THE CRYPT BOOK CLUB

Join us for a monthly book club meeting where we discuss grim literature at our favorite grim coffee shop…

This month’s reading is:

The Flowers of Evil / Les Fleurs du mal includes nearly all of Baudelaire's poetry, written from 1840 until his death in August 1867. First published in 1857, it was important in the symbolist—including painting—and modernist movements. Though it was extremely controversial upon publication, with six of its poems censored due to their immorality, it is now considered a major work of French poetry. The poems in Les Fleurs du mal frequently break with tradition, using suggestive images and unusual forms. They deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism, particularly focusing on suffering and its relationship to original sin, disgust toward evil and oneself, obsession with death, and aspiration toward an ideal world.