Month: June 2018 (Page 2 of 5)

* (restored)

 

‘Since the publication of his first novel, Le Méridien de Greenwich (The Greenwich Meridian, 1979), Jean Echenoz’s reputation as a writer has described an ascendant trajectory, much like that of the space shuttle he puts on stage in Nous trois (We Three, 1992). With eleven books at the Editions de Minuit, he can now lay claim to a body of work that is as distinguished and as varied as that of any living novelist in France. It should be recalled that Minuit offered a home to the New Novel in the 1950s, launching figures such as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor, Marguerite Duras, Robert Pinget, and Claude Simon into the literary ether.

‘Though their theories and practices of the novel are more diverse than those of their precursors, it now seems clear that the new Minuit writers, most of whom inaugurated their careers in the 1980s (I’m thinking of people like Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Marie Redonnet, Eric Chevillard, Christian Oster, Marie NDiaye, and Christian Gailly, to name just a few), have done just as much as the New Novelists in terms of rethinking the fundamental terms of the novel as a cultural form and suggesting intriguing new paths for that form. Without a doubt moreover, Jean Echenoz has played a crucial, indeed determinative role in that dynamic.

‘Piano is a French novel, a very French novel. The author won the Prix Goncourt for an earlier book and this one carries hints of Voltaire and Sartre. The publishers suggest that Piano can be read as a metaphor of life and death, heaven and hell; Dante is invoked. Daunting stuff, you might think. A thin book, it comes wrapped in heavyweight literary packaging — in France Jean Echenoz is rated alongside Beckett and Nabokov. But what lies inside this intellectual bombe surprise is a sharp, airy sorbet that slips down with great ease: an existential thriller of the sort that might once have been turned into a movie by Jean Cocteau. It’s a deadpan, elegant and wittily observed tragicomedy: posh French fun.

‘In Piano, the musician protagonist Max spends the first section in a state of advanced alcoholism, to conquer stage fright, and the last two as dead, from which state he returns as “Paul” to the “urban zone” of life. A dead hero is entirely appropriate to classical subjects with Greek references. One could almost say that Max the pianist makes the transition from pathos to bathos when recycled as Paul. Others will no doubt invoke Virgil as Dante’s guide through the Inferno, or even Sartre’s “Hell is other people” from Huis Clos – to which, apart from the claustrophobia of the concert halls where Max performs, Piano happily bears no resemblance.

‘It is perhaps a reflection of a modern inability to deal squarely with death that an afterlife so eludes our conception. Echenoz has, therefore, opted for the tradition of a public life on earth, where much is achieved despite the waste of personal experience. Max’s Purgatory is something to be escaped at the earliest opportunity, even when founded on sensual fulfilment rather than denial; and Hell is the ultimate inescapable place, where disappointment is all.

‘Echenoz uses dollops of interior monologue, which magnify Max’s neuroses. In several instances, he becomes an intruding author, injecting playful asides, which are interesting but risky, as they are not at all germane to the plot. Even so, this device contributes garnish to an enjoyable read that stands out for its good writing and inventiveness.

‘Echenoz has produced a superb and stunning body of fiction. His sense of pace is flawless. His characters wander into situations of dazzling incongruity as if the incongruous itself were the first principle of the human condition — and upon finishing Piano, his readers, both amused and bemused, may be persuaded that such is indeed the case.’ — collaged

 

____
Gallery

 

_____
Further

‘Reading Jean Echenoz’
Hallucinating Rhythm: The Parisian Dreamscape of Jean Echenoz
‘The Uses of Brevity:
Valuing the “No More to Be Said” in Jean Echenoz’
‘Piano’ @ The Complete Review
Jean Echenoz @ goodreads
‘At last – a French novel that’s just the ticket’
‘Anthem for Doomed Youth:” Jean Echenoz’s 1914‘
‘How do you read a novel in another language?’
‘The “Lightweight” Gallows Humor of Jean Echenoz
‘A Window Onto Comic Tedium’
‘Je ne vois pas bien ma place dans les académies’
Jean Echenoz @ France Culture
‘Les facéties de Jean Echenoz’
Video: ‘Jean Echenoz : écrire, un état prenant’
‘Jean Echenoz, auteur postmoderne?’
‘Jean Echenoz: “Je ne crois pas du tout à l’inspiration, plutôt à l’obstination”‘

 

____
Extras

Jean Echenoz, entretien, Interlignes, Dominique Antoine

Lydia Davis and Jean Echenoz read at the 92nd Street Y

Harry Mathews Le son de Jean Echenoz

Jean Echenoz vous présente son ouvrage “14”

 

______
Interview

 

Et la discrétion dont vous vous entouriez ? Vous êtes-vous senti agressé ?

