Alfred Jarry: Liquidizing Paris and Debunking Verne
207
XIV.
Du bois d’Amour [Émile Bernard]
XV.
Du grand escalier de marbre noir [Léon Bloy]
XVI.
De l’île amorphe [Franc-Nohain]
XVII.
De l’île fragrante [Paul Gauguin]
XVIII. Du château-errant, qui est une jonque [Gustave Kahn]
XIX.
De l’île de Ptyx [Stéphane Mallarmé]
XX.
De l’île de Her, du cyclope et du grand cygne qui est en
cristal [Henri de Régnier]
XXI.
De l’île Cyril [Marcel Schwob]
XXII.
De la grande église de Muflefiguière [Laurent Tailhade]
XXIII. De l’île sonnante [Claude Terrasse]
XXIV. Des ténèbres hermétiques, et du roi qui attendait la mort
[Rachilde].
3
The boundaries of Paris are stretched somewhat to accommodate certain islands. The “bois d’Amour” represents the artists’ colony at
Pont-Aven, closely associated with the Nabi group with whom Jarry
was friendly,
4 and “du château-errant” represents Gustave Kahn’s
holiday retreat in Belgium – or as the text has it, the north-east of
Paris (I, p. 684).
Travelling by boat on solid land, it is only logical that the islands should be liquid:
La surface de l’île (il était naturel que les îles nous parussent comme des lacs, en
notre navigation de terre ferme), est d’eau immobile, comme d’un miroir […] (I, p.
686, from the chapter dedicated to Henri de Régnier)
This is not however an absolute constant, as the islands are adapted to
the images that best suit their subjects; what unites the islands is that
they are all brought into a dimension where the reader can conceive
them physically and visually; the voyage has even been transformed
into an illustrated board game.
5 The islands are complex, microcosmic
artistic constructs, which in most cases combine imagery from an au___________________________
3 Basic introductions to the figures visited and the imagery used can be found in the
apparatus of the Pléiade Œuvres complètes. More extensive ones can be found in the
Cymbalum Pataphysicum’s rare 1985 edition of the novel; some care should be exercised as these are mostly drawn, without revision, from dated material published by
the Collège de ’Pataphysique in the 1950s.
4 On Jarry’s links with Pont-Aven see Jill Fell, Alfred Jarry: an Imagination in Revolt
(Madison & Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005).
5 “Le Strobile jeu de HA HA”, by the Regent Gil of the Collège de ’Pataphysique,
reproduced in: Collège de ’Pataphysique, Les très riches heures du Collège de
’Pataphysique (Paris: Fayard, 2000), p. 119.
207
XIV.
Du bois d’Amour [Émile Bernard]
XV.
Du grand escalier de marbre noir [Léon Bloy]
XVI.
De l’île amorphe [Franc-Nohain]
XVII.
De l’île fragrante [Paul Gauguin]
XVIII. Du château-errant, qui est une jonque [Gustave Kahn]
XIX.
De l’île de Ptyx [Stéphane Mallarmé]
XX.
De l’île de Her, du cyclope et du grand cygne qui est en
cristal [Henri de Régnier]
XXI.
De l’île Cyril [Marcel Schwob]
XXII.
De la grande église de Muflefiguière [Laurent Tailhade]
XXIII. De l’île sonnante [Claude Terrasse]
XXIV. Des ténèbres hermétiques, et du roi qui attendait la mort
[Rachilde].
3
The boundaries of Paris are stretched somewhat to accommodate certain islands. The “bois d’Amour” represents the artists’ colony at
Pont-Aven, closely associated with the Nabi group with whom Jarry
was friendly,
4 and “du château-errant” represents Gustave Kahn’s
holiday retreat in Belgium – or as the text has it, the north-east of
Paris (I, p. 684).
Travelling by boat on solid land, it is only logical that the islands should be liquid:
La surface de l’île (il était naturel que les îles nous parussent comme des lacs, en
notre navigation de terre ferme), est d’eau immobile, comme d’un miroir […] (I, p.
686, from the chapter dedicated to Henri de Régnier)
This is not however an absolute constant, as the islands are adapted to
the images that best suit their subjects; what unites the islands is that
they are all brought into a dimension where the reader can conceive
them physically and visually; the voyage has even been transformed
into an illustrated board game.
5 The islands are complex, microcosmic
artistic constructs, which in most cases combine imagery from an au___________________________
3 Basic introductions to the figures visited and the imagery used can be found in the
apparatus of the Pléiade Œuvres complètes. More extensive ones can be found in the
Cymbalum Pataphysicum’s rare 1985 edition of the novel; some care should be exercised as these are mostly drawn, without revision, from dated material published by
the Collège de ’Pataphysique in the 1950s.
4 On Jarry’s links with Pont-Aven see Jill Fell, Alfred Jarry: an Imagination in Revolt
(Madison & Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005).
5 “Le Strobile jeu de HA HA”, by the Regent Gil of the Collège de ’Pataphysique,
reproduced in: Collège de ’Pataphysique, Les très riches heures du Collège de
’Pataphysique (Paris: Fayard, 2000), p. 119.