Book description
The bilingual, illustrated, and National Book Award-winning edition of Charles Baudelaire's masterpiece. The complete French text is accompanied with an English translation by Richard Howard.
Charles Baudelaire's 1857 masterwork was scandalous in its day for its portrayals of sex, same-sex love, death, the corrupting and oppressive power of the modern…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Flowers of Evil as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I love the distinction Debord makes between the flaneur of Baudelaire and the wanderers practicing the dérive. It’s worth meditating on, and you just might spot what he means as you read these poems that paint a picture of Paris as an urban kaleidoscope of images, strange and alluring.
As much as I might want to switch labels on cans in the grocery store (derive, in one version), I can’t help but see a throughline from “When the cruel sun redoubles it's sharp stroke/I walk alone, absorbed in my curious exercise” and Debord’s observation: “the evident division of a city…
From Douglas' list on The best books for your journey as a drifter.
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