Jean Echenoz: Pas agressé, mais simplement fatigué, éprouvé par la médiatisation que ce prix engendre. Je suis resté allongé deux jours entiers après pour me reposer ! Et la ” fausse ” biographie que j’ai fait paraître pour les communiqués de presse n’était pas destinée à dérouter les journalistes et encore moins à se moquer de qui que ce soit, même si cette histoire me suit encore quinze ans après ! On m’avait demandé d’écrire une notice autobiographique. Un piège narcissique dans lequel je ne souhaitais pas tomber : j’ai écrit quatre lignes, ne souhaitant pas exposer certaines choses de ma vie ni commenter mon travail, puis je me suis aperçu que cela n’avait aucun intérêt. Et comme je suis un écrivain de fiction, je me suis servi d’elle et d’une sorte de pudeur pour écrire quelque chose de totalement différent.

Le goût de l’écriture ?

JE: Il m’est venu très jeune, vers dix douze ans. Je ne savais pas du tout la forme qu’il prendrait, presse ou autre ; mais la littérature étant ce qui m’a toujours passionné, c’est naturellement vers elle que je suis allé… Je composais souvent des petits textes, des commencements de fiction, des poèmes comme tout le monde (que j’ai heureusement perdus ! Rires…) et j’avais ébauché un roman épistolaire. Cet apprentissage tendait in fine vers le roman, et mes perspectives et ambitions ont rencontré le besoin urgent de la concrétisation. J’ai alors appris que l’on devait retravailler les premiers jets, revenir sur ce qui vient sous la plume pour lui donner une profondeur et un relief véritable.

Des événements, rencontres ou influences déterminantes ?

JE: Je relis certains écrivains de manière fréquente, tels que Flaubert, Nabokov, Queneau, qui sont pour moi des fenêtres importantes. La rencontre déterminante : mon éditeur. Je souhaitais publier chez Minuit depuis le début.

Vous vous êtes donc immédiatement tourné vers Jérôme Lindon ?

JE: Justement non ! Minuit me semblait tellement sérieuse, rigoureuse… Je n’osais pas leur envoyer mon travail, que j’estimais presque ” indigne ” d’elle, je pensais que les éditeurs ne l’accepteraient jamais. Je l’ai donc envoyé à toutes les autres maisons d’édition, et ma collection de lettres de refus était telle que j’ai pensé qu’il fallait que j’aie également celle de Minuit. La seule qui n’est pas venue…

Ecrivez-vous pour vous ou pour les autres ?

JE: J’écris pour moi en tant que lecteur. J’écris ce que je souhaiterais lire, espérant que mes vœux en rejoignent d’autres similaires. Je pense que l’écrivain n’a pas de mission précise ou de message particulier à transmettre ; il doit simplement un certain respect à l’écriture elle-même, à la fiction. L’écrivain doit offrir le témoignage d’amour de la prose et de la littérature le meilleur possible, le plus vrai, le plus passionné.

Vous sentez-vous crevé, vidé après avoir terminé l’écriture d’un roman ?

JE: L’écriture est très physique : donc crevé, mais pas vidé. La dernière version d’un ouvrage est la plus fatigante mais la plus intéressante, c’est également un temps ou d’autres idées naissent, où d’autres projets se mettent en place. Une période ou l’on se place dans ” l’après “, ou, personnellement, j’essaie toujours de prendre le contre-pied de ce que j’ai dit et écrit auparavant… L’occasion de ” casser une mécanique ” qui s’est mise en place pour ne pas se répéter. Donc jamais de vide ; plutôt soulagé, libéré et déjà dans une réalisation future !

Dans une recherche de perfection ?

