Un nid de nigauds

by John Ashbery

Le roman à quatre mains de deux grands poètes américains associés à l'Ecole de New York.
Les invités avaient à peine eu le temps de commenter à leur guise le bruit du bouchon et l'excellence du millésime que la porte d'entrée s'ouvrit et Mrs Greeley, sémillante dans un nouveau manteau de fourrure d'écureuil, entra en trombe. « Scusi, dit-elle, mais Abel m'a fait promettre de venir l'arracher en temps utile à votre charmante compagnie. Alan Watts donne une conférence sur le régime macrobiotique au lycée. »

C'est par hasard que James Schuyler et moi avons commencé à écrire Un nid de nigauds en juillet 1952. On nous reconduisait à New York après un week-end à East Hampton. Poussé par l'ennui, Jimmy a proposé : « Et si nous écrivions un roman ? » Et comment ça ? ai-je demandé. « C'est facile, tu écris la première ligne » a-t-il répondu. C'était assez typique de lui : avoir une idée brillante, puis contraindre quelqu'un d'autre à la réaliser. Pour ne pas me laisser manœuvrer, j'ai fourni une phrase de trois mots : « Alice était fatiguée. » Et nous étions lancés dans une aventure qui nous occuperait les mois et les années à venir. – John Ashbery
James Schuyler et John Ashbery sont tous deux nés dans de petites villes paisibles du nord de l'état de New York qu'ils quittent pour voyager en Europe et vivre à New York. C'est par l'entremise de W. H. Auden, dont il a été le secrétaire à Forio d'Ischia, que Schuyler fait la connaissance de John Ashbery et de Frank O'Hara. Avec Kenneth Koch et Barbara Guest, ils constituent ce qu'on a appelé la première génération de l'Ecole de New York.

James Schuyler (1923-1991) est l'auteur d'un roman, Alfred and Guinevere (1958), et de nombreux recueils de poésie dont Freely Espousing (1969), The Crystal Lithium (1972), Hymn to Life (1974) et A Few Days (1985). The Morning of the Poem (1980) a obtenu le prix Pulitzer. En français sont disponibles Le Cristal de Lithium (tr. Bernard Rival, THTY, 2009) et Il est douze heure plus tard (tr. Stéphane Bouquet, Joca Seria, 2014).

John Ashbery (né en 1927) est l'auteur d'une œuvre immense qui fait l'unanimité tant auprès des mouvements d'avant-garde que des milieux académiques. En témoignent les trois prix qu'il reçoit en 1975 pour Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (Pulitzer, National Book Award, National Book Critics Award). Traductions récentes : Autoportrait dans un miroir convexe (tr. Anne Talvaz, Atelier La Feugraie, 2004), Trois poèmes (tr. Franck André Jamme et Marie-France Azar, Al Dante, 2010); Le Serment du jeu de paume (tr. Olivier Brossard, Corti, 2015).

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Poetry, American, Queer, Literature

246 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Formal experimentation and connection to visual art of noted American poet John Ashbery of the original writers of New York School won a Pulitzer Prize for Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975).

From Harvard and Columbia, John Ashbery earned degrees, and he traveled of James William Fulbright to France in 1955. He published more than twenty best known collections, most recently A Worldly Country (2007). Wystan Hugh Auden selected early Some Trees for the younger series of Elihu Yale, and he later obtained the major national book award and the critics circle. He served as executive editor of Art News and as the critic for magazine and Newsweek. A member of the academies of letters and sciences, he served as chancellor from 1988 to 1999. He received many awards internationally and fellowships of John Simon Guggenheim and John Donald MacArthur from 1985 to 1990. People translated his work into more than twenty languages. He lived and from 1990 served as the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. professor of languages and literature at Bard college.

Reviews

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short comic novel written on a lark (alternating one sentence at a time) by two major American poets. Among its many eccentricities is the fact that its huge dramatis personae - old, young, male, female, French, American, Italian - are all basically the same person, that is, Ashberry (and presumably Schuyler, though he led a more private life). Meaning: arch, sophisticated, vastly knowledgeable about food and antiques and Italian literature, insatiably keen on old movies - references to Akim Tamiroff or Irène Bordoni abound. In the same vein the narration and dialogue is exquisitely, ludicrously mannered and archaic. There is a vague gesture at a plot - a cellist and her brother live in a shabby house in suburban New York where the heating is always on the blink. Through trips to Manhattan, Florida, Sicily, the Loire Valley and Duluth, we gradually meet old and new friends. But the "point" of this book is the ironic asides, the mock-seriousness, the gimmicks (no chapter 13!), the choice of an exotic word when "plain American which cats and dogs can read" (in Marianne Moore's phrase) would do. In a piece on Lord Berners, Michael Dirda praises the "camp modernism" of E.F. Benson, Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett as "the cocktail hour of literature - witty, languorous, enticing" in contrast to the "totalitarian" and joyless doorstoppers of High Modernism and its descendants. But Ashberry and Schuyler are poets doing something simpler: the bone-dry one-liner, the mellifluous detritus of high culture, the gratuitous reference to the Haugtussa cycle.

[Introverticheart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Czemu właściwie skusiłem się na Gniazdo dudków dwójki uznanych przedstawicieli szkoły nowojorskiej? Sam nie wiem.
Nie dla fabuły (której nie ma), nie dla postaci (papierowych). Chyba dla czystej zabawy.
Albo wiem, dla samego aktu twórczego, bo najbardziej fascynująca jest historia zarówno tej książki, jak i tłumaczenia. Gniazdo dudków Schuyler i Ashbery pisali bagatela 20 lat, a trudzili się przekładem polscy tłumacze Andrzej Sosnowski i Tadeusz Pióro.

Nie jestem specjalnie zawiedziony, czy rozczarowany, raczej czuję spory niedosyt

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any book that mentions the band Procol Harum in its narrative, I'm totally OK with. Especially if the authors are the superb poets John Ashbery and James Schuyler. A book of manners, or is it pure camp?

[Matt Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what happens when two extremely smart and well-read writers decide, on a lark, to collaborate on a very silly novel. It's at least 90% dialogue, with speaking roles for what seems like about three dozen characters (a big crowd for a book under 200 pages). One gets the sense that the authors were constantly trying to one-up each other and to throw each other curveballs by which hilarious turns of plot would come into being. The ease with which they toss around cultural references, mostly "high" rather than "pop", is really astounding. Crazy, esoteric similes pop up with delightful disregard for the reader's ability to recognize their references: "No sooner had the first delectable morsels slid down their gullets than Mrs. Ernst, having finished a prolonged stint in the ladies' room, again sauntered past, much as a merveilleuse of the Brummell period might have sashayed along Pomander Walk, in Bath." There's a lot of French throughout the book, but the authors thankfully do not condescend to provide translations. (Assuming your reader is stupider than you, which seems to be common in literature these days, is a big pet peeve of mine.) Nothing of much importance happens in the book, but a lot of unimportant stuff does happen, which is what makes it so much fun. It might be the most inconsequential and therefore least pretentious novel I've ever read.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

This brisk entertainment is good clean fun for those who like reading about affluent 1930s aesthetes having gay adventures in Paris, New York and Rome. (That's not a huge contingent of the marketplace, hence this book's unknown status. I liked it.)

John Ashbery, Pulitizer-winning poet of some 83 years is apparently on Goodreads, by the way, a fact I doubt very strongly.

[Lulu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed it. Very camp & silly. Not much happens and a lot is kind of randomly skipped over as it jumps around the place. Also found the characters really hard to keep separate in my head. Think both these aspects are kind of the point though. Funny to think of Ashberry and Schuyler taking turns writing silly sentences at a time trying to make each other giggle.

[🐴 🍖]

statistically the book 2nd most likely to be my fav book at any given time. literary collab as badminton match as wile e. coyote vs roadrunner cartoon. outrageously silly; impeccable poker face. tag yourself i'm claire tosti

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I'd read this book before but I hadn't finished...and as I'm currently reading many novels by poets: i figured this would be great two of my favorite poets...but I just get the sense that everything they did was to get the other one to smile and it just ends up being precious and cute and sort of a let down. I think I will check on see what Schuyler can do on his own.

[Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

So simpl, to the point of needing a week to sit on it. In that sense it truly is like reminiscing on your past, time must pass. What I find most enjoyable is that so much is skipped over, things just move on and the “essentials” are what we read. The “big moments” of this growing cast of friends. But even in that, the beauty is in the normalcy of what we do witness. It is a book of really serious presentness. These things did happen, in writing , and they really do happen,, with just as much ease, grace, and humor in our daily living.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To me," Alice said, "off-white is just another word for gray."

Divine. A camp novel combining the wryness of Ivy Compton-Burnett and the mise-en-scene of, let's say, Cheever -- a send-up of suburban doldrums. Nest is like a gay(er) episode of Bewitched, with dinner-party debacles replacing supernatural hi-jinks. (Strange gourmets.)

But the setting is mostly irrelevant. You read this novel -- cowritten by two wits, Ashbery and Schuyler -- for the hilarious tonal shifts. Any excerpt fails to convey the headlong surprise of the dialogue. Here's a try; Alice and Victor are shown raw space, to hold a possible "old-fashioned notions shop, brought up to date" by Mrs. Greeley, a realtor:

"Who was occupying this place before--a motorcycle club?"
   "The owner says he's willing to repaint,' Mrs. Greeley said, "and make certain repairs. But any--er--modernization would have to be at your own expense."
   "The wiring dates from the McKinley era," Alice mused.
   "What are the sanitary arrangements," Victor said with unexpected authority.
   "There are none," Mrs. Greeley said.    "However the previous tenant worked out an amicable understanding with the optometrist who has the office above. I'm sure you could to the same."
   Alice took a tape measure from her bag and began calculating various distances.


Where the proper noun and bourgeois comfort meet, Nest delights:

Fabia, at her end of the none-too-lengthy divan, rearranged an old Bush family afghan so that, in Thomas Beer's phrase, it 'slushed about her.'"

[Samuel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Almost indescribably irritating. Completely banal and not in an interesting way at all. The only impressive thing about this book is that it is somehow entirely devoid of human emotion. The authors wrote this novel by taking turns writing lines over the course of many years and the result is as you’d expect. It reads like madlibs if it was played by two very smug and fundamentally unpleasant people. I would’ve stopped after five pages if i wasn’t assigned this for university. Amazed John Ashbery was responsible for this.

[LW · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ik heb dat uitgelezen, wie weet waarom. Het is geen zware kost, het is nauwelijks lichte kost. Een spielerei die beter niet uitgegeven werd, denk ik dan. Op het eind, als we plots met elementen uit de jaren 60 geconfronteerd worden, schrik ik wakker. Speelt dit zich dan niet af voor de tweede wereldoorlog? Want dat is de vibe.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Consistently hilarious in the driest way possible. I wish there were more novels like it but I fear there may not be. (Suggestions welcome.) Bonus points for Auden's priggish blurb, whichnever fails to make me smirk. "What a pleasant surprise to read a novel in which there is not a single bedroom scene..." lol

[Meghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

scattered and unenjoyable. would not recommend reading again.

[Neal Jochmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

SPOILER ALERT: Duluth. I and another better reader recommend you read this!!

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

All the characters irked me.

[Ann OConnell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good but very dated.

[Rory Boothe · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books ever--reminiscent of Bouvard and Pecuchet. I would love to discuss the book with anyone who cares to reach out.

[Archie Hamerton · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5. it’s a shame Metropolitan isn’t on the reading list instead, since it’s virtually the same just better

[Lynette Lark · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is what is known as a "jest book," and it took 17 years to write. Apparently, the authors thought that they could write a book by taking turns writing sentences--some rather nonsensical. Regardless, this created a book that is in its third reprinting. And since it was just a lark, I won't recommend it!

[Aileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had an amazing number of references to other literature! I loved it! It also had many little quips in French, Latin, and other languages, many of which I couldn't decipher. How funny to think this was a book about people in their late teens and early twenties because it seemed like the characters were much older with all their travelling and going out to eat and drink. A quick, entertaining read that I will probably pick up again someday and understand more of the references.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books, for reasons I can't explain. Two families living in the quiet suburbs meet, talk, dine, talk, travel, meet others. Things happen, including some happy pairings, but really nothing much happens. It's like real life, but with much better--though pointless-- conversations. By the way,the authors are noted politics John Ashbery and James Schuyler.

[Ashberian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hard to believe John Ashbery was actually involved on such an extremely poor novel . First time on my life i felt so utterly compelled to get rid of a fresh bought book .

Anybody fascinated by Ashbery's poetry should certainly avoid this one or just convince themselves it never existed and pick anything else by this genius... anything but this one .

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I flew through this book. It is an interesting mix of 1930's escapism, with a dash of the Holly-Golightly-60's, under a comedy of manners umbrella. It reads almost like a Wes Anderson story. Lots of fun!

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Co-written with James Schuyler over a ten or fifteen year period. The novel has no plot to speak of and just gives us the ninnies in all their glory as they talk and talk.

[Jaimie Gusman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a fun, quick, witty, collaborative piece about a group of NY suburbanites who do silly things.

[Cindy · Rating 1 out of 5]

What intrigued me about this book was it's title. I thought it would be filled with silly characters doing funny things, but, I got to chapter 7 and was so bored I couldn't torture myself anymore!

[Maxe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute