Boris Vian was a French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. He is best remembered for novels such as L鈥櫭塩ume des jours and L'Arrache-c艙ur (translated into English as Froth on the Daydream and Heartsnatcher, respectively). He is also known for highly controversial "criminal" fiction released under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan and some of his songs (particularly the anti-war Le D茅serteur). Vian was also fascinated with jazz: he served as liaison for, among others, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis in Paris, wrote for several French jazz-reviews (Le Jazz Hot, Paris Jazz) and published numerous articles dealing with jazz both in the United States and in France.
Un altro romanzo a firma Vernon Sullivan, lo pseudonimo che Boris Vian adottava quando voleva 鈥渇are l鈥檃mericano鈥�, quando sceglieva d鈥檈ssere 鈥榝orte鈥�, nudo-e-crudo. E sperava di aggirare la censura francese. Questa volta mi piace pensare si collochi a cavallo tra Myra Breckinridge e The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Mr Los Angeles, cio猫 l鈥檜omo eletto il pi霉 bello della citt脿 degli angeli, si chiama Rock (non Rocky, ma quasi), viene rapito. Rock, che ha scelto la castit脿 come sua personale strada verso la bellezza, la perfezione fisica, l鈥檃llenamento, si ritrova prigioniero di un tale dottor Schutz che vorrebbe costringerlo ad accoppiarsi con una bella signorina. Proprio lui che le donne le tiene lontane, se le scrolla di dosso, per non disperdere il seme e la concentrazione spirituale (e fisica). Questo dottor Schutz 猫 un sedicente scienziato che vorrebbe servirsi di Rock per creare la nuova razza umana esteticamente perfetta. Se non che, Rock si sottrae alla forzata donazione del suo sperma, trona libero. E a quel punto, facendo coppia con un bizzarro (e cosa non 猫 bizzarro in questa storia?!) agente segreto, ma non solo, man mano si aggiungono altri partner sempre alquanto pittoreschi, Rock si mette sulle tracce del dottor Schutz.
Raccontare una trama cos矛, oltre che difficile, perch茅 猫 rocambolesca delirante e apparentemente frivola, ha poco senso. Perch茅 猫 chiaro che a Vernon Sullivan, alias Boris Vian, dietro il gioco letterario, preme dissacrare e spezzare una lancia contro la frenetica corsa alla perfezione del corpo, contro l鈥檃pparenza a scapito della sostanza, la superficie a danno della profondit脿, dello spessore. La maniacalit脿 che spinge alla perfezione uccide e appiattisce la diversit脿, 猫 un'altra forma di totalitarismo a scapito dell鈥檌ndividualit脿. Un鈥檃ltra faccia del razzismo.
Escrita en 1948 para epatar al personal, sigue siendo a d铆a de hoy igual de provocadora. Es imposible que te deje indiferente y algunas de las cosas de las que habla, desgraciadamente se est谩n cumpliendo: como la obsesi贸n por la belleza y la uniformidad de los c谩nones est茅ticos.
- You know, Mr. Vian, I had to give up reading your book after not even 80 pages..
- It's okay, my friend. I guess you had some strong reasons.
- Yes. At one point, my cat started meowing terribly, and usually he only does that when he thinks I'm wasting my time.
- Ah bon ? And why would your cat think that , if I may ask ?
- Well... you see, Mr. Vian, we all have sexual fantasies..But we try, as much as possible, not to make it a predominant subject of a book..
- Maybe you're right, my friend, but if I didn't do it when I was 15, I had to do it now, you know...
- I wouldn't want you to misunderstand me, Mr. Vian, but I didn't understand why one should be forced to have sex with a beautiful woman, as in your book. I mean..I could understand only if it was Angela Merkel. Apart from that, I kept hoping, throughout the whole reading to find the irony, cynicism, and parody that you used to me, but..nothing of all these..
- Listen, my friend..Try to understand me. I had to do it. This sex thing has obssesed me since my childhood..I had to transpose this, somehow..