JE: Evidemment, comme tout écrivain qui se respecte et respecte son lecteur, quel qu’il soit. Je ne retravaille pas mes manuscrits avec l’éditeur, à une exception près, où il m’a aidé à revenir sur la fin d’un livre. J’en ai d’abord été catastrophé et suis rentré chez moi abattu. Je me suis penché à nouveau sur la partie en question, puis finalement sur l’ensemble. L’intervention de Jérôme et Irène a fait gagner à mon travail en qualité et en cohérence ; un bel exemple de la collaboration entre écrivain et éditeur qui porte ses fruits !

Vos voyages, source d’inspiration ?

JE: Je crois surtout à l’obstination dans l’écriture, et pas tellement à l’inspiration. Je suis parti en Inde dans la perspective d’utiliser certaines notes pour l’écriture de Les grandes blondes. En rentrant, il m’a semblé que tout le voyage n’avait été qu’un prétexte à prendre des vacances et à retrouver l’Inde, mais finalement ces écrits de deux mois m’ont beaucoup servi quelques temps après. Ce que j’avais failli jeter s’est révélé précieux.

Vos romans vous conduisent sans cesse à l’étranger, dans des périples et des endroits divers… Votre goût pour ces découpages spacio-temporels ?

JE: Cela tient sans doute à mon amour du mouvement, à mon attirance pour les départs, l’exploration incessante de lieux différents. Les lieux sont des moteurs de fiction aussi importants que les personnages ; et le découpage du temps, ternaire pour le voyage (visible dans les trois parties), binaire pour les protagonistes (les allers-retours de Félix à Delahaye) de Je m’en vais, viennent lui donner un rythme particulier je crois, même s’il n’était pas évident à agencer !

 

__
Book

Jean Echenoz Piano
The New Press

‘Max Delmarc, age fifty, is a famous concert pianist with two problems: the first is a paralyzing stage fright for which the second, alcohol, is the only treatment. In this unparalleled comedy from the Prix Goncourt–winning French novelist Jean Echenoz, we journey with Max, from the trials of his everyday life, through his untimely death, and on into the afterlife.

‘After a brief stay in purgatory—part luxury hotel, part minimum security prison, under the supervision of deceased celebrities—Max is cast into an alarmingly familiar partition of hell, “the urban zone,” a dark and cloudy city much like his native Paris on an eternally bad day. Unable to play his beloved piano or stomach his needed drink, Max engages in a hapless struggle to piece his former life back together while searching in vain for the woman he once loved.

‘An acclaimed bestseller with 50,000 copies sold in France, Piano is a sly, sardonic evocation of Dante and Sartre for the present day, the playful, daring masterpiece of a novelist at the top of his form.’ — The New Press

 

_____
Excerpts

One, slightly taller than average says nothing. Under a large, light-colored raincoat buttoned to the neck, he is wearing a black suit with a black bow tie. Small cufflinks with onyx-quartz mounts punctuate his immaculate wrists. He is, in short, very well dressed, though his pallid face and gaping eyes suggest a worried frame of mind. His white hair is brushed back. He is afraid. He is going to die a violent death in twenty-two days but, as he is yet unaware of this, that is not what he is afraid of.

*

After disembodied voices had given the countdown, the concert could begin. The conductor was fairly exasperating, full of mannered grimances, unctuous and enveloping motions, coded little signs addressed to different categories of performers, fingers on his lips and inopportune thrusts of his hips. Following his lead, the instrumentalists themselves began to act like wise guys: taking advantage of a frill in the score that allowed him to shine a little, to stand out from the masses for the space of a few measures, an oboist demonstrated extreme concentration, even overplaying it to win the right to a close-up. Thanks to several highlighted phrases allocated to them, two English horns also did their little number a moment later. And Max, who had quickly lost the scrap of stage fright that had held him that day and was even starting to feel bored, himself began to make pianist faces in turn, looking preoccupied, pulling his head deep into his shoulders or excessively arching his back, depending on the tempo; smiling at the instrument, the work, the very essence of music, himself — you have to keep interested somehow.

*

White in color and emerging from who knows where, this second figure seemed gently but firmly to admonish Yellow Bathrobe, who immediately vanished. Apparently White Silhouette then noticed Max, who watched it walk toward him, become transformed in its approach into a young woman who was the spitting image of Peggy Lee — tall, nurse’s blouse, very light hair pulled back and held with a hair tie. With the same implacable softness, she enjoined Max to go back into his room.

“You have to stay in here,” she said — moreover in Peggy Lee’s voice. “Someone will be here to see you soon.

