Boris Vian

by Claire Julliard

« Dans la vie, l'essentiel est de porter sur tout des jugements a priori. Il apparaît en effet que les masses ont tort, et les individus toujours raison. Il faut se garder d'en déduire des règles de conduite ; elles ne doivent pas avoir besoin d'être formulées pour qu'on les suive. Il y a seulement deux choses : c'est l'amour, de toutes les façons, avec des jolies filles, et la musique de La Nouvelle-Orléans ou de Duke Ellington. »
Ingénieur, trompettiste de jazz, acteur, chanteur, parolier, pasticheur de romans noirs américains, critique, auteur de nouvelles et de pièces de théâtre, Boris Vian (1920-1959) ne fut jamais reconnu de son vivant pour ce qu'il était avant tout : un grand romancier au style exubérant, mêlant l'absurde à l'émotion, le paradoxe à la fantaisie. Auteur blessé de L'Écume des jours, il meurt à trente-neuf ans, le 23 juin 1959.

Genres: Biography

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot about Boris Vian from this. I had read some of his books and I have a CD with maybe 40 of his songs on it. I even saw a stageing of 'L'ecume des jours' once, though I have yet to see the film - Audrey Tautou is not my idea of Chloe. Anyway, point is I was fairly familiar with Vian's work; I also had heard that he'd died at the opening of a film of one of his books.
This book filled out and considerably transformed the picture I'd had of him. One crucial thing I hadn't known was that his heart trouble had been diagnosed during his childhood, and had been a big part of what drove his manic dynamism - he felt (rightly) that he might pop off at any moment, so there wasn't a moment to waste.
At the same time, it was also news to me that those now legendary books of his were all pretty much total flops at the time, with the exception of the pseudonymous potboiler "J'irai cracher sur vos tombes" that he wrote for a lark and a quick buck (with some unquantified contribution, including at least the final version of the lurid title, from his first wife Michele), and which turns out to play the role of tragic curse in his life story: bringing cash and notoriety, but also leading to problems with the authorities as well as becoming an albatross round his literary neck, overshadowing and undermining what you might call his purer work.
More generally, although he was certainly in with a pretty in crowd, he never made vast amounts of money or fame in his lifetime - partly because he was only willing to do what he liked doing. In that and many other ways, a thoroughly admirable character.
I hadn't realised his fiction-writing and song-writing careers were chronologically all but separate: first the books, then the songs. No reason it shouldn't be so, but still it surprised me - I had imagined him churning out masterpieces in all kinds of forms at the same time.
As a narration, I found this book a bit saggy at time, a bit "and then... and then..." - and there are so many things that happen next that it gets tiring. It really picked up for me as the end approached, when Boris hits the road as a singer, bombing every night and getting menaced by militarists for his pacifist number 'Le deserteur'. While this may not be the best possible telling of his story, it does a decent job and the story it tells is inspiring (and shaming). Now go read and listen to some Vian.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not finish the book, I barely progressed. This is such a dull text about such an interesting character. There is one star for the genius of Vian himself, and one for the sweet-sour memory of Jean-Saul Partre; the author gets none.