Vampyroteuthis Infernalis: A Treatise, with a Report by the Institut Scientifique de Recherche Paranaturaliste by Vilém Flusser

Vampyroteuthis Infernalis: A Treatise, with a Report by the Institut Scientifique de Recherche Paranaturaliste Reviews

• 
  Laurent De Maertelaer

  Schitterend filosofisch essay over de gelijkenis tussen de vampierinktvis en de mens, met als centrale vraag hoe ver ze uit elkaar staan of net niet. Deels spoof en hoax, deels filosofisch discours en zelfverklaarde fabel, die tussendoor een geheel eigen interpretatie geeft aan de fenomenologie.
  Van Flusser is ook zijn boek over fotografie een grote aanrader (nog steeds te krijgen bij uitgeverij IJzer).
  Meer (leuke) info op:
  http://eliserigot.com/content/Vampyro...
  En op:
  https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampi...
  
  
• 
  Jeff Nelson

  
  
  If you read one book about vampire squids from hell this year, make it this one. I learned more about humans and cephalopods in this slim volume than I would have on a cruise with Jacque Cousteau (and that is taking into consideration that he is dead and I do not speak French.) It is funny and insightful. It is thoughtfully written. It is a little gem.
• 
  Nynke

  3.5*
  
  "scientists conduct investigations without taking into account the great complexities of humanity -- sullied as it is with experiences, dreams, and wishes -- that silently un­derpin their findings"
• 
  Miguel Lupián

  Desde que vi sus ilustraciones me di a la tarea de conseguir esta especie de ensayo-ficción. Aunque por momentos es demasiado denso, regala momentos de una claridad sublime: «El Vampyroteuthis infernalis es nuestro infierno: él encarna aquello que por vivir en la tierra hemos sumergido en la profundidad de la conciencia». La edición de Herder es una chulada.
• 
  Simon

  Unfortunately, this seems pretty silly - and I cannot see its point. The philosophy is sophomoric (a lot of stuff about how we cannot be objective about what it is to be human merely because we are human). And the detailed descriptions of the biology of mollusks is boring and (for me at least) hard to follow.
• 
  Marcel Buijs

  OK. One of the strangest books I know.
  
  “The underlying purpose of all vampyroteuthic communication is to deceive the other in order to devour it. Its is a culture of deceit, pretense, and falsehood. Broadly speaking, one could even call it a culture of art.”
• 
  Kelly

  I'm so confused
• 
  Thomaz Amancio

  Mergulhinho de leve no abismo do corpo e da consciência. Meio estória de terror, meio tratado científico, meio expedição exploratória, meio experimento filosófico, meio manifesto político, esse monstro de cinco metades vai acariciar seu corpo e seu cérebro com seus tentáculos dentados até te levar a insights teóricos fulgurantes, que as lulas vampíricas do inferno chamam de orgasmo.
  
  RELEITURA: da segunda vez é ainda melhor. esse livro é um pequeno programa para o diálogo com o extra-humano, com pitadas de esquizoanálise e humor sacana.
• 
  anon

  
  http://www.5cense.com/16/472.htm
• 
  Kári

  Definitely my favourite of the books I've read so far this year.
• 
  Ega Gabriella

  Bioluminescent connections bubbleseasoned by ecstasizing facts.
  
  Hear this, my lover:
  
  One of your three octopenises, the spoonshaped one, moves between the teeth of my tongue, my Radula, stimulating ovulation and the excretion of specific hormones.
  
  Textpath:
  Defines the organism—wanders around its possible Dasein—puts it beautifully, evoking even St Francis: Geist, spirit or freedom of spirit, "is the attempt to overcome the constraints of Dasein"—Overcome Anthropocentrism and examine life constraints from the perspective of the Vampyroteuthis—Wanders through Reich's psychoanalysis theories—Darwin x Lammarck to understand whether the Dasein is conditioned by environment or hereditary factors—None and both: the concept of Species being abstract—It is not the origin or the extinction which is important but the existence—Its paradise, our hell, both our beaches—Catchword for this existential conversation between Human and Vampyroteuthis is "custom". Presets?
  
  Not withtout encountering the unacustomary will one be able to recognize what is the customary and, most importantly, to change it. Resets.
  
  Touch the seabed like an open palm.
• 
  Bob Woodley

  One of my favorite books. I'm often recommending this to others. But it is hard to describe. I've never really read anything like it.
  
  The first chapter compares Genus Octopus with Genus Homo. Rarely does one encounter such wildly creating thinking that can craft a narrative based on the comparative evolution of these 2 Genuses. Then in subsequent chapters we work through Phyllum Mollusca, Class Cephalopoda, and Species Vampryotheusis (the vampire squid). Flusser finds destiny, mystery and terror in these taxonomic wanderings.
  
  You've never read a book like this. It is truly "sui generis".
  
  In the latter chapter he freely admits to wild speculation, though it is not as if the first half of the book was anything like rigorous science. He explores in turn Vampryotheusian Thought, Social Life, and Art. The last chapter on Art allows him to give a précis of his communication theory that he is more widely known for.
  