“But,” started Max, getting no further, as the young woman immediately negated this incipient objection with a light rustllng of her fingers, deployed like a flight of birds in the air between them. When you get down to it, she did look phenomenally like Peggy Lee, the same kind of big, milk-fed blonde, with a fleshy, wide mouth, and excessive lower lip forming the permanent smile of a zealous camp counselor. More reassuring than arousing, she exuded complete wholesomeness and strict morals.

*

As nothing special is happening in this scene, we might take the time to look closely at this ticket. There’s actually a lot that can be said about these tickets, about their secondary uses – toothpick, fingernail scraper, or paper cutter, guitar pick or plectrum, bookmark, crumb sweeper, conduit or straw for controlled substances, awning for a doll’s house, micro-notebook, souvenir, or support for a phone number that you scribble for a girl in case of emergency – and their various fates – folded lengthwise in halves or quarters and liable to be slid under an engagement ring, signet ring, or wristwatch; folded in six or even eight in accordion fashion, ripped into confetti, peeled in a spiral like an apple, then tossed into the wastepaper-baskets of the metro system, on the floor of the system, between the tracks of the system, or even cast out of the system, in the gutter, the street, at home to play heads or tails: heads magnetic stripe, tails printed side – but perhaps this isn’t the moment to go into all of that.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. I owe you an email. Sorry, it’s been busy. I’ll write back asap. Enjoy Detroit. I think I saw a video clip of a slice of her concert on FB. If so, it looked awesome. ** JM, Hi! Nice to see (materialise with?) you again too. And how was the show, all in all? Ha ha, um, yeah, as you can imagine, that editorial response to your story is not unfamiliar to me. ‘Portraits’ sounds interesting, or, yeah, your role does. Huh. That character sounds like an interestingly tricky build. You sound busy, good, lots up top, like it should be. Oh, ugh, JT Leroy, yeah. Oh, gosh, I don’t know if they’re worth reading. Maybe ‘Sarah’ is, maybe. Maybe not. I just get nauseous when I even think about that whole bullshit. See what you think. Let me know what you think if you do. ** KEatOn, Hi. I don’t think I’ve been far enough over that way to see Newark. It was Gay Pride here yesterday. Didn’t even leave this weird apartment, except to smoke. It was too hot and muggy. Thought of seeing ‘Jurassic World’ but … nah. Worked on a film script. Ate horrible macaroni salad. Didn’t feel unusually proud. ** Kyler, Hi, Kyler! Thank you so much, man! It was really nice to see you even for those few seconds and in my post-show daze. Yeah, I’ll try to get down there and with George in tow if poss. Have a great one! ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I only vaguely know who Jordan Peterson is, so the parody probably wouldn’t work on me. Yeah, subtlety is a virtue of Reed’s early work, and then, yeah. Still, cool you saw it and him. I did see your haul on FB, and, yeah, it kills for sure. Happy to see your faves-so-far of 2018. And it reminds me I need to make my mid-year faves post. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. You get here today! Hit me up so we can sort an in-person, yeah? Safe trip, although I guess you’re well on your way to DC by now, so safe post-trip? ** Alex rose, Hey, Alex! ‘Them’s’ going pretty well, it’s cool. Weird how that ancient piece still works. They (ILP) do awfully pretty work in general. Michael ‘Kiddiepunk’ Salerno’s ‘Childhood’ is highly recommended. You might like it, I think. Big up, my dear friend. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben. Yeah, someone was explaining to me the other night that everybody’s still technically ‘in’ the Cup until tomorrow. Paying barely much attention as I always seem to do, I just always want Germany to lose. I don’t even know why. I like your screenrprint. I don’t know that I really understand it, but things I don’t understand are kind of always my favorite things. And it looks ace. ** Caitie, Hi, Caitie. Nice to meet you. Oh, yes, I did read your wonderful email. I am a terrible, terrible correspondent in general. I’m famously so. I think doing this p.s. ruins my emailing abilities. Uh, hm, interesting. The immediate perception ‘test’. Okay, I’ll give it a shot, although the nature/form of the p.s. makes columns undoable, so I’ll do them in list form and you can reformat them? Hm … Caitie: Camouflage, Salt, Circle, Balcony, Harry, TV Remote, Glitter, King, Balcony, Don’t Fear the Reaper, Creation Story, Marae. Not Caitie: Well, all the words I didn’t pick already. Did I do that right? Thanks, that was fruitfully weird and fun and confusing, and I love being confused. Mostly. Thank you! I hope and trust you’ll hang out here when you want so we can talk more. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I guess I have to go figure out exactly who this Peterson guy is. ** Okay. Up above is a book that I have a suspicion  none–  or at least very few — of you who are reading this have read. Understandable, but more’s the pity, ‘cos it’s very good. See you tomorrow.

Artaud 1937 Apocalypse – Letters from Ireland by Antonin Artaud

 

 

Antonin Artaud’s 1937 apocalyptic journey to Ireland and his writings from that journey form an extraordinary moment of accumulating disintegration and tenacious creativity in his work. After publishing a manifesto prophecy about the catastrophic immediate-future entitled The New Revelations of Being, Artaud abruptly left Paris and travelled to Ireland, remaining there for six weeks and existing without money, travelling first to the isolated island of Inishmore off Ireland’s western coast, then to Galway, and finally to Dublin, where he was arrested as an undesirable alien, beaten by the police, and summarily deported back to France. On his return, he spent nine years in lunatic asylums, including the entire span of the Second World War. During that journey to Ireland – on which he accumulated signs of his forthcoming apocalypse, and planned his own role in it as ‘THE REVEALED ONE’ – Artaud wrote letters to friends in Paris and also created several magic spells, intended to curse his enemies and to protect his friends from Paris’s forthcoming incineration and the Antichrist’s appearance at the Deux Magots cafe. To André Breton, he wrote: ‘It’s the Unbelievable – yes, the Unbelievable – it’s the Unbelievable which is the truth.’ Many of his writings from Ireland were lost, and this book collects all of his surviving letters, drawn together from archives and private collections, together with photographs of the locations he travelled through. This edition, with an afterword and notes by the book’s translator/editor, Stephen Barber, marks the seventieth anniversary of Artaud’s death.

 

Artaud 1937 Apocalypse – Letters from Ireland by Antonin Artaud

Translated and edited by Stephen Barber
Photographs by Karolina Urbaniak
Artworks by Martin Bladh

Hardbound, 120 pages 190 x 148mm
ISBN 978-0-9927366-7-5
https://www.infinitylandpress.com/artaud-1937-apocalypse

 

 

Book trailer
Voice Christophe Delesques
Production Karolina Urbaniak

 

EXTRACTS
The New Revelations of Being [Preface]

I say what I have seen and what I believe; and whoever says I have not seen what I have seen, I will now tear off their head.
—Because I am Brute who cannot be forgiven, and it will be that way until Time is no longer Time.
—Neither Heaven nor Hell, if they exist, can combat that brutality that they forced onto me, perhaps in order that I would serve them… Who knows?
—In any case, so I would tear myself away from them.
[…]
It is a true Desperate One who is speaking to you and who knows the happiness of being in the world only now that he has left the world behind, now that he has become absolutely separated from it.
—The Dead – the others are not separated. They are still turning around their own dead bodies.
—I am not dead, but I am separated.
—I will therefore say what I have seen and what is…

 

 

To André Breton, 23 August 1937
(Letter, sent from Kilronan port, Inishmore island):

Very dear friend,

—I’ve seen that life in Ireland is horrendously expensive!
—I doubt that in the cities you could get by on less than one pound a day.
—Here where I am, you would pay one pound a week – there are 9 houses, 3 shrubs in the cemetery, and it would take you + 2 hours of walking to reach the village of Kilronan, where there’s a post-office, 4 hotels, 2 alcohol stores and around sixty or so houses. The boat from mainland Ireland stops here twice a week.
—So those are the practical details.
—Now, are you entirely certain that you will not be deeply involved in the World’s Momentous Events until three years from now, that’s to say from 1940? You will be involved, in the full sight and knowledge of everyone, perhaps. But it seems to me that very shortly from now you will enter into a New Path, which will moreover be your true Path.
—Just remember what I said to you one evening:
—‘there exists in you such a spirit of justice, that it is inconceivable to me that it could remain unused in connection with others, and that it will not manifest itself one day in front of a huge number of people’.
—If I’ve been insistent in telling you on several occasions how I’ve been struck by the profound feeling of human integrity and of enlightened justice that I can identify in you, it’s been no kind of flattery, but instead a prediction that I was making to you in a covert form.
—Yours,

ANTONIN ARTAUD

It’s probable that many things are going to disturb you and repel you, from the very first sight and moment, in what is now going to be accomplished. But your profound sense of justice will enable you to rise above all that – because this time the end is going to burn up the means.

 

 

To André Breton, 5 September 1937 (Letter with an accompanying Magic Spell, sent from Galway):

I am entrusting to you a Magic Spell that I’m sending to Madame X. If she sees my handwriting, she may well not open the envelope. So write the address in a style that doesn’t look like mine. And do send it to her, I beg of you.
—You are going to see, once you have examined the Magic Spell, that things are about to become serious and that this time, I’m going to the very end of everything.
—Madame X.’s grave responsibility lies in having said that there are no more Gods. That’s the reason for my hatred of her.
—Because there are still Gods, even though God no longer exists. And ranged above gods there is the unconscious, criminal law of Nature, and the gods and Us – that is, We the Gods – are collectively victims of that law.
—Paganism had everything right, but Men – who are always utter bastards – betrayed the Pagan Truth. So christ has returned in order to illuminate the Pagan Truth, which all the various christian Churches have been shitting on in an ignominious way. This christ I’m talking about was a Magician who fought with Demons in the desert, using a cane as his weapon. And a trace of his blood remained imprinted on that cane. That trace disappears when you wipe it away with water, but then it comes back.

 

 

To Anne Manson, 5 or 6 September 1937 (Letter written in Galway but then torn into four pieces – only two of which were written upon – and not sent):

Anne.
—It’s certain that in Paris, there’s an intention to get me arrested.
—You mustn’t worry about this.
—A rich woman – whom I had charitably warned to leave behind her involvement with communism since otherwise she would herself have to take the blame for risking being caught up in the coming massacre of an insurrection of the forces of the left – replied to me that she would have me burned as a sorcerer. And that I was a wretchedly bad actor. She told me, moreover, that she wanted to eat alive all those who still speak of God. I then replied in specifying to her the torture that would be imposed upon her for her revolt – the torture that would take place after the massacre which she herself is instigating – and I told her that, in accordance with the Justice of God – I would then perform some bad acting over her dead body on that day.

 

 

To Anne Manson, 13 September 1937 (Letter, partly lost, sent from Dublin):

It’s not a force of hatred that christ wants to extend over the world’s surface, but a colossal force of love. This force will direct itself to the hearts of human beings and instruct them about the void of life and what is sublime about the disappearance of forms. Mankind will resist christ and will want to kill the man who is the representative of this force. As a result, this force will manifest itself in all of its force, and in its cruelty, but solely in order to have done with that resistance of mankind. Because cruelty is not some kind of luxury, Anne – so don’t be stupid and sentimental at the same time as you are sublime. To be cruel, you have to have become illuminated. That’s the truth. I’m warning you: Just don’t play games with me. Cruelty is not some kind of game, and I do not love it. But I will impose cruelty when I have to.

 

 

To Anne Manson, around 17 September 1937 (Letter, partly lost, sent from Dublin):

Get going to the Deux Magots, Woman, betray me. Tell them there that I’m in Dublin so that they can come and capture me.
—But warn them too that they are going to get what is coming to them. And it will be unstoppable and WITHOUT Mercy.
[…]
Just tell them that I shit on the republic, on democracy, on socialism, on communism, on Marxism, on idealism, on materialism – whether it’s dialectical materialism or not, because I shit on dialectics too, and I’m going to give you further proof of that.
—I shit on the Popular Front and I shit on the Government of the Popular Alliance, I shit on the International Workingmen’s Association, in its 1st, 2nd and 3rd variants, but I also shit on the idea of a National Homeland, I shit on France and on every last one of the French – with the exception of those to whom I’ve personally issued warnings from here in Ireland and those with whom I’m in correspondence.
—The French – whether they believe themselves to be on the Right or on the Left – are all a bunch of cunts who want to own things, and in that stinking café to which I’m now sending you – where they all exhausted and exasperated me with their quarrels and their little self-interests – I never saw anyone except people who wanted to own things, people stuck in one place, stuck, petrified to the point of blindness by existence, and every one of them has spread their darkness over Existence. To the point of being driven crazy, I have had ENOUGH of them.

