At once truly appalling and appallingly funny, Blaise Cendrars's Moravagine bear
s comparison with Naked Lunch--except that it's a lot more entertaining to read.
Heir to an immense aristocratic fortune, mental and physical mutant Moravagine
is a monster, a man in pursuit of a theorem that will justify his every desire.
Released from a hospital for the criminally insane by his starstruck psychiatris
t (the narrator of the book), who foresees a companionship in crime that will al
so be an unprecedented scientific collaboration, Moravagine travels from Moscow
to San Antonio to deepest Amazonia, engaged in schemes and scams as, among other
things, terrorist, speculator, gold prospector, and pilot. He also enjoys a bus
y sideline in rape and murder. At last, the two friends return to Europe--just i
n time for World War I, when "the whole world was doing a Moravagine."
