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STEPHEN KOCH
that of neurosis-is simultaneously elemental and gratuitous, both
definitive and unjustifiable in impersonal terms. In his most daring
strokes, Jarry juxtaposes these antitheses so that, like Milton's Sin and
Death, they endlessly devour each other in a complex, abstract farce.
He sets up-in solipsism, crudity, preciosity, violence, or just plain Ubu–
some sophisticated alternative for the naive selfhood of ordinary
exp'erience, where pain is born. There he discovers that anguish can be
manipulated, not merely endured.
It
can be play.
But Jarry's play is dissipation with depth, not mere froth; it is felt
with an intensity that confronts and momentarily sets one free. Rather
than finding resolution conventionally-in insight, affirmation, the
pathetic, the tragic-its intensity is created only to be set loose in
playful release. Thus, while not all of Jarry's work is playful, its un–
apologetic artificiality moves it toward play through the same process
by which surrealism inevitably moves toward Dada. To move meaning–
fully, it must show the marks of its process (though not as scars) and
it derives its "seriousness" from that. But its value as art, something
slightly different, lies in sheer joy.
Roger Shattuck and Simon Watson Taylor's
Selected W'Orks of
Alfred larry
is a long overdue collection of Jarry's best work, at last in
decent translations. Although I have minor quarrels with the selection,
this book is hands down the best edition of J arry in English, particularly
because it is the first edition to include (stunningly rendered by Taylor)
the incomparable
Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll. Ubu
aside,
Faustroll
is Jarry's single most important book.
It
is incredible that the
English reader has had to wait for it so long.
In
Doctor Faustroll,
Jarry indulges himself, more than anywhere
else, in that branch of wisdom he invented and named 'Pataphysics.
"DEFINITION. 'Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions,
which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by
their virtuality, to their lineaments." Following this clownish nose-dive
into metaphysics, Jarry puts his doctor into a boat to sail with a be–
wildered process-server and a chimpanzee through the surrealistically
transformed streets of Paris. Impossible to summarize their adventures.
As
they pass floating islands and wilting lighthouses, Jarry turns out,
one after another, 'Pataphysical excursi on th'e "serious" art of friends
like MalIarme, Gustave Kahn, Aubrey Beardsley and Gauguin; 'Pata–
physically summarizes most of the eternal questions (deliciously dispos–
ing of both Eros and Death); and ends with a 'Pataphysical definition
of God, sent from heaven, mathematically provable, and tight as the
cogito.
In
Doctor Paustroll,
Jarry establishes himself as one of the great