 

 

To Jacqueline Breton, 17 September 1937
(Magic Spell, sent from Dublin):

17 – 9 – 2

I will send a Magic Spell
to the First One who dares to touch you.
I am going to beat
his little gob of a fake proud cock
to a pulp.
I am going to flay his arse in front of 100,000 people !
HIS PAINTING WHICH WAS
NEVER VERY
STRIKING HAS NOW BECOME
DEFINITIVELY
——————-BAD
HIS VOICE IS TOO UGLY

IT’S THE ANTICHRIST

 

 

About the author

 

Antonin Artaud’s work has a world-renowned status for experimentation across performance, film, sound, poetry and visual art. In the 1920s, he was a member of the Surrealist movement until his expulsion, and formulated theoretical plans across the first half of the 1930s for his ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ and attempted to carry them through. He made a living as a film actor from 1924 to 1935 and made many attempts to direct his own film projects. In 1936, he travelled to Mexico with a plan to take peyote in the Tarahumara lands. In 1937, preoccupied with the imminent apocalypse, he travelled to Ireland but was deported, beginning a nine-year asylum incarceration during which he continued to write and also made many drawings. After his release in 1946, he lived in the grounds of a sanatorium in Ivry-sur-Seine, close to Paris, and worked intensively on drawings, writings and sound-recordings. He died on 4 March 1948. His drawings have been exhibited on several occasions, notably at the Museum of Modern Art in Vienna in 2002 and at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris in 2006.

 

About the editor

Stephen Barber’s books have been acclaimed as ‘brilliant, profound and provocative’ by The Times newspaper in the UK, and he has been called ‘a writer of real distinction’ and ‘the most dangerous man in Europe’ by The Independent newspaper. The Sunday Times newspaper hailed his books as ‘exhilarating and disquieting’.
He is the author of many fiction and non-fiction books, including studies of Antonin Artaud, Pierre Guyotat, Jean Genet and Eadweard Muybridge. Among his recent books are England’s Darkness (Sun Vision Press) and Berlin Bodies (Reaktion Books). He has also collaborated on books with the poet Jeremy Reed and the photographer Xavier Ribas. His books have been translated into many languages and have won numerous prizes and awards. He is currently a professor of art and film at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University, London.
https://stephenbarber.me/

 

Martin Bladh
Martin Bladh is a Swedish-born artist of multiple mediums. His work lays bare themes of violence, obsession, fantasy, domination, submission and narcissism. Bladh is a founding member of the post-industrial band IRM, the musical avant-garde unit Skin Area and co-founder of Infinity Land Press. His published work includes To Putrefaction, Qualis Artifex Pereo, DES, The Hurtin’ Club and Darkleaks – The Ripper Genome. He lives and works in London.
http://www.martinbladh.com/

 

Karolina Urbaniak
Karolina Urbaniak is a visual artist, sound designer, professional
photographer and co-founder of Infinity Land Press. Her published work includes To Putrefaction, The Void Ratio and Altered Balance – A Tribute to Coil (a collaboration between Urbaniak and the award-winning poet and novelist Jeremy Reed).
Urbaniak is currently working on a multimedia project Death-Mort-Tod – A European Book of the Dead with British writer Steve Finbow. The book is forthcoming with Infinity Land Press in Fall 2018.
http://karolinaurbaniak.com/

