuality (his daughter has actually run off with another woman), the concept that women do not fit into two simple types (“chaste” and “satanic”), and allows women to leave their husbands and get a divorce if it suits them (a novelty at that time).On the negative side, the book is a little too bawdy. All of the actual sex is ‘off-screen’, but it’s pretty pervasive, and while Louÿs gets pretty daring at times (a “handy banana” comes to mind), it starts to lose its appeal midway through. The bigger issue, however, is that women are essentially playthings – the king literally has a wife for each night, the traditional custom is for women (and girls) to walk around naked, and while many of the scenes are tongue-in-cheek fantasy, some are misogynistic, such as 40 guards being sent off to have a young woman in the woods, one after another (which Louÿs of course has her enjoying). If only the book had been more mature and enlightened, because it is a fun read for the most part, and this edition is so fantastic – numbered copy 135 out of 1200 made on hand-made paper by The Fortune Press in London in 1929, with very uneven pages and interesting font.