592
PARTISAN REVIEW
The theme of the "white Negro" recurs also in the second book,
Les morts ont tous La meme peau
J
but in reverse. "I" am a bar–
man and chucker-out in a New York bar, and believe myself to be
a Negro passing as white. I am married to a white woman and have
a young daughter. A black man whom I believe to be my brother
comes and starts trying to blackmail me; I follow him to Harlem, and
there sleep with a black woman, after which I become impotent
with my wife (who says
"If
you were to leave me alone for a
week I'd either have to take sedatives or sleep with another man").
I then proceed to murder, first my supposed brother, then a whole
group of witnesses or possible witnesses, finding out after I am
caught that I am completely white, an adopted foundling.
Et on tuera tous Les affreux
is more in the nature of a farce,
set in California, about a "mad scientist" who has perfected a
method of developing embryos
in vitro
and bringing them to maturity
in a very short time. His plan is to kill all the ugly people in the world
and replace them with synthetic supermen. "I" am "Mr. Los
Angeles," of overwhelming beauty and strength, aged nineteen and a
half, and have taken a vow to remain virgin until I am twenty; con–
sequently I am unwilling to be a donor for the mad scientist,
though the most desirable society girls and film stars are eager to
act as recipients; and I become involved in a most complicated
cops and robbers chase, strewn with corpses, ending up on the
scientist's private island in a nonstop mass orgy. "I" .abandon my
vow about a third of the way through the book, and thereafter
make up for lost time. The book
is
not without humor, the finale
demonstrating how, in a world of beauty, ugliness and difformity
become desirable; the final sentence has a Navy lieutenant generously
offering to introduce me to his secretary, "who is absolutely hideous,
and has a wooden leg!"
Vian's major model is obviously Cain, and to a lesser degree
Chandler; the implicit sexuality in the models is made porno–
graphically explicit; what is novel is the overt sadism. Lust murders
are gloatingly described in detail, including the physical enjoyment
of the murderer. When the hero of
Ie cracherai sur vos tombes
is
tormenting the elder sister, prior to murdering her, he shows her the
murdered younger sister's wrist-watch and then told her "he was
sorry he hadn't been able to bring one of her sister's eyes, but they
