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Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life
When Alfred Jarry died in 1907 at the age of thirty-four, he was a legendary figure in Paris, but this had more to do with his bohemian lifestyle and scandalous behavior than his literary achievements. A century later, Jarry is firmly established as one of the leading figures of the artistic avant-garde. Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, Philip K. Dick, Paul McCartney, DJ Spooky, Peter Greenaway, and J. G. Ballard are among his many admirers. A community of scholars and artists maintain a posthumous dialogue with Jarry's ideas through the Collège de 'Pataphysique in Paris (named after the "science of imaginary solutions" he conceived), while a steady stream of books on twentieth-century drama pay tribute to his absurd and grotesque play, Ubu Roi. Even so, most people today tend to think of Jarry only as the author of that play, and of his life as a string of outlandish "ubuesque" anecdotes, often recounted with wild inaccuracy. In this first full-length critical biography of Jarry in English, Alastair Brotchie reconstructs the life of a man intent on inventing (and destroying) himself, not to mention his world, and the "philosophy" that defined their relation. In short, Brotchie gives us the narrative version of what Jarry himself produced: a pataphysical life. Drawing on a wealth of new material, Brotchie alternates chapters of biographical narrative with chapters that connect themes, obsessions, and undercurrents that relate to the life.
The anecdotes remain, and are even augmented: Jarry's assumption of the "ubuesque," his inversions of everyday behavior (such as eating backwards, from cheese to soup), his exploits with gun and bicycle, and his herculean feats of drinking. But Brotchie distinguishes between Jarry's purposely playing the fool and deeper nonconformities that appear essential to his writing and his thought, both of which remain a vital subterranean influence to this day.
The anecdotes remain, and are even augmented: Jarry's assumption of the "ubuesque," his inversions of everyday behavior (such as eating backwards, from cheese to soup), his exploits with gun and bicycle, and his herculean feats of drinking. But Brotchie distinguishes between Jarry's purposely playing the fool and deeper nonconformities that appear essential to his writing and his thought, both of which remain a vital subterranean influence to this day.
405 pages, Hardcover
First published September 9, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
January 20, 2020
Jarry has been one of my closest companions for almost 20 years ... or more, as I anticipated his coming into my life.
Yet I never truly considered his death until now.
That is, I thought about it to some extent when I "outlived him", which is to say when I turned 35 ...
Around the second to last chapter of this book, I started crying. Now it's almost 3 days since I finished the book, and I'm still crying.
This is now officially one of the saddest books I have ever read.
But thank you, Alastair Brotchie, for letting me be with my friend all the way to the end. And thank you, Alfred Jarry, for changing my life forever. When I will be "turned into myself by eternity" in the end, it will be because you taught me how.
Rest well, friend. At Uglebo we raise our glass to you tonight.
Yet I never truly considered his death until now.
That is, I thought about it to some extent when I "outlived him", which is to say when I turned 35 ...
Around the second to last chapter of this book, I started crying. Now it's almost 3 days since I finished the book, and I'm still crying.
This is now officially one of the saddest books I have ever read.
But thank you, Alastair Brotchie, for letting me be with my friend all the way to the end. And thank you, Alfred Jarry, for changing my life forever. When I will be "turned into myself by eternity" in the end, it will be because you taught me how.
Rest well, friend. At Uglebo we raise our glass to you tonight.
July 29, 2015
An outstanding biography (the first comprehensive one in English) of this fascinating, beautiful monster, set in the swirl of fin-de-siecle Paris's artistic demimonde, this is required reading for anyone interested in the avant garde. Most famous for his theatrical creation Pere Ubu and the succes de scandale of "Ubu Roi"'s debut performances in 1896, Jarry has proved a huge influence on successive artists and writers -- particularly those of a anarchic bent (Dadaists, Surrealists, Punks...) both through his works and his defiantly unconventional and often uproarius behavior. Compulsively readable throughout, packed with amusing anecdotes and newly discovered material, this work is a beautifully mounted and long overdue tribute to Jarry's life and work, and Brotchie -- a Regent of the College de 'Pataphysique (Jarry's own 'science of imaginary solutions'), and co-founder of avant garde London publisher the Atlas Press -- has done a fine job of evoking his often difficult and paradoxical subject.
i-want-money
April 19, 2013Reviewed in TLS by Ian Pindar
"Merrrrdrrrre!: Alfred Jarry and Père Ubu"
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/a...
