Product Description

Jean Genet's seminal Our Lady Of The Flowers (1943) is generally considered to be his finest fictional work. The first draft was written while Genet was incarcerated in a French prison; when the manuscript was discovered and destroyed by officials, Genet, still a prisoner, immediately set about writing it again. It isn't difficult to understand how and why Genet was able to reproduce the novel under such circumstances, because Our Lady Of The Flowers is nothing less than a mythic recreation of Genet's past and then - present history. Combining memories with facts, fantasies, speculations, irrational dreams, tender emotion, empathy, and philosophical insights, Genet probably made his isolation bearable by retreating into a world not only of his own making, but one over which he had total control.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53371 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 307 pages

Customer Reviews

Genet's masterpiece.
'Our Lady of the Flowers' is the best novel by Jean Genet- a victim of the intolerant French prison system (not unlike 'three strikes & you're out in the USA). Allusions are drawn to another French writer, famously incarcerated: the Marquis de Sade. This only goes so far- true that both '120 Days of Sodom' & 'Our Lady of the Flowers' were written in prison. And early drafts were destroyed or withdrawn... But Genet was more modern than de Sade (obviously)- here he writes about the senses- a theme common to modernist works such as 'Tropic of Cancer' & 'Ulysses'. Though I feel his closest literary relations are Ferdinand Celine: the Vichy-collaborator & William S. Burroughs. His influence can be detected in the more erotic elements of JG Ballard- notably 'Crash'...In this novel, which has a thoughtful foreword by Jean Paul Sartre, Genet takes us to the internal abyss he occupies. And describes how he transcends this to make it a heaven... but it is taken to a level of Holy praise...This is probably Genet's masterpiece- though 'Miracle of the Rose' & 'Querelle of Brest' are close. I don't think you have to possess homosexual inclinations to get something out of this book...As with writers like Charles Bukowski & Hubert Selby Jr. Genet is a self-educated man from 'the other side of life' (to quote from 'Journey to the End of the NIght'). Unlike Sade he was not from the upper-classes, nor was he from the middle-class; he was from the streets. Almost a prefigured character for a Jacques Brel song. As the foreword tells you, the French Existentialists (Sartre et al) who would later turn obliquely Marxist, campaigned to have Genet released. And this is the end product of that. It is also one of the finest fictions of the 20th Century.

Ladyboys
Genet's best novel, written whilst in prison, it has parallels between the Marquis de Sade and sartre who compained for his release and is a precursor to the beats, influencing those like William Burroughs.

Speechless
What can one say about Genet? I have read all his works (or all I am aware of), and this is probably my favourite. Though it is a hard choice. Genet is a writer one lives with and grows with... The kind of writer one needs to recommend today simply because the age is too breezy and impatient for the best of literature at times.