Learning to fear the monstrous : Klossowski and The Immortal Adolescent

What is truly monstrous? This chapter attends to this question by examining Pierre Klossowski ' s last known work: The Immortal Adolescent. Rather than giving an easy answer to the question, the tableau-based play draws out through excruciatingly fl ighty and ephemeral scenes, desires and ideas that build on his earlier work, such as the discussion of Nietzsche ' s eternal return. At the heart of the play is the thought that these exchanges, though lacking in substance or any of the usual literary devices, such as plot, character or, indeed, drama, present us with the monstrous reality of our existences. Klossowski manages to go beyond writing and envisages the very points at which we start to fall apart.