Our Lady of the Flowers Paperback – 11 April 2015

This novel was written by Jean Genet in Sante prison around 1943, and was publish after a final revision in 1951. The book is forthright imagined and, I presume, factualisation of a series of Parisian gay lives of and for some of the inmates. Corsican Divine (Louis Culafroy) and Darling (Paul Garcia) are a couple but Mimosa is a rival. They end up fancying the attractive, young `Our Lady of the Flowers' (Adrien Baillon). The Lady has murdered an old man and is destined to be caught, we know early on that Divine dies of consumption. There a numerous side characters transvestites, bisexuals, rogues etc but include Divine's mum Ernestine; the Greek, Alberto etc. The story appears as a recursive retrospective on the main characters as youths to their adult in prison, tragic behaviour (the author uses `she' for the gay men a lot). The author writes a bit about his life in the cell but mostly on these characters, and indicates he masturbates a lot thinking of them. This is an exercise in auto-erotic gay fiction, but the mix of imagined `other lives', prison life, semi-realism, existentialism and quite literary style are add to the overall effect as a most intriguing novel.Some quotes:"She went to get the revolver, which had long since been loaded by a most considerate Providence, and when she held it in her hand, weighty as a phallus in action, she knew that she was big with murder, pregnant with a corpse"" He rams it in. So hard and calmly that his virility observed by the heavens, has the penetrating force of the battalions of blond warriors who on June 14th 1940 bu**ered us soberly and seriously, though their eyes were elsewhere as they march in the dust and sun""And the miracle occurred. There was no miracle. God had been debunked. God was hollow. Just a hole with any old thing around it. A pretty shape, like a plaster head of Marie-Antoinette and the little soldiers which were holes with a bit of thin lead around them""I finally realise that on Judgement Day it will be with my own voice that God will call me"A strangle novel a sort of mix between `Last Exit to Brooklyn' and `Kiss of the Spider woman' - 4 stars.

fantastic book, stunning

This was a Christmas present for our daughter. The book is beautifully bound and she is extremely pleased with it.

Excellent read

I have not found this an easy read

This is a must read book for Gay and straight alike. Written with passion and fervour. Genet digs deep inside his psyche to reveal a tortured yet loving soul.

This book has no plot or story. Certain bits stand out as good writing but a lot of it goes on and on and i cant follow it. Its a challenging book to read which is probably what Genet intended. I like the character Divine the gigolo and darling daintyfoot the pimp the writing about them is amusing but mostly i find it too heavy going. Dont be put off by me! You might love it!!!

I chose this book as recommended from a top 10 in gay literature. Jean Genet writes with such a poetic and beautiful manner, the story is set and the characters are lade out in beauty and ugly entirety. The only issue with this book is his ability to form large tangents, which you learn allot about the author himself, prison life, solitude and prison poverty, his obsession with masturbation, sex and previous lovers, although it merges with a dream like quality I just found, and forgive me for my ignorance, that it made the story hard to follow, with his great repetitions and what seems like obsessions. Definitely worth a read but a little repetitive.

A bewitching and hypnotic novel from Jean Genet, the first draf of which was written when he was in prison. Like most of his works, Our Lady of the Flowers has a fragmented plot. It's centered around a murderer, a pimp, and a queen, in a netherworld in which murder is highly erotic and alluring and evil is regarded as sensuous and good. This novels pummels the readers with beautiful and vile imagery, a story within a story that breaks the fourth wall as we follow Jean Genet (who tells us himself the story is only written for masturbatory purposes) in prison, dreaming of luxury and secret worlds. I preferred "The Thief's Journal" over this one, but definitely worth picking up.

I knew I was in trouble whern I read Sartre's intro.I only read part of the book and found it hard going and beyond me. For full enjpyment, I think one would need to be guided through this novel by someone who understands it.

Very compelling writer Jean Genet through his fiction & accounts of the Algerian War showed the complexities of french colonialism in Algeria and the horrors of french astrocities...