- Ah, I understand. But still, I'd have liked this chapter to be just a starting point, and not a fixed, repeated idea, endlessly.
- Okay, my friend, I've got your point. But, honestly, don't you have sexual fantasies ?
- Oh, sure. I would like to force Marine Le Pen to sing me La Marseillaise loudly, while we have sex.
La broma m谩s aguda que pueda hac茅rsele a la novela negra. En primer lugar, se somete al protagonista- que no es ni alcoh贸lico ni un genio disfuncional- a una serie de sucesos totalmente inveros铆miles, de los que no sale bien parado. En segundo lugar, si bien aquel es irresistible a las mujeres, nunca se encuentra como tal a una femme fatale, sino a un mont贸n de personas deseosas de saciar su deseo sexual. En tercer lugar, nada, absolutamente nada de lo que ocurre tiene sentido. 驴C贸mo es eso de que existe un doctor que crea seres humanos hermosos porque siente aversi贸n a los feos y desea poblar el mundo de gente bella? 驴C贸mo es posible que, en virtud de dicha investigaci贸n, rapten mujeres y hombres para probar el apetito sexual desenfrenado de dichas creaciones? 驴Qu茅 pasa con los pol铆ticos que son creaciones de Schutz? Poco y nada pasa con esto, m谩s que una org铆a de risas y locuras. Esto puede ejemplificarse exponiendo las razones de Schutz para llevar a cabo sus experimentos:
"La gente suele ser muy fea- dijo Schutz. 驴No se ha dado cuenta de que no se puede caminar por la calle sin ver much铆sima gente fea? Pues mire, a m铆 me encanta andar por la calle pero me horroriza la fealdad. As铆 que constru铆 una calle, fabriqu茅 gente bonita que paseara...Era lo m谩s bonito que pod铆a hacer. Hab铆a ganado much铆simo dinero cuidando a millonarios repletos de 煤lcera de est贸mago...Pero me cans茅..., ya ten铆a bastante...Mi divisa es: que se mueran los feos... Divertido, 驴verdad?" (P谩g. 172).
M谩s all谩 de la risa, me es imposible no leer a Vian en clave pol铆tica, similar a como Walter Benjamin ve铆a el surrealismo. Ciertamente, la literatura de Vian se articula, antes que nada, a partir de composiciones. En sus libros, m煤ltiples elementos aparentemente dis铆miles entran en relaci贸n, cuestionando la comprensi贸n habitual que tenemos de los mismos. Ahora bien, dicha comprensi贸n no pretende ser modificada por otra mejor; por el contrario, pretende ser ridiculizada a partir de su obsolescencia y posterior desnaturalizaci贸n dentro del universo de la narraci贸n que el escritor franc茅s propone. En este caso, no dej茅 de preguntarme por la fabricaci贸n en masa de la belleza y los cuestionamientos del protagonista y Mike hac铆a el final, siendo que ambos son personas con un f铆sico despampanante.
Otro asunto que caus贸 inter茅s en m铆 fue la relaci贸n entre los hombres y las mujeres dentro de la belleza: la cosificaci贸n del otro es llevada al punto en que todos somos mercanc铆as intercambiables, cuyo 煤nico valor radica en los atributos diferentes de cada uno (color de cabello, ojos, curvas, etc). En ese sentido, la afirmaci贸n por los feos cobra un triste y preocupante sentido: si los feos son mercanc铆as contrahechas, mal manufacturadas, 驴por qu茅 no acabarlos? Ahora bien, Mike tan s贸lo atina, en su defensa de la fealdad como algo necesario, a reafirmar dicho principio sin cuestionarlo: 驴qu茅 ser谩 de nosotros los guapos-afirma 茅l- si la belleza se exotiza? Seguramente habr铆a una ca铆da de la belleza como principal factor a tener en cuenta para el sexo (煤nico motor de las relaciones entre hombres y mujeres dentro de la novela). Esto 煤ltimo, permite ver que la locura de Vian no es, en realidad, algo tan distante de nuestra vida cotidiana: Que se mueran los feos termina por ser todo un manifiesto en contra de las relaciones t贸xicas heterosexuales. Y es que, por desgracia, existe una inmensa mayor铆a de personas que viven sus vidas instrumentalizando al otro en virtud de satisfacer un deseo, como si fuesen mercanc铆as. De all铆 que hubiese fastidiado a tantos cr铆ticos esta historia: los protagonistas convalidan la l贸gica opresiva, aparte que ni se inmutan con las implicaciones que la creaci贸n de seres humanos trae consigo. Si algo puede llegar a molestar en este libro, es que la denuncia quede hecha y nada pase...que nunca se resuelva y, por el contrario, se convalide como algo "bueno" (cuarto elemento transgresor de la novela negra).
Dato aparte: sorprende la cantidad de errores de digitaci贸n y traducci贸n presentes en la novela. Es como si el texto se hubiese publicado sin un corrector de estilo tras la labor del traductor. Ojal谩 pudiesen arreglar estos errores, pues su frecuencia es abismal.
Uma escrita a satirizar os maiores clich茅s de uma por莽茫o da literatura policial hard-boiled (principalmente aqueles autores que parecem mesmo ter "brutalidade" como nome do meio - Mickey Spillane, por exemplo), numa pan贸plia de aventuras para demonstrar uma ideia exemplar de fic莽茫o cient铆fica (que de fic莽茫o at茅 parece ter pouco). Um livro estranho, mas muito divertido e movimentado, ou: como um autor "consagrado" utiliza um pseud贸nimo para fazer um exerc铆cio de escrita mais de g茅nero, copiando certas refer锚ncias e fornecendo ainda algo mais do que uma mera "homenagem".
Boris Vian (1920 - 1959) has been on to read for some time. I hope that with this book I made a poor choice of starting points.
Vian has a great bio - jazz musician, bon vivant, friend to Sartre and company, He was a novelist, a playwright, and the translator of Raymond Chandler. When his own novels sold poorly, he turned his publisher's request for another translation into his first Vernon Sullivan novel. He wrote four of these imaginary translations of an American noir author. (The hoax was revealed shortly after the publication of the first book.)
Great descriptions of this book, the third in the series, can be found on the back cover of the current edition. Luc Sante calls it "...America as a Left Bank fever dream.鈥� Paul Knobloch, the translator, describes is as "...a pornographic Hardy Boys novel set on the Island of Dr. Moreau." These are both lines I wish I had come up with, but then again, I would have had to have liked the book.
The narrator is nineteen-year-old Rock Bailey, an ex-Mr. Los Angeles who is saving his virginity till his twentieth birthday. He moves with a fast crowd of Hollywood types and journalists who hang out at bars all night. His physical perfection attracts a mysterious doctor who is genetically engineering a cadre of beautiful specimens who will take over the world. The hero maintains a kind of "gee whiz" attitude to the escalating sex, violence, and science fiction style action. I don't think the book could have been published as anything other than pornography in the U.S. when it written (1948), and it still reads like the kind of dirty book I might have stumbled onto as an adolescent in the 1960's.
The introduction makes some claims for the prophetic relevance of Vian鈥檚 themes of photogenic politicians and genetic engineering. Really? As a screwball phantasmagoria of mid twentieth century America it is entertaining for a while, but I was tired of it half way through.
Disappointingly bad. A magnificently handsome young man gets involved in a plot by a mad scientist to clone only beautiful people on some faraway island. Along the way our guy, who wanted to keep his virginity, is forced to have sex with lavishly beautiful women. The book reaches its finale when the hero gets to take part in an FBI rescue mission to infiltrate the secret island base, which is also infested with equally beautiful and continuously naked youngsters who fornicate 24/7.
Sounds like the wet dream of some pubescent boy? I tried looking for extra layers, traces of irony or parody. But there weren't, so it's just that.
The genius of Boris Vian never tires. He lived five lives in one - and one of his great identities is Vernon Sullivan. Vian's love of pulp literature is an outlet of his terror fantasies of what America is at the time of the writing of this novel - late 1940's. This book reads like a Hardy Boys young adult novel with sex and mixed in the soup great pulp science fiction touches. A remarkable entertaining read. Oh and i published it!
A pesar de haber odiado personalmente al protagonista por su elevado egocentrismo que expon铆a a gritos cuando ten铆a la oportunidad, "Que se mueran los feos" cuenta con una trama que envuelven al lector, como tambi茅n da a pensar sobre lo que, seguramente, pasa constantemente en la mente de muchas personas hoy en d铆a: que vengan los atractivos y al diablo con los innatos f铆sicamente; que la belleza f铆sica importe m谩s que cualquier otra cosa. (De hecho, y por lo que tengo entendido, 茅sta obra es una cr铆tica a la sociedad elitista de Par铆s durante la posguerra) No me gust贸 para nada que, de golpe, el nombre de los personajes, las distintas bandas que se mencionan y las situaciones en las que Rookie se met铆a se hayan presentado tan secamente; inclusive me vi en la necesidad de retroceder la lectura porque ten铆a que volver unas p谩ginas para aclarar qui茅n era qui茅n. Adem谩s, hay un perro que habla, que agradable.
de plus en plus d茅lirant au fil des pages, un style tr猫s proche d'une bande dessin茅e avec beaucoup de gags aussi dr么les qu'inattendus ! C'est comme lire une aventure de Tintin en plus loufoque et d茅vergond茅, avec le langage Vian en plus !
Rock Bailey, un aut茅ntico Chad. Y su padre, el Boris, el original machitroll. A diferencia de los que pululan ahora, estos son deveras graciosos. Me he divertido mucho, a pesar de todo lo est煤pido y ca贸tico de esta historia de gente en cueros.
Todav铆a no s茅 qu茅 pienso de esta novela delirante, ni si mi opini贸n es definitiva. Lo que s茅 es que, tras haberla arrancado, me la devor茅 casi de un bocado.
review of Boris Vian's To Hell With The Ugly by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - January 11-12, 2019
I've read mention of the writing of Boris Vian for more than 4 decades. I recall him being a writer that the Surrealists liked. That wd usually be enuf to get me to read his work. &, yet.. This is the 1st bk by him I've read. &, YES!, it was great! It's a good imitation of American hard-boiled crime fiction imaginatively mixed w/ utter absurdism. I loved it.
The book design is by Tom Recchion. I met him thru my friend Peter Zahorecz in 1989 when we went to the west coast of the US for the Without Borders anarchist gathering & then meandered south to LA. The publisher, Tosh Berman, is a 'friend' on 欧宝娱乐, someone who shares similar literary tastes to my own.
"When my publisher, Tosh Berman, asked me to describe it for him, I said, "Imagine a pornographic Hardy Boys novel set on the Island of Dr. Moreau to a bebop soundtrack." I think that's a pretty good tagline" - p I
I often become engrossed in a film from the beginning, from the title sequence. Same thing for a bk: the 1st paragraph can be a pretty good indication of the quality or lack thereof of what follows. Of course, authors are conscious of this & write accordingly:
"Taking a smack on the head is nothing. Even being drugged twice during the course of the same evening is something a guy can live with. But stepping outside for a bit of fresh air and then all of a suddent coming to in your birthday suit in a room with a naked woman, well I'd say that's when things started to get weird. As for what happened next..." - p 1
The main character, who narrated the above, is a 19 year old body-builder who's made a vow to himself to not have sex until he turns 20. A part of the humor of the bk is all about the preposterous obstacles in the way of his keeping his vow.
""Let's dance some more," she proposes, just as Lem Hamilton starts playing a new number.
""No thanks," I say. "You're going to end up leading me into depravity, and my training doesn't permit that sort of thing. I'd be happy, nevertheless, to buy you a drink."
""So your training permits you to drink?" she shoots back, just like that.
""Of course." It's Douglas who confirms this. He hasn't missed a word of our conversation. "Listen, Sunday. Don't try to seduce ol' Rocky here. He's unwavering, and all the girls that chase after him just end up running into a brick wall.["]" - p 6
""Who brought me here?" I ask. "Where are we? I want to know what this business is all about and just what it's supposed to mean. What would you say if someone doped you up and dragged you off to some room you'd never seen before? If they left you there, stark naked, and then sent in some guy whose intentions were all too obvious?"" - pp 11-12
It just gets better & better.
""Who's Wolf Petrossian?" I ask. "I've never heard of the guy."
""Strange cat," murmurs Kilian. "He had his hands into everything... One of the only guys I've ever heard of who was pulling down dough by actually exploiting a convent."
""Jesus Christ! How'd he manage that?" I say.
""Under the pretext of making a cartoon about the life of Saint Martin," says Gary. "And he had all the nuns working as go-betweens.["]" - p 22
Every hard-boiled crime fiction novel has to have a fight.
"I'm rolling around the floor like a bowling pin because one of them has tackled me by the legs... And what ensues is one of the toughest little fisticuffs I've ever seen in my life.
"That is if I could have actually seen it!" - p 59
To Hell With The Ugly was originally published in 1948. It seems to me that Vian's humorous take on sexuality was a bit precocious w/in the genre.
"This Mary Jackson is a nymphomaniac. Plain and simple. She finally leaves my legs alone and settles back into the seat where she wraps her arm around my neck. Jesus Christ Almighty! Seems that I'm always taken advantage of when I am in no position to defend myself.
"I've taken all I can: my head is covered with bruises, my back is killing me, my hands are tied, and this nut job is toying with me and getting her kicks subjecting me to a plethora of Merovingian perversions in the neighborhood of my zygomatic arch. All in a car heading to one Markus Schutz's estate. Dr. Markus Schutz. A man who abducts people in order to make them sleep together! And who has at his residence operating rooms where photos are taken..." - p 65
Never let it be sd that Vian doesn't push the plot right on along so some hand-grenades enter the picture.
"The guy from the first watchtower is trying to break free from the rubble. Judging from what we can hear, he's a bit injured from the fall, but being the selfish bastards we are this provokes absolutely no feeling of sympathy in us." - pp 74-76
Rocky & his companions meet their 1st artificially constructed human.
""What's your name?" asks Mike.
""You can call me what you like," he says. "Generally, they call me by my model number."" - p 79
""I'd like to," says Jef Devay (I prefer to call him by this name). "But I'll have to accompany you. I should, according to the rules, sound the alarm. But I am a misfit, and sometimes I don't follow the rules. If that were not the case, you'd already be dead, more or less."" - p 80
""That's enough," said Gary, cutting him off. "How do we get out of here?"
""Oh!" says Jef, suddenly all sophisticated, "it would be ridiculous and disagreeable to leave Dr. Schutz's model health establishment before visiting the incubation chambers and the laboratory for the acceleration of emryos. That way I could explain to you exactly and in detail how this accident happened to me, which I'm sure would be most fascinating for you."" - p 92
Yes, Jef Devay is a defective model. The series R are much better (r r) but, oh well.
""We'd better get out of here now," he says. "Dr. Schutz will be none too happy to see that you've killed a series R subject."" - p 91
"Fine, I'll say it! I was so frightened by that hideous monster that I wet my pants like a three year old, O.K.?" - p 92
As if Rocky's pissing himself isn't bad enuf, Jef has a complaint too.