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. Really happy to return to the blog in the company of this birth announcement for the latest book from the eternally crucial and beauty manufacturing press Infinity Land. Please explore the evidence for their fantastic new Artaud book and pony up for it if you have the means. Thank you, and many thank yous to IL masterminds Martin and Karolina. ** James Nulick, Hi, James. Why am I not entirely surprised you have roots as a firebug? Serious question: I don’t know why I’m not totally surprised. Thank you. I hope everything’s swell on your end. ** KeEtOn, Hi. That movie sounds familiar. NYC often gives me the willies, but not this time for some reason. Funny: I was just listening to ‘Strumpet Eye’ on repeat yesterday. ** David Ehrenstein, Morning, sir. Really, ‘The Shining’? Hm, I think I would say my pick would be between ‘Dr. Strangelove’ and ‘Clockwork Orange’ or ‘2001’. Maybe. ** Misanthrope, Hi there. Everything seems to be going very well on the ‘Them’ front so far, but you can judge for yourself, and you can tell Ishmael that in person. Cool. ** Bill Hsu, Hey, Bill! Very glad you liked ‘Crowd’. Yes, each of the performers has a complicated backstory and little narrative arc that plays itself out during the piece, and I wrote those. They’re the silent, semi-secret center. I think you’re well home by now, yes? And even through your jet lag? Yes, a few days later, and you’re home, perky sounding, and even fogged in. Nice Berlin art stuff. I’ve managed to see some pretty great shows here too (Adrian Piper and Reza Abdoh retrospectives, shows by Charles Ray, Oscar Tuazon, Jordan Wolfson). ** Liquoredgoat, Hey, D. Always nice to see you. Oh, funny, yeah, I felt pretty sure it was yours. My brain does that too. Not infrequently. Thanks a lot about ‘TMS’. In a way it feels like ages ago, but I’m pursuing what I was doing there in the gif fiction, so it doesn’t feel entirely far away. But yeah. I’ll … check about the Bladerunner bazaar. I don’t … think it exists, but I’ll scour. I do greatly prefer the Selected Bill Knott to the book he put together himself, yes, for sure. Take care, bud. ** Josh, If you’re seeing this, I’m very sorry that your photo accidentally ended up in the post. I deleted it the moment I saw your comment. Very, very sorry. ** Kier, Hey, hey, hey, Kier! That Springsteen song is one of only two songs by him that I particularly like. ‘Candy’s Room’ is the other one. I sort of … got used to this apartment or went into full on denial or something. It’s just weirdly there now. It has been very hot here, but off and on. Weird, shifty, unpredictable temperature rises and falls, like everywhere these days, I guess. It’s okay today. There’s a Fujiko piece in Oslo? Wow, cool. Yes, in fact one of Zac’s and my projects in progress is a documentary film about Fujiko. We’ll have to come up to Oslo and film it. I hope your visit to Stavanger wasn’t too painful. Yeah, just so sorry for that loss in your life. Sensible, yeah, to maybe err on the side of caution and wait to do the operation after Paris, if you do that. Paris! Today I’ve only woken up, had coffee, smoked three cigarettes on the sidewalk, and then started this. We have our third performance tonight, so I’ll head over to the theater in a while. You good? Catch me up. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I’ve heard/seen World Cup stuff blasting out of every other bar/restaurant I walk by here in the East Village, but I don’t know who’s rocking it and who’s not. Is Iceland still in it? Oh, wow, From Nursery To Misery. I’ll definitely check out that short film. Cool, thank you. God, yes, that horrifying news about the art school fire. Just unbelievable. So, so terrible. Hope everything’s going well with the Compendium and you though. ** Alex rose, Hi, Alex! Thank you. ‘Them’ seems to be going pretty well so far. A couple of great reviews, and the audiences are big enough and noisy at the end. Love to you too, my friend and maestro. ** Sypha, Hi, James. I saw ‘Ernest Scared Stupid’ in a theater, and I wasn’t even a kid! ** Steve Erickson, Hi, Steve. I … think I know that video from ages ago. I’ll check. And check those curious sounding B-Shoc and Wiseau-like things. Wowzer. Everyone, Some new Steve Erickson write-ups for you to pour over: His reviews of the Indonesian film MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS here, and of the Brazilian film ARABY here, and his take on the re-release of Godard’s LES CARABINIERS here. How was the Reed play? Is it new or older? Family bootlegs might get me to that store. Wow, that’s pretty odd and exciting. ** Cody, Hi. I got back to you by email. Thanks so much! ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Thank you, and welcome back to you! Things are pretty good here. ‘Them’ seems to be going really well so far, knock on wood and etc. And we did have the PGL meeting, and I think I can announce the big PGL meets NYC event quite soon. We’re excited. Can you meet up with her on a weekend to do the photos or … ? I trust and hope there’s a way. You’re going to Amsterdam! Super congratulations! Yay! Does your brother in central Amsterdam? Do know where? (I know the place pretty well from living there.) That’s so great!!! I look forward to talking with you again too! Have a really lovely weekend! ** H, Hi. The shows have been good so far, thank you. I sure do understand busy. Enjoy it if you can. ** Right. We’re caught up, and let’s proceed. Have excellent weekends in the company of Artaud and otherwise. See you on Monday.