Letters from a Seducer
A grand, perturbing erotic novel in which the wealthy, amoral Karl records his sexual life and search for meaning in letters with a surprising legacy
âMaybe all women wonder what men would be like without their posturing, but it seems to me Hilst had more than an inkling...â â Dodie Bellamy
This epistolary novel tells the story of Karl, a wealthy, amoral and erudite man who records his daily life in a series of 20 letters to his sister Cordelia. She is cloistered and chaste, but the letters are wildly promiscuous â not just in their explicit sexual content, which have earned the novel the epithet âpornographicâ, but in their form. Ranging in style and register from modernist fragments worthy of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, to letters that could have been penned by Enlightenment libertines like Choderlos de Laclos and the Marquis de Sade, the letters make up a polyphonic text that pushes the boundaries both of fiction and of decency.
The novel â a standalone masterpiece which originally appeared as part of a Brazilian tetralogy â changes form again partway through, when the indigent poet Stamatius finds Karlâs record of his erotic adventures in a trash can, and begins to write stories based on what he reads, and then to break down those stories into even briefer fragments. Karlâs letters inspire Stamatiusâ writing, and their narratives and identities become ever more fragmented, until we begin to doubt whether they are truly separate people. What unites them is an abundantly lewd imagination and a fantastically creative relationship to the greatest seducer of all: language.
âMaybe all women wonder what men would be like without their posturing, but it seems to me Hilst had more than an inkling...â â Dodie Bellamy
This epistolary novel tells the story of Karl, a wealthy, amoral and erudite man who records his daily life in a series of 20 letters to his sister Cordelia. She is cloistered and chaste, but the letters are wildly promiscuous â not just in their explicit sexual content, which have earned the novel the epithet âpornographicâ, but in their form. Ranging in style and register from modernist fragments worthy of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, to letters that could have been penned by Enlightenment libertines like Choderlos de Laclos and the Marquis de Sade, the letters make up a polyphonic text that pushes the boundaries both of fiction and of decency.
The novel â a standalone masterpiece which originally appeared as part of a Brazilian tetralogy â changes form again partway through, when the indigent poet Stamatius finds Karlâs record of his erotic adventures in a trash can, and begins to write stories based on what he reads, and then to break down those stories into even briefer fragments. Karlâs letters inspire Stamatiusâ writing, and their narratives and identities become ever more fragmented, until we begin to doubt whether they are truly separate people. What unites them is an abundantly lewd imagination and a fantastically creative relationship to the greatest seducer of all: language.
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Description
A grand, perturbing erotic novel in which the wealthy, amoral Karl records his sexual life and search for meaning in letters with a surprising legacy
âMaybe all women wonder what men would be like without their posturing, but it seems to me Hilst had more than an inkling...â â Dodie Bellamy
This epistolary novel tells the story of Karl, a wealthy, amoral and erudite man who records his daily life in a series of 20 letters to his sister Cordelia. She is cloistered and chaste, but the letters are wildly promiscuous â not just in their explicit sexual content, which have earned the novel the epithet âpornographicâ, but in their form. Ranging in style and register from modernist fragments worthy of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, to letters that could have been penned by Enlightenment libertines like Choderlos de Laclos and the Marquis de Sade, the letters make up a polyphonic text that pushes the boundaries both of fiction and of decency.
The novel â a standalone masterpiece which originally appeared as part of a Brazilian tetralogy â changes form again partway through, when the indigent poet Stamatius finds Karlâs record of his erotic adventures in a trash can, and begins to write stories based on what he reads, and then to break down those stories into even briefer fragments. Karlâs letters inspire Stamatiusâ writing, and their narratives and identities become ever more fragmented, until we begin to doubt whether they are truly separate people. What unites them is an abundantly lewd imagination and a fantastically creative relationship to the greatest seducer of all: language.
âMaybe all women wonder what men would be like without their posturing, but it seems to me Hilst had more than an inkling...â â Dodie Bellamy
This epistolary novel tells the story of Karl, a wealthy, amoral and erudite man who records his daily life in a series of 20 letters to his sister Cordelia. She is cloistered and chaste, but the letters are wildly promiscuous â not just in their explicit sexual content, which have earned the novel the epithet âpornographicâ, but in their form. Ranging in style and register from modernist fragments worthy of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, to letters that could have been penned by Enlightenment libertines like Choderlos de Laclos and the Marquis de Sade, the letters make up a polyphonic text that pushes the boundaries both of fiction and of decency.
The novel â a standalone masterpiece which originally appeared as part of a Brazilian tetralogy â changes form again partway through, when the indigent poet Stamatius finds Karlâs record of his erotic adventures in a trash can, and begins to write stories based on what he reads, and then to break down those stories into even briefer fragments. Karlâs letters inspire Stamatiusâ writing, and their narratives and identities become ever more fragmented, until we begin to doubt whether they are truly separate people. What unites them is an abundantly lewd imagination and a fantastically creative relationship to the greatest seducer of all: language.