""Hell," says Jef, disappointed. "You think this is fun, spending my life in a loony bin and pretending to like it? For once I finally get some visitors. The least you could do is pretend that you're interested. Listen. I've got something else to show you. I didn't really want to because I personally consider it a rather exhausting spectacle, but there's one more girl upstairs who's probably... Well, I won't ruin the surpise."" - p 96
There's just one misadventure after another.
""I accompanied her home," says Douglas, suddenly vehement. "I bought her dinner, took her to a movie, the whole shebang. The evening cost me forty-seven dollars. So I go up for a drink. I thought everything was cool, so I took off my clothes and she got all pissed off. I tried to kiss her and she smashed me in the face with an ashtray. She took off and slammed the door behind her, with my pants in her hands. She said I was welcome to sleep in her bed if that was what I wanted, but that she'd rather sleep alone than with a pervert, especially a pervert with a mug like mine. So I've got no more pants and I can't go home because my keys were inside. I spent the night here."" - pp 102-103
I suspect that the next bit is an inside joke that I don't get.
"I sat down next to Aubert George, who tells me about how he started off in life wanting to be an actor. The only play he was ever in ran for a grand total of one month and he had but ten or twelve lines. He played some guy who walks into a bookstore, asks for a book, and leaves. He told me the play was just bullshit (I'm quoting him word for word) but that everyone got a kick out of it." - p 113
Maybe the play alluded to is one of Vian's. Apparently that's not the case. "Vian also started writing plays, the first of which, L'脡quarrissage pour tous (Slaughter for Everyone), was staged the year it was written, 1950." ( ) In other words, Vian didn't write any plays until after this novel was written. Maybe he's alluding to a play he liked, maybe to one he didn't like. Maybe neither. Dunno.
If you don't have a sense of himor just open this bk to any page & rub it on yourself 3,408 times.
"I don't count the number of strides we're taking, but it must be somewhere between three thousand four hundred and seven and three thousand four hundred and nine when we emerge on the plain." - p 118
Kitab谋n kendine has dili, ilk b枚l眉mlerdeki 莽ok iyi tempo "harika bir kitap okuyorum" d眉艧眉ncesini olu艧tursa da ilerleyen k谋s谋mlarda mant谋ks谋zl谋k silsilesi olaylar sebebiyle kitaptan bir anda so臒udum. Zaten ana iki kahraman谋n hi莽bir gerek莽eye dayanmayan dedektif莽ilik oyunlar谋na daha yeni tan谋艧t谋klar谋 birka莽 adam谋n da sorgusuz sualsiz kat谋lmas谋 inand谋r谋c谋l谋臒谋 azaltan bir etken. Hadi g枚rmezden gelelim desek bile, zaten baz谋 艧eyleri halihaz谋rda g枚rmezden gelmi艧tik. Bir de gizem unsuru olan ana olay谋n ne oldu臒unu kitab谋n isminden dolay谋 o kadar 莽abuk kavr谋yorsunuz ki merak duygusu da yok olup gidiyor. Merak yok, mant谋k yok ee ben bu kitab谋 niye okuyay谋m? Sadece bitirmek i莽in bitirdim, 60 sayfay谋 3 g眉nde anca okuyarak...
No se si es la lectura que se le ha de dar a esta s铆ntesis de sexo y la violencia/cine negro en una s谩tira. Pero yo creo que muestra lo absurdo del elitismo o narcisismo. Al final, cuando el mundo se ve liberado de desigualdad y dolor, el hombre desesperado busca: alguien a quien mirar con desd茅n y de quien abusar o buscar confort en su inferioridad. Primero evita el sexo en un ejercicio de disciplina. Segundo lo busca en uno de poder. La desigualdad en el amor y la sociedad parece inevitable. Y la igualdad es nada mas que una utop铆a incapaz de salvar estas inseguridades masculinas. Me resulta incre铆ble que esto sea anterior a Alphaville y aun as铆 hable tanto de ella, y que siendo tan sencillo evoque a Un Mundo Feliz.