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The colorful travelogue begins explaining Medlar and Gray's sudden expulsion from the city of Edinburgh, and the fall of their once-living pipe dream, the Decadent Restaurant. Durian Gray begins: "At the restaurant we had often argued that to follow the path of true Decadence means to condemn oneself to a lifetime of rootlessness. The Decadent finds himself ejected from the society of Man and forced to wander aimlessly from one place to another in search of a home he knows he will never find." "Whereas the latter set out in search of spiritual love and enlightenment, we of course were only ever seeking out degradation and debauchery." In true Decadent fashion, he then goes on to explain why Dante's The Divine Comedy is one of the most extraordinary travel books ever written, quoting Baudelaire along the way, and then explaining the opportunities for sexual misconduct, which due to the architecture at railway stations, makes for great grounds for copulation. The two then begin their actual journey in St. Petersburg, the first of their chosen 'decadent cities.'
St. Petersburg: Here Durian Gray resumes the role of narrator. Venedikt Yerofeev's 'Moscow Stations' is described while traveling by train-- a very fine book, indeed. The infamous cocktail, Dog's Giblets is described: Zhiguli beer, Sadko the Wealthy Guest Shampoo, Anti-dandruff solution, Superglue, Brake fluid, and Incesticide are among the cocktail's ingredients. "As we stepped from the train, our first impressions did not disappoint. Everyone on the platform-- passengers, porters, station officials, beggars, food-sellers, whores-- seemed drunk, quite possibly on Dog's Giblets." "We went for weeks without seeing daylight, living in darkness, which is the true Decadent element." Medlar and Gray meet up with friends, members of the Russian Mafiya, and then Gray runs off for days with some ballerina girl named Elena. Elena treats Durian to a journey of the interior-- by sticking a probe up his arse, showing the results on a television screen. Here I am confused. I am unable to figure out whether Durian Gray is gay, bisexual, or just everything-sexual. Medlar is clearly homosexual, but Durian Gray is a mixed box. Anyway, Medlar and Gray are soon reunited, and Medlar storms around shouting imprecations, accusing Gray of deserting him in favor of an acrobatic whore. The two move onto Naples.
Naples: Here Medlar speaks for the first time and takes over as our narrator. Neapolitan festivals in which the Marquis de Sade explains in his 'Voyages d'Italie' are richly described, as Medlar's aesthetic intensity takes over like an obliterating fire. The two are dropped off by a perverted taxi driver in some dingy backstreet, where they meet up with their friend Virgilo at his bookshop. They soon find themselves among old friends: priests of Isis, Hermes Trismegistus, Mithras, cults of the dead, miracle-working saints, new romances, alchemists, Rosicrucians, Freemasons, poets, revolutionaries, psychics, theosophists, aesthetes, and perverts of every age and provenance. "We had been in Naples for a little less than a fortnight and everything about the city seduced us with its siren song of debauchery." One morning they receive an invitation from their host to a little gathering taking place in Pompeii-- which turns out to be some anti-Catholic sex ritual involving penis-worshipping with young boys and copulating females. The ritual itself is explained like some homoerotic fairytale. Durian wakes up in the morning with a tattoo on his prick and the two visit the house in which Oscar Wilde used to live. Oscar Wilde's brief stint in Naples is described, where soon after, Oscar's own fate seemed their own. "Exile. Debt. Loneliness. But where to go? This is the eternal question faced by the exile, and therefore by the Decadent." In order to avoid capture by Henderson's Debt Collection Agency, Medlar and Gray move on...
Cairo: This is my favorite of the 6 chapters, as upon reading about their journey through Cairo, the odors of spices, the sweet fumes of hashish and opium, the musical klaxons and muezzin's cries in the labyrinth around al-Alzhar all creep through the shadows of my own room. Medlar and Gray enter a second-hand English bookshop in Al-Gohar Street and find a 1923 Baedeker. As Gray protests: "Its faded red binding would look handsome on a cafe table or in the pocket of a silk cream jacket. Most of the information in it was useless. To travel Decadently, however, is more important than to arrive...And with a seriously out-of-date guide book one can travel confident in the knowledge that one has not the slightest idea of where one will end up nor what one will see when one gets there." Aleister Crowley's 1904 visit with Rose Crowley as the Prince and Princess Choia Khan and the manifestation of Liber Legis is explained in a somewhat detailed fashion. "Thus in that small flat in Cairo, Crowley had caught a glimpse and copied down the words of Satan!" Gray's humor is certainly under-appreciated throughout. Gustave Flaubert and his friend Maxime du Camp's four-month trip up the Nile in 1850 is described as one of the great Decadent journeys in history. Gray spends many nights out in the desert at night and soon after describes an astral projection in great detail. Henderson's Debt Collecting Agency knocks at their hotel door and the two are able to escape out the bathroom window where they take a taxi straight to the airport.
Tokyo: Why Medlar and Gray choose Tokyo is unexplained, however it is assumed that Tokyo was a convenient stop on their way to New Orleans. Lafcadio Hearn is quoted with a passage from Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, and the two Decadent travelers are taken to some place called the Only Happy Ranch. Apparently Durian's language has affected me, as I run to the closet and engulf myself with my luxurious black kimono to finish out the chapter. Medlar and Gray have clearly affected by actions. One must be Decadent even when reading in the confines of one's home. So back to Tokyo. Anyways, the hotel is ludicrous and phallic. "'Florid' and 'debased' is a state to which all Decadent travelers should constantly aspire." The Tokyo underground-- or subways-- are described as being groping grounds for older gentleman and young school girls. The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife and other Japanese erotica are spoken of, as well as young Japanese girls being raped in all orifices by a huge repulsive alien. The Tokyo diary entry comes to a halt and the next chapter picks up in my own living grounds, good ol' New Orleans.
New Orleans: I, of course, enjoyed this chapter as would any other fellow Decadent living in New Orleans. It's surely heartwarming to know that New Orleans is one of the last true Decadent cities-- in not just America, but all of the world. Here Durian Gray gives tips about traveling etiquette. "This is a very important dictum for the would-be Decadent traveler. Be thankful to nobody. The only useful function that gratitude performs is in the arena of revenge. To my mind, there is no more satisfying form of revenge than to make another feel grateful to you." The deviant Grand Tour continues. The two meet up with their good friend, Bennington Ruffel III. He lives in the Vieux Carre quarter of New Orleans where he spends his time translating the poetry of Algernon Charles Swinburne and adding to his collection of child prostitutes from Storyville. He tells them of his glorious ingenious plan of opening a bordello, a perfect recreation of a nineteenth-century house of ill-repute. The general scheme of decor fly from the pages, as bordellos, prostitutes, and the madams of history past are spoken about. Medlar and Gray are then invited to an exclusive soirée taken up with the Great New Orleans passion of gambling. They decide to attend, but explain they have retired from gambling. Later that evening, the two, provided with the detailed description of a Mississippi's gambler attire by their friend Bennington, dress the part, and head to the plantation home. A sort of sexual orgy breaks out and the two eventually leave New Orleans due to their decision not to help Bennington with his bordello.
Buenos Aires: in search of one of Medlar's most illustrious ancestors, the two make it to Buenos Aires where they eventually find the grave of Uncle Walter, who "was a sort of scientist of pleasure, doing everything to excess, especially if it involved sex." The great Decadent history of the tango is then described. They are then met by Mrs. Conchita Gordon, who hires them to build the world's first Decadent Garden on the coast of Ireland. This, I suppose, is the bridge to The Decadent Gardener-- which I wait for with great anticipation. In the meantime, I shall delve deeply into the distinguished gastronomic tradition with The Decadent Cookbook.
The appendix of The Decadent Traveler is a marvelous tale about a peeping-tom, who finds himself addicted to the railway station cabinet, where a small peep-hole peaks into a women's privy. This is a tale of many quims, lightly-shaven cunts, farting arses, and pissing slits. My favorite line is as follows: "She then took up her child, held her up over the seat with her clothes up to her waist, her cunt towards me, and made her piss. The tiny stream splashed on the seat, and against the hole through which I was looking-- a drop hit me on the eye. How funny the hairless little split looked to me. The think that her little split might one day be surrounded with black hair like her mother's, and have seven inches of stiff prick up it." This tale is allegedly a section of Uncle Walter's memoirs, but not much is described, other than the story itself.
Medlar Lucan and Durian Gray-- I raise a glass of Absinthe to your endlessly Decadent adventures and look forward to the other three books (which should all be arriving in the post as I speak) in this wonderful series of Debauchery by Dandy.
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