Alfred Jarry: Liquidizing Paris and Debunking Verne
209
Dès que l’amarre eut été détachée par notre fadrin laconique, le château croula et
mourut, et reparut miré dans le ciel, des lieues plus loin, la grande jonque éraillant le
feu du sable. (I, pp. 684-5)
A different approach is visible in “Du pays de Dentelles”, in
which the king visited by Faustroll and his companions is Aubrey
Beardsley; in this case the imagery is derived entirely from
Beardsley’s art, and there are no readily distinguishable real-life references.
8 For instance, having introduced the remarkably pure light of
this island:
Le roi des Dentelles l’étirait comme un cordier persuade sa ligne rétrograde, et les
fils tremblaient un peu dans l’obscurité de l’air, comme ceux de la Vierge. Ils
ourdirent des forêts, comme celles dont, sur les vitres, le givre compte les feuilles;
puis une madone et son Bambin dans de la neige de Noël; et puis des joyaux, des
paons et des robes, qui s’entremêlaient comme la danse nagée des filles du Rhin. (I,
pp. 677-78)
While the details of Jarry’s own dealings with Beardsley remain
sketchy, it is established that they knew each other. Thus the lack of
points of reference remains curious – all the more so as there is no explicit commemoration of Beardsley’s death in March 1898, which
falls within the possible dates of composition of the first manuscript of
Faustroll, and certainly predates the second. We should also note Jill
Fell’s speculative but incisive reading of this chapter, which proposes
a system of wordplay and concealed subtleties that might include reference to the recent Oscar Wilde scandal.
9
Jarry also demonstrates the adaptability of a virtuoso when
creating an island to honour a figure whose own work is not replete
with the complex, suggestive imagery that typifies the late Symbolist
environment. The writing of the fiery, uncompromising religious novelist and pamphleteer Léon Bloy is very much rooted in an all too real
world characterized by grinding poverty. So in “Du grand escalier de
marbre noir” (a punning allusion to Marchenoir, semiautobiographical protagonist of Bloy’s novel Le Désespéré), Jarry
___________________________
8 See J. Smaragdis (pseud.), “Du Pays des Dentelles” [sic.], Cahiers du Collège de
’Pataphysique, no. 22-23 (23 palotin 83 E.P. [dated by the Collège’s “calendrier
pataphysique”], i.e May 1957), 65-67.
9 Fell, Alfred Jarry: an Imagination in Revolt, pp. 131-36.
209
Dès que l’amarre eut été détachée par notre fadrin laconique, le château croula et
mourut, et reparut miré dans le ciel, des lieues plus loin, la grande jonque éraillant le
feu du sable. (I, pp. 684-5)
A different approach is visible in “Du pays de Dentelles”, in
which the king visited by Faustroll and his companions is Aubrey
Beardsley; in this case the imagery is derived entirely from
Beardsley’s art, and there are no readily distinguishable real-life references.
8 For instance, having introduced the remarkably pure light of
this island:
Le roi des Dentelles l’étirait comme un cordier persuade sa ligne rétrograde, et les
fils tremblaient un peu dans l’obscurité de l’air, comme ceux de la Vierge. Ils
ourdirent des forêts, comme celles dont, sur les vitres, le givre compte les feuilles;
puis une madone et son Bambin dans de la neige de Noël; et puis des joyaux, des
paons et des robes, qui s’entremêlaient comme la danse nagée des filles du Rhin. (I,
pp. 677-78)
While the details of Jarry’s own dealings with Beardsley remain
sketchy, it is established that they knew each other. Thus the lack of
points of reference remains curious – all the more so as there is no explicit commemoration of Beardsley’s death in March 1898, which
falls within the possible dates of composition of the first manuscript of
Faustroll, and certainly predates the second. We should also note Jill
Fell’s speculative but incisive reading of this chapter, which proposes
a system of wordplay and concealed subtleties that might include reference to the recent Oscar Wilde scandal.
9
Jarry also demonstrates the adaptability of a virtuoso when
creating an island to honour a figure whose own work is not replete
with the complex, suggestive imagery that typifies the late Symbolist
environment. The writing of the fiery, uncompromising religious novelist and pamphleteer Léon Bloy is very much rooted in an all too real
world characterized by grinding poverty. So in “Du grand escalier de
marbre noir” (a punning allusion to Marchenoir, semiautobiographical protagonist of Bloy’s novel Le Désespéré), Jarry
___________________________
8 See J. Smaragdis (pseud.), “Du Pays des Dentelles” [sic.], Cahiers du Collège de
’Pataphysique, no. 22-23 (23 palotin 83 E.P. [dated by the Collège’s “calendrier
pataphysique”], i.e May 1957), 65-67.
9 Fell, Alfred Jarry: an Imagination in Revolt, pp. 131-36.