Love and crime commingle as the Melbourne Flâneur explores the Parisian underbelly of the world’s most liveable city!

Arthur Rimbaud said that to be a poet, one must make oneself a seer. There’s no more visionary literary interpreter of contemporary Melbourne life than Dean Kyte, and in The Spleen of Melbourne: Prose Poetry & Fiction, the city’s most stylish writer reveals his dark, unique visions of this ‘Paris-on-the-Yarra’ in twelve prose poems and short stories, all narrated by the author.

Inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s landmark collection of prose poems Le Spleen de Paris (1869), Dean explores the Parisian underbelly of Melbourne, a place where moments of stolen love often resemble scenes from a baffling crime.

The ‘sinister sadness’ of Melbourne, its ‘bilious melancholy’, is evoked in elegiac prose as the Melbourne Flâneur pursues his enigmatic odysseys through the city in search of abortive, fugitive romance. Dean’s scintillating prose, rhythmically delivered with his distinctive timbre, crystallizes mental images of violent loneliness which are enhanced by dense, atmospheric soundscapes that immerse the listener in the rich ambiance of Melbourne.

This audiobook confirms Melbourne as one of the world’s great cities, with a unique poetic soul capable of inspiring great urban poetry, as Paris did for Baudelaire.

It also confirms Dean Kyte as a startlingly original prose stylist with a unique vision of the city. He combines a high poetic style with the iconography of film noir to create postmodern, experimental mystery thrillers which must surely be considered examples of Dean’s own literary genre—the genre of ‘flânerie’.

The vivid éclat of his surreal, cinematic writing style is lent further intensity by his illustrations. In an exciting new innovation in his Artisanal Desktop Publishing process, the CD, packaging, and 24-page sleeve booklet have all been personally designed by Dean Kyte and feature his gorgeous black-and-white photographs of Melbourne, all shot on glorious Kodak film.

These ‘dark illuminations’ of his vision paint a portrait of a surreally noirish, Parisian Melbourne, perfectly complementing the atmospheric quality of his soundscapes, so that images, sounds and words thoroughly combine to transport the listener into the magical, mysterious Melbourne of Dean Kyte’s imaginative vision.

‘Lis-moi, pour apprendre à m’aimer,’ wrote Charles Baudelaire:—‘Read me, so as to learn to love me’. If you’re a curious, romantic soul who suffers in the seductive hell of the urban landscape, The Spleen of Melbourne will captivate you. Listen to Dean Kyte’s voice and learn to love his darkly romantic vision of love’s bitter mysteries.

To learn more about the CD and to watch “The Skipping Girl”, one of the poems featured in the audiobook, check out the video below.

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Dean Kyte can also fulfil custom orders. If you’re thinking of purchasing one or more of Dean’s products as gifts, with a little extra information from you, Dean can pen thoughtful, personalised messages to your giftees, and even forward the gifts to them on your behalf. To inquire about a custom order quotation, please fill out the contact form below.