Alfred Jarry: Liquidizing Paris and Debunking Verne
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great Scottish scientist. Faustroll then uses these fundamentals to establish that the Sun is cold,
21 and with the additional support of algebra, proceeds to measure the surface of God. Jarry would refer again
to Kelvin’s lectures in an article for La Plume in 1903, in which he
claimed, perhaps eccentrically, that the roman scientifique was a direct descendant of alchemical tales from the Mille et Une Nuits, and
he held up H.G. Wells as the modern master of the genre without
mentioning Verne at all – an omission which seems bold enough to be
deliberate (II, pp. 519-20).
Jarry is a hugely eclectic writer (indeed this is a significant
part of his charm), and Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien is a highly experimental text. It does however bear examination as a sustained attempt to justify its subtitle of “roman néoscientifique”, through if not a fusion then certainly a juxtaposition of
what were then “advanced” figures in both science and the artistic
avant-garde. Jarry’s fantastical perspective of a Paris distorted according to artistic principles serves as an appropriate parallel to the work
of scientists who – most prominently Kelvin – were coming to question the inherited limits and certainties of their sciences, just as much
as the writers and artists of fin-de-siècle Paris were challenging the
conventions of their own disciplines.
___________________________
21 This is a potential but unstated parallel with Verne, who maintains through the “science” of Le Voyage au centre de la Terre that the core of the Earth is cold.
215
great Scottish scientist. Faustroll then uses these fundamentals to establish that the Sun is cold,
21 and with the additional support of algebra, proceeds to measure the surface of God. Jarