Ben Fisher
206
“ha ha”, a few Belgian words aside [I, p. 672]), travel by boat – a
twelve-metre elongated sieve coated with paraffin, which “floats”
through surface tension effects:
Mon crible flotte donc, à la manière d’un bateau, et peut être chargé sans couler à
fond. Bien plus, il possède sur les bateaux ordinaires cette supériorité, m’a fait
remarquer mon savant ami C.-V. Boys, qu’on peut y laisser tomber un filet d’eau
sans le submerger. Que j’expulse mes urates ou qu’une lame embarque, le liquide
passe à travers les mailles et rejoint les lames extérieures. (I, p. 664)
Charles Vernon Boys is best known for, precisely, his work on effects
related to surface tension. These were widely disseminated in his Soap
Bubbles: Their Colours and the Forces Which Mould Them of 1890,
which Jarry follows closely. Jarry also makes reference to Boys’s
technique of using a crossbow to produce quartz fibre, from which
Faustroll has made another boat. It is however in the floating sieve
(known as the as) that he sets off on his voyage, having been forced to
leave his home upon his eviction by Panmuphle:
Je suis d’autant mieux persuadé de l’excellence de mes calculs et de son
insubmersibilité, que, selon mon habitude invariable, nous ne naviguerons point sur
l’eau, mais sur la terre ferme. (I, p. 665)
Panmuphle narrates their departure thus: “Nous nous insérions entre
les foules d’hommes ainsi que dans un brouillard dense, et le signe
acoustique de notre progression était celui de la soie déchirée” (I, p.
675). The section of the journey which interests us most here is the
first, Livre III, with its obvious debt to a distinctively Rabelaisian
form of the literary voyage (indeed the name of the penultimate island
is a borrowing from the Cinquième Livre). The chapters are dedicated
to two publishers, three artists, one composer and eight writers, all of
them friends or acquaintances of Jarry’s (dedications noted in square
brackets in the following list).
Livre III
De Paris à Paris par mer, ou le Robinson belge
XI.
De l’embarquement dans l’arche [Alfred Vallette]
XII.
De la mer d’Habundes, du phare olfactif, et de l’île de
Bran, où nous ne bûmes point [Louis Lormel]
XIII.
Du pays de Dentelles [Aubrey Beardsley]
206
“ha ha”, a few Belgian words aside [I, p. 672]), travel by boat – a
twelve-metre elongated sieve coated with paraffin, which “floats”
through surface tension effects:
Mon crible flotte donc, à la manière d’un bateau, et peut être chargé sans couler à
fond. Bien plus, il possède sur les bateaux ordinaires cette supériorité, m’a fait
remarquer mon savant ami C.-V. Boys, qu’on peut y laisser tomber un filet d’eau
sans le submerger. Que j’expulse mes urates ou qu’une lame embarque, le liquide
passe à travers les mailles et rejoint les lames extérieures. (I, p. 664)
Charles Vernon Boys is best known for, precisely, his work on effects
related to surface tension. These were widely disseminated in his Soap
Bubbles: Their Colours and the Forces Which Mould Them of 1890,
which Jarry follows closely. Jarry also makes reference to Boys’s
technique of using a crossbow to produce quartz fibre, from which
Faustroll has made another boat. It is however in the floating sieve
(known as the as) that he sets off on his voyage, having been forced to
leave his home upon his eviction by Panmuphle:
Je suis d’autant mieux persuadé de l’excellence de mes calculs et de son
insubmersibilité, que, selon mon habitude invariable, nous ne naviguerons point sur
l’eau, mais sur la terre ferme. (I, p. 665)
Panmuphle narrates their departure thus: “Nous nous insérions entre
les foules d’hommes ainsi que dans un brouillard dense, et le signe
acoustique de notre progression était celui de la soie déchirée” (I, p.
675). The section of the journey which interests us most here is the
first, Livre III, with its obvious debt to a distinctively Rabelaisian
form of the literary voyage (indeed the name of the penultimate island
is a borrowing from the Cinquième Livre). The chapters are dedicated
to two publishers, three artists, one composer and eight writers, all of
them friends or acquaintances of Jarry’s (dedications noted in square
brackets in the following list).
Livre III
De Paris à Paris par mer, ou le Robinson belge
XI.
De l’embarquement dans l’arche [Alfred Vallette]
XII.
De la mer d’Habundes, du phare olfactif, et de l’île de
Bran, où nous ne bûmes point [Louis Lormel]
XIII.
Du pays de Dentelles [Aubrey Beardsley]