The Flowers Of Evil

Takao Kasuga is a bookworm. And his favorite book right now is Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil. While the young man may often be seen lost in thought as he rabidly consumes page after page, Takao is not much of a student. Actually when we are first introduced to the middle school teen, we find him sneaking some reading as he receives and F on a recent language exam. Nakagawa is known as the class bully. When she is not receiving zeros she is usually muttering profanities to those around her. While she doesn't care for books or their readers, she does have a thing for troublemakers. Takao may not be one, but having read over his shoulder a few times, she knows he is not very innocent. If anything he is bored and aware of it. Together, by chance, they shake up their entire rural community as Takao tries to break out of his shell in a random moment of passion and affection...not directed towards Nakamura. And contrary to Takao's predictions, the girl he was falling for, Nanako Saeki, responds by eventually accepting the bibliophile for who he is. Or at least, who she thinks he is.

Handsome edition includes great French poet's controversial work, Les Fleurs du Mal, plus prose poems from "Spleen of Paris," critical essays on art, music, and literature, and personal letters.

Les Fleurs du mal is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857, it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements. The poems deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism. Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe.

A modernist classic translated for the twenty-first century.

The Flowers of Evil (1857) is a collection of poems by Charles Baudelaire. Translated into English by Cyril Scott in 1909, Baudelaire’s poems remain lively and idiosyncratic nearly two centuries after they came into existence. Comprised mostly of sonnets and short lyrics, The Flowers of Evil captures Baudelaire’s sense of the changing role of the poet in modern life. Rather than focus on beauty and other ideals, Baudelaire explores the totality of human experience—the good, bad, and ugly of life on earth. “When by the changeless Power of a Supreme Decree / The poet issues forth upon this sorry sphere, / His mother, horrified, and full of blasphemy, / Uplifts her voice to God, who takes compassion on her.” In his opening benediction, Baudelaire reverses the typical trope of invoking the muses or celebrating poetry as a divine gift. Instead, he depicts the poet as a being cursed, a “hideous Child of Doom.” Childhood for Baudelaire is a subject of particular interest, a time described, in his poem “The Enemy,” as “a ravaging storm, / Enlivened at times by a brilliant sun...” The youthful experience of melancholy clearly informs the poet’s outlook as an adult: “Time devours our lives, / And the enemy black, which consumeth our hearts / On the blood of our bodies, increases and thrives!” While much of Baudelaire’s work deals with darkness and despair, his poems can rise to the heights of celebration and ecstasy, his voice soft and sweet as he invites his sister on a journey to an imagined land of “order and loveliness, / Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.” Ultimately, Baudelaire’s vision—however irreverent—is guided by truth and morality, which drive him on a torturous path from good to evil, beauty to death, and back. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Flowers of Evil is a classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

In the third volume of The Flowers of Evil, Takao must make a decision. He now has an opportunity to break free from the social shackles that Nakamura has placed on him, as he has a chance to be loved by someone he has affections for. This could also be an opportunity to be accepted by the masses in his small community. But with this choice comes fear and self-reflection. After having an chance trip to Nakamura's place, where he got to experience the world his only "friend" has grown up in, he realizes that for both teens, there is very little future to look forward to as they are raised in the boonies. Their lives are mapped out before them. For most adolescents these days, life will continue to be blase at best, miserable at worst. Can they change things together? Do they want to even bother?

Charles Baudelaire’s classic and controversial Les Fleurs du Mal explored a poetic landscape of urban decadence and dark beauty. This new translation captures the sound and the feeling of the original as none has done before.

Religious in his own way, pagan, satanist, and provocative, Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (1821-1867) is considered the father of French symbolism, a movement critics trace back precisely to his book "Les Fleurs du mal" ( The Flowers of Evil), published in 1857. His poems, largely inspired by his passion for the mulatto Jeanne Duval, led to a trial for offending public decency and a fine that was substantial for its time. Six poems were suppressed from the collection, later incorporated into the volume "Les Épaves" (The Scraps) in 1860. Charles Baudelaire was a precursor of the Symbolist movement in France and is regarded as the founder of modern poetry. His masterpiece, "Les Fleurs du mal," will always be remembered as a major reference in the lyrical genre.