  The book is only 120 pages long, and Flusser is a clear, lucid writer. So it is not a difficult book to read. All pleasure.
• 
  Shulamith Farhi

  The premise is a bit hammy: aliens are already among us! They just happen to live in the ocean. It's fair enough to emphasize the brilliance of cephalopods and it's clear that speciesism has prevented us from forming less destructive relations to non-human animals. The trouble is that the text seems to have taken to heart a broadly Heideggerean polemic against Enlightenment humanism. A less egicidal approach is possible. Spinoza gives us the clue: human behavior is not a kingdom within a kingdom sequestered from the rest of nature. One wonders what this book would look like rewritten more geometrico.
• 
  Доберман Сатэ

  Very interesting book, with some biological facts that provides enough information about the life underwater. Although the book felt very philosophical and existentialist, nothing bad with it, but I was expecting it to be more science focused, at the end of the book you get drawings and diagrams more in that point.
  Anyway, the book opens the door to the understanding of how minimal and abstract we are, and how everything in the world is connected. We need to be more observant towards where are we taking the world and the other species.
• 
  Charles Cohen

  What did I even read??
  
  I don't know how I heard about this, and I don't remember why I thought I'd like it. But I do remember I thought this was a spoof, like the science books put out by McSweeneys.
  
  And it turns out, I was way wrong. This was a work of complete seriousness, if not sincerity. Fundamentally, this book is built around the question: "Sure, we know how people think about the world, and about vampire squid. But how do vampire squid think the world, and people?"
  
  It's super weird, and pretty fast for a work of philosophy. I liked it a lot.
• 
  Scrambled Legs

  Flusser ha a way of words that engulfs or sucks you in, like Baudrillard in "Seduction". It's much more about how the words are connected on the page than what they actually refer too. It's a thought exercise, a massage for the brain, and it's not pretending to be more than that. It uses the power of the metaphor as a vehicle for deep, post-lexical understanding of the word we inhabit.
• 
  Stevie Hendrix

  Interesting and different perspective, scientific insight was nice, however it struck me more as a philosophical book than purely science. Opinions that were strange to swallow at first, and then became quite intriguing later for the piece.
• 
  Philip Athans

  A strange mix of science fiction and philosophy that every would be worldbuilder or monster creator should. And beyond that, we all need to consider the nature of our own intelligence before we can comprehend, or realize we never will fully comprehend, the intelligences around us.
• 
  Ruby

  Fantastic. And a fable indeed. Vocabulary would be somewhat prohibiting to readers without philosophy background.
  
  A bit dated, also, with the gender stuff.
  
  But a great stretching of the brain. Very posthumanist.
• 
  Viktor

  !!!
• 
  Adam

  A bit dry, but still one of the best books of octopus philosophy I've ever read.
• 
  Rowan

  A cursed book I love dearly
• 
  Kara

  That’s one freaky-looking squid
• 
  Naísia Xavier

  Imaginem a equipe de cientistas que nomearam a espécie "Lula Vampira do Inferno"...
  
  Já eu, nunca gostei de crustáceos e moluscos:
  - Eles dão medo;
  - São servidos com olhos e patas - o que apenas conserva o fato de eles serem amedrontadores.
  - E possuem memória e capacidade de resolver problemas - o que os tornam ainda mais amedrontadores.
  
  Mas eu compraria esse livro pelas páginas 111 e 112.
  Está escrito nelas aquele tipo de coisa que te dá a nítida impressão de você escrevendo um trabalho acadêmico e usando. Piscadinha de leve pro Lukács, ainda por cima...
  
  Por fim, achei Flussér bem menos pós-modernista do que eu o julgava - embora, essencialmente pós-moderno; como todos nós. O primeiro termo, é escolha ideológica, o segundo, a condição de nosso tempo.
  
  __
  
  "O guarda do aquário, vendo o embaraço, toma a atitude de especialista: 'Não se preocupe, isso não passa de um molusco'. E se perguntamos 'Por que o senhor deu um pneu para ele brincar, como se fosse um chimpanzé, não um molusco?', o guarda engole uma exclamação de surpresa, diz coisa incompreensível, e afirma ser hora de fechar o aquário, conforme regulamento do sindicato ao qual pertence'.
  (p. 134)
• 
  H.d.

  Fábula fantástica, onde, através do relato de um monstro marinho de proporções também fabulosas Flusser nos leva a refletir sobre nós mesmos, num processo onde Freud dizia "quando Maria fala sobre José, aprendo muito mais sobre Maria que sobre José." Obra de ciência ficcional de deliciosa leitura.
• 
  Chris

  "Not only we vampyroteuthes but even a visitor from Mars could reconstruct human history from these [inanimate, informed objects; mnemonic aids]. Since it is soaked up by objective matter, human history is not properly intersubjective. It is an utter failure." p50
• 
  Andy

  Quite a novel Fiction Science thought experiment. Formally, a favorite, but I did feel it kept establishing expectations that it did not fulfill, so I ended up short of 5 stars. Still, a genre-setter that I'd love to pursue as a writer and reader.