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Dzikus
Opublikowana po raz pierwszy w 2001 r. minipowieść Dzikus jest opowieścią mężczyzny o imieniu Paul, po części opartą na biografii Paula Gauguina. Jouet dokonuje jednak całego szeregu, często komicznych, przesunięć wobec życiorysu jednego z prawodawców francuskiego postimpresjonizmu, sprawiając, że co chwilę trzeba się upewniać, co w tej historii jest zaczerpnięte z pierwowzoru, a co kompletnie zmyślone.
109 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
52 people want to read
About the author
Jacques Jouet
103 books7 followersJacques Jouet is a French writer and has been a participating member of the Oulipo literary project since 1983.
He is a poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist, and plasticine artist specializing in collages. As a member of l'Oulipo, Jouet became its focus in June 2009 when he began publicly writing a serialized novel in five days. He first became involved with Oulipo in 1978, stemming from a writing course directed by Paul Fournel, Georges Perec, and Jacques Roubaud.
His serial The Republic of Mek Ouyes was broadcasted simultaneously on radio and on the web, through the site of his publisher, P.O.L.
Jouet wrote Poèmes de métro while riding the underground trains of the Paris Métro.
He is a poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist, and plasticine artist specializing in collages. As a member of l'Oulipo, Jouet became its focus in June 2009 when he began publicly writing a serialized novel in five days. He first became involved with Oulipo in 1978, stemming from a writing course directed by Paul Fournel, Georges Perec, and Jacques Roubaud.
His serial The Republic of Mek Ouyes was broadcasted simultaneously on radio and on the web, through the site of his publisher, P.O.L.
Jouet wrote Poèmes de métro while riding the underground trains of the Paris Métro.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 2, 2021
Thumbnail Oulipo from one of the more baffling Gallic megaminds. Jouet’s novels are frustratingly slight and inconsequential, yet there is a wryness and eccentricity that keeps me picking them up with a smirky smirk.
October 26, 2022
I LOVE OULIPO
October 13, 2012
I found Savage odd and distant:when I finished reading I wished I were sitting with someone who had read and liked this book, so I could get an explanation of what I was missing.
I almost liked the frame (which plays nicely with fictional conventions of fiction presenting itself as fact—fitting, this concern with convention in a book concerned with civilization/savageness) more than the rest of the book, though the rest of the book—which explores a Gauguinesque character's peregrinations—has its moments of humor and beauty. The narrator, Paul, is a clothing designer, not a painter, but he does live for a time in Arles with a Van-Gogh-ish painter, and he does end up in the South Pacific. He finds himself grappling with a Sartre-esque question: "What, at this point in time, can we make of a man?" (10), then decides that "what one can make of a man at this time is his body," (15). After meeting an old woman on a transatlantic voyage who critiques what everyone is wearing, he turns to clothes himself. This woman, Madame Taillefeu Ponçard, tells him that "people don't know how to coordinate their clothes with their naked bodies," and he becomes fascinated with this idea (16). A sample of Madame Taillefeu Ponçard's thoughts on clothes:
I almost liked the frame (which plays nicely with fictional conventions of fiction presenting itself as fact—fitting, this concern with convention in a book concerned with civilization/savageness) more than the rest of the book, though the rest of the book—which explores a Gauguinesque character's peregrinations—has its moments of humor and beauty. The narrator, Paul, is a clothing designer, not a painter, but he does live for a time in Arles with a Van-Gogh-ish painter, and he does end up in the South Pacific. He finds himself grappling with a Sartre-esque question: "What, at this point in time, can we make of a man?" (10), then decides that "what one can make of a man at this time is his body," (15). After meeting an old woman on a transatlantic voyage who critiques what everyone is wearing, he turns to clothes himself. This woman, Madame Taillefeu Ponçard, tells him that "people don't know how to coordinate their clothes with their naked bodies," and he becomes fascinated with this idea (16). A sample of Madame Taillefeu Ponçard's thoughts on clothes:
As for that woman there, I'd ask, 'what became of her breasts?' if I weren't so disinclined to alliterate. I'm not saying she should frame them like a Botticelli, but passersby should at least be able to imagine where they might be. As she is now, they're simply not there. The lady has uprooted them. (19)Paul therefore starts his study of fashion by painting nudes while himself nude: he sees clothes as "a second skin, more intimate than the first because it was chosen specifically in a shop in order to be seen in public" (24). He makes avant-garde clothes and has a show that's a horrible flop. He goes to a Colonial Exhibition and meets Ananwana, a dancer from the Marquesas Islands, who lives with him for a time before going home, at which point there's this, which I quite like:
In order to commemorate our separation, I made her a dress out of scraps of my own clothes, and made myself an outfit with scraps of her loincloth: clothing in place of the absent being. It makes me sad to wear it. (37)There are more travels, and more women, and more disasters with clothes, including a dress coat for a governor that basically gets Paul laughed out of Madagascar. And then there's Polynesia, paradise but not quite, where Paul is disillusioned and ill but also still finding wonders, as when he's approached by a man from "The Sect of the Flayed," which takes Paul's ideas about stripping things down to a whole new level. I don't know. There are some good bits, but I'm having trouble tying it all together.
February 12, 2022
a funny little novella, imagining the life of P. Gaugin if he had been a clothing designer rather than a painter.
some sentences i liked:
"The dancer had burnished brown skin good enough to lick. My cheek a few centimeters from her body, I could gauge the heat that emanated from her. Bread in a toaster."
"A muff for the waist ... which makes a woman into a flexible tube—she gives birth to herself when she undresses."
"I am the enemy of God, just as I'm the enemy of the Republic and all that is honest. I'm an activist for public uselessness."
some sentences i liked:
"The dancer had burnished brown skin good enough to lick. My cheek a few centimeters from her body, I could gauge the heat that emanated from her. Bread in a toaster."
"A muff for the waist ... which makes a woman into a flexible tube—she gives birth to herself when she undresses."
"I am the enemy of God, just as I'm the enemy of the Republic and all that is honest. I'm an activist for public uselessness."
June 6, 2011
jacques jouet's savage is a slim work that uses as its inspiration the notable life of french artist paul gauguin. the book begins with a rather humorous and mocking metafictional decree about the book's origins, but shifts easily into a more traditional first-person narrative. paul, rather than a post-impressionist painter, is instead cast as a clothing designer. as he travels the world seeking a market for his wares, and attempting to escape the confines of civilization itself, paul begins to show signs of both physical and mental fatigue. savage is an entertaining novella that questions the distinctions between modern society and those deemed more "primitive." a minor and often funny work, it, if nothing else, demonstrates jouet's capacity for imagination.
the pages presented herein with the curt but comprehensive title of savage, as well as an indication of their genre (novel), were not found, half mutilated, in the false bottom of a secret drawer, or in a privateer's chest, hidden in the attic of some manor. the material in them wasn't gleaned from the lips of a dying man anxious for his tale to enter an attentive ear. they weren't rescued from the temporary obscurity to which i don't know how many of my servile creatures- characters, despite themselves, in the following story, pseudo-occupiers of its alleged appendices- might have wished to banish them.
April 15, 2009
Library Journal Review:
Alluding to Jean-Paul Sartre's famous study of Gustave Flaubert, Jouet's recent book asks, "What, at this point in time, can we make of a man?" As a member of the Oulipo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), a group of French writers and mathematicians who use constrained writing techniques for inspiration, Jouet's literary output is often characterized as avant-garde. This is a work of fiction based upon the life of painter Paul Gauguin. The prose is a first-person stream of consciousness that follows Paul, a clothing designer, in search of inspiration. Traveling among the people of France's colonies, Paul adopts a radical approach to design and, in the process, unravels his own sense of civility among the "savages." While his ideas expand artistically, his body and mind deteriorate physically from disease. In the end, the reader wonders whether Paul gained insight at the expense of sanity or vice versa. Often fascinating and brilliant, this book contains much of value for the patient reader, but it is not for everyone. Recommended for those interested in subversive and experimental fiction.—Joshua Finnell, McNeese State Univ. Lib., Lake Charles, LA
Alluding to Jean-Paul Sartre's famous study of Gustave Flaubert, Jouet's recent book asks, "What, at this point in time, can we make of a man?" As a member of the Oulipo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), a group of French writers and mathematicians who use constrained writing techniques for inspiration, Jouet's literary output is often characterized as avant-garde. This is a work of fiction based upon the life of painter Paul Gauguin. The prose is a first-person stream of consciousness that follows Paul, a clothing designer, in search of inspiration. Traveling among the people of France's colonies, Paul adopts a radical approach to design and, in the process, unravels his own sense of civility among the "savages." While his ideas expand artistically, his body and mind deteriorate physically from disease. In the end, the reader wonders whether Paul gained insight at the expense of sanity or vice versa. Often fascinating and brilliant, this book contains much of value for the patient reader, but it is not for everyone. Recommended for those interested in subversive and experimental fiction.—Joshua Finnell, McNeese State Univ. Lib., Lake Charles, LA
April 18, 2012
I admit I probably don't get it as much as I should - in a literature criticism way. But I really enjoyed reading this, picked up on a whim in the library - who doesn't notice a bright yellow book!
It was a very unique insightful read. Quirky, cheeky and fun. All I can say really is that it was beautifully written and thoroughly absorbing. Also intellectually stimulating with it's observations about people, the self and what fashion and artistic thought really means.
It was a very unique insightful read. Quirky, cheeky and fun. All I can say really is that it was beautifully written and thoroughly absorbing. Also intellectually stimulating with it's observations about people, the self and what fashion and artistic thought really means.
June 1, 2023
Good for francophiles, fashion students and neo-foucaultians. Through a fictional telling of painter Paul Gauguin’s explorations of the French colonial world, Jouet explores what it means to be civilized and savage, questions and defines fashion’s relationship with the ‘situation,’ to invoke Sartrian language, and puts in focus how these investigations relate to France as colonial motherland.
February 28, 2011
A bit more slight than Mountain R, but still fast, funny, and clever. Keep the Jouet coming please, Dalkey Archive!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews