The Devils of Loudun
Huxley, Aldous. Harper & Row, 1979. Softbound. According to Elias Canetti, a crowd can become its own kind of organism, a beast whose individual components magnetically cluster around what he calls 'crowd crystals'. So what exactly were the crystals at the core of the frenzy that happened at an Ursuline convent in 17th-century France? Religious hysteria? Sexual repression? Demonic possession? Cultic fervor? Or was it the power struggle, referenced here in Jon Weiman's cover illustration, between the trinity of men—Grandier, Surin, and Richelieu—explored in this classic work of creative nonfiction?
Tight spine has a subtle slump, as well as some cosmetic creasing and sunning. There are some notes and highlighting to several pages, but the majority of the interior is clean and unmarked. Some areas of edge-wear. 340 pp. Creative Nonfiction.