"Merrrrdrrrre!: Alfred Jarry and Père Ubu"
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/a...
November 6, 2023
A comprehensive biography that clears up several myths. I wish that more page were devoted to Pataphysics, which is Jarry’s greatest legacy.
June 28, 2018
The first comprehensive biography of Alfred Jarry, whose mythic character often supercedes the actual circumstances of his life and work, this should be required reading for anyone interested in turn-of-the-century Paris or simply modern and post-modern literature.
The level of care in this biography, which includes not only the research but the prose itself, clearly demonstrates the passion the author feels for his subject. It is detailed (say, if you are new to the subject or conversely, well informed) while yet providing an excellent introduction to that key turning point in western cultural history.
I was constantly struck, if not over-excited, by all the personalities of that era that Jarry interacted with; let's just take Gaugin as an example, not simply a passing acquaintance but someone who Jarry visited regularly and collaborated with; which takes us up all the way to the "modern" era with Jarry's somewhat unclear interactions with Picasso.
Jarry was dedicated drinker (to say the least) who espoused the utter necessity of alcohol (as opposed to the unhealthy attributes of water), but the author, while not hedging on this account, clears up the actual circumstance, and reasons for Jarry's sordid death (and aren't most deaths "sordid" to one degree or another?).
Putting aside that part of Jarry's myth, it is made clear that he was a kind of martyr to art, who refused any kind of employment except literature, which led to him to stint on clothing and accommodations, living in a kind of voluntary poverty.
While at times, Jarry surely appears (to this reader) as a kind of pain-in-the-ass (a derogatory epithet that Jarry could easily turn on its head), one of the pertinent critical points that the author makes concerning Jarry's literary innovation (and continuing regard) is his use of humor (black humor!) as an element of "serious literature" and while Jarry may have died in extreme penury, totally neglected by the "general public", he was well regarded by those "in the know".
The level of care in this biography, which includes not only the research but the prose itself, clearly demonstrates the passion the author feels for his subject. It is detailed (say, if you are new to the subject or conversely, well informed) while yet providing an excellent introduction to that key turning point in western cultural history.
I was constantly struck, if not over-excited, by all the personalities of that era that Jarry interacted with; let's just take Gaugin as an example, not simply a passing acquaintance but someone who Jarry visited regularly and collaborated with; which takes us up all the way to the "modern" era with Jarry's somewhat unclear interactions with Picasso.
Jarry was dedicated drinker (to say the least) who espoused the utter necessity of alcohol (as opposed to the unhealthy attributes of water), but the author, while not hedging on this account, clears up the actual circumstance, and reasons for Jarry's sordid death (and aren't most deaths "sordid" to one degree or another?).
Putting aside that part of Jarry's myth, it is made clear that he was a kind of martyr to art, who refused any kind of employment except literature, which led to him to stint on clothing and accommodations, living in a kind of voluntary poverty.
While at times, Jarry surely appears (to this reader) as a kind of pain-in-the-ass (a derogatory epithet that Jarry could easily turn on its head), one of the pertinent critical points that the author makes concerning Jarry's literary innovation (and continuing regard) is his use of humor (black humor!) as an element of "serious literature" and while Jarry may have died in extreme penury, totally neglected by the "general public", he was well regarded by those "in the know".
November 24, 2023
Comprehensive and exhaustive. Not only does this serve as the definitive English biography of Jarry - but it is also a very detailed examination of the end of symbolism and introduction of modernism. Jarry and his extremely well read peers are a who's who of late 19th-C art and literature. Bonnard, Rops, Schwob, Wilde, Renard, Picasso - and many more great artists are well represented.
New to Jarry or already familiar - this is an absolute treasure on the subject. It contains many of his letters to his circle of friends. Brotchie has recently passed and I am grateful for his efforts. No hack-writer would be able to match what is presented here. Brotchie writes with great skill and despite the historical listing of the details of Jarry's life and death - it's never a slog. He also handles a fairly in-depth review of the philosophy of Pataphysics that is no easy task. There are moments of humor and of course tragedy that are depicted with skill and reverence but never obsequious pandering. The book is filled with black and white photos, letters and art from Jarry. If you're looking for more colored prints and art - I'll refer you to Alfred Jarry: The Carnival of Being - the exhibition catalog of the Jarry show that ran January 24 through August 16, 2020 at the Morgan Library in NYC curated by Sheelagh Bevan. It's a beautiful catalog, 200 pages, color prints - well researched - great stuff.
If you have any interested in the foundations of modern art, theater, all things Rabelaisian, or the joy of irreverent art - grab a copy. Worth owning - exhaustive notes, bibliography and a helpful index make this a great reference. Absolutely all 5 stars here.
New to Jarry or already familiar - this is an absolute treasure on the subject. It contains many of his letters to his circle of friends. Brotchie has recently passed and I am grateful for his efforts. No hack-writer would be able to match what is presented here. Brotchie writes with great skill and despite the historical listing of the details of Jarry's life and death - it's never a slog. He also handles a fairly in-depth review of the philosophy of Pataphysics that is no easy task. There are moments of humor and of course tragedy that are depicted with skill and reverence but never obsequious pandering. The book is filled with black and white photos, letters and art from Jarry. If you're looking for more colored prints and art - I'll refer you to Alfred Jarry: The Carnival of Being - the exhibition catalog of the Jarry show that ran January 24 through August 16, 2020 at the Morgan Library in NYC curated by Sheelagh Bevan. It's a beautiful catalog, 200 pages, color prints - well researched - great stuff.
If you have any interested in the foundations of modern art, theater, all things Rabelaisian, or the joy of irreverent art - grab a copy. Worth owning - exhaustive notes, bibliography and a helpful index make this a great reference. Absolutely all 5 stars here.
August 25, 2021
I can't think of a better biography of Alfred Jarry. After reading The Banquet Years when I was much younger, it was fun to return to this uniquely strange, hilarious and courageous writer.
August 12, 2022
Amazing! And heartbreaking
September 18, 2023
RIP Alastair Brotchie
March 5, 2014
One of the greatest, most charming biographies I've ever read - of a charming, elusive, writer, whose best-known work, the avant-garde play Ubu Roi, was drawn from a samizdat narrative cycle of parodies of a teacher at Jarry's secondary school in Brittany, to which several school-generations of boys contributed. Jarry was awkward, graceful, an amazing bicyclist, an astounding and lifelong debtor, who lived with live owls in garrets that sometimes had ceilings five feet high. As an artist he was a link between the highbrow symbolists - Mallarme loved him - and a generation of modernists led by his great friend Apollinaire. But really his life, his mannerisms, his weird self-invented accent, which enunciated every syllable in French "Ma-dam-e" - his self-consciously "mechanical" movement and jokes, his invented science of Pataphysics (which Brotchie makes much of), his endearing, impossible manners (he avoids a duel with two aristocratic brothers whom he insulted, and who are expert swordsmen, by receiving their cards in his 5' ceilinged-flat where he and an aristo friend of his received them. Jarry's friend said to him afterwards, "I didn't think it would be that easy to to get them to drop their challenge - they seemed really nervous." Jarry: "I took the precaution of smearing the bannisters to my flat with shit."
This is one of those books in which comes to know a person about whom you cared nothing -(at least I was only vaguely curious about him, and purely through the brilliance of the biographer have him become one of the important personages in one's own life. (Another such person is Maria Huxley, Aldous Huxley's wife - who cares, right? - but through the means of Sybille Bedford's biography of her husband, I came to realize was one of the most loveable people who has ever lived). Jarry wrote comparatively little - and for this reason he is even more elusive - and Brotchie has no hobbyhorse to ride involving his significance to French literature and art (he was a great friend of the Bonnards), though Brotchie's culture and ability to place people is superb. Brotchie simply loved the self-destructive, maddening man, and so will you.
This is one of those books in which comes to know a person about whom you cared nothing -(at least I was only vaguely curious about him, and purely through the brilliance of the biographer have him become one of the important personages in one's own life. (Another such person is Maria Huxley, Aldous Huxley's wife - who cares, right? - but through the means of Sybille Bedford's biography of her husband, I came to realize was one of the most loveable people who has ever lived). Jarry wrote comparatively little - and for this reason he is even more elusive - and Brotchie has no hobbyhorse to ride involving his significance to French literature and art (he was a great friend of the Bonnards), though Brotchie's culture and ability to place people is superb. Brotchie simply loved the self-destructive, maddening man, and so will you.
October 29, 2012
Alfred Jarry is one of the most interesting writers and artistic figures in that hotbed of creative energy at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th in Paris. Alastair Brotchie's book is the first full-fledged biography in English, and it is well-researched and highly detailed. For the Jarry fan, the book is filled with info about all the key figures in Jarry's life and times. However, honestly, i can't imagine the casual reader extracting much pleasure from it. As is sometimes the case with books written by experts, this one is so replete with facts as to frequently lose the thread of narrative momentum; in other words, this book is dense. Now, mind you, i get a bit geeky about this time period in Europe, so i was reasonably entertained by stories of Jarry running about in Rachilde's yellow pumps, or the fact that after seeing a production of ibsen's Peer Gynt, Jarry talked about "trolling" as a term for being outdoors, and subsequently called himself the Faust-troll (hence Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician). it was also good to see the details of Jarry's death sorted out: he was suffering from tuberculosis, and did not drink himself to death, as some have implied (though his astonishing alcohol consumption certainly didn't help his health!). So i'm giving Alastair an A for Effort here - the photos and data he's collected are quite astonishing. But a more lively account of Jarry's life can be found in Roger Shattuck's The Banquet Years, and the casual reader will probably be better served by that than this 360 page tome. We still await a good "popular" biography of Jarry in English that will get the facts straight, but account for his ongoing vitality, and the continued relevance of his ideas now over 100 years after his death.
May 26, 2023
Patafisica: La "scienza delle soluzioni immaginarie" che si propone di studiare "ciò che si aggiunge alla metafisica, estendendosi così lontano al di là di questa quanto questa al di là della fisica": è termine coniato dallo scrittore francese A. Jarry (1873-1907).
Pseudoscienza astrusa e bizzarra, intesa come parodia del pensiero ufficiale e accademico.
Difficile parlare di un libro letto ormai molto, troppo tempo fa e di cui a distanza di anni ho un tiepido e piacevole ricordo in particolar modo per gli aneddoti citati presenti nella trama tra cui il revolver, le prodezze ciclistiche e il disprezzo per il decoro...senza dimenticare "Ubu Re". Il flashback più nitido associato a questa biografia mi porta dietro al confronto con mio padre, uomo di cultura ed ex studente dell'artistico di Udine e uno scambio satirico di battute durante le elezioni (che si, mi fanno capire che effettivamente ero sprecato per l'istituto professionale): Durante le comunali di non so che anno, alla domanda "chi voterai?" Lui disse "scriverò Gargantua e Pantagruele, ma è un messaggio talmente sottile che probabilmente non verrà capito. Tu?" Ridendo dissi "Ubu Re, ma riceverà lo stesso trattamento della tua scheda".
Eccellente biografia di questo audace e coraggioso scrittore. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Su 5.
April 23, 2018
A fascinatingly rich and detailed biography of an all too brief life.
September 8, 2015
I picked this up on a whim; I'd never heard of Jarry, though I had heard of his play Ubu Roi, and I knew the phrase "pataphysical" from the Beatles' "Maxwell Silver Hammer." This book is not the place to start if you know nothing about Jarry already--it's very dense and it presumes at least a slight familiarity with his works. But it did paint a portrait of an interesting but messed-up fellow who seems to have lived almost solely for his avant-garde art.
April 26, 2012
An excellent bio of the bizarre, baffling, brilliant artist and founder of the scientific field of 'Pataphysics, the science governing exceptions and imaginary solutions. Perhaps a bit bogged down in minutiae in the latter third, but an impressive work, and the first real biography of Jarry in English.
July 10, 2012
Amazing biography! Incredibly well written and researched. The book production is of the very highest quality (cudos to MIT press). Perfectly balanced between analyzing Jarry's works and life. Invaluable literary gossip about his closest friends including Rachilde and Apollonaire. Bravo!
July 22, 2013
Adored this book. It made me fall in love with Jarry even more. Of course, he was a maddening person, and the author shows his flaws quite clearly, but the utter freedom of the spirit beneath the mess is inspiring.
Want to read
June 19, 2012Wow. Just got my copy of this in the mail. It's one of the most beautiful books I own. Bravo MIT Press. I'll probably get to this after Roubaud.
April 7, 2017
Easily the best literary biography I have ever read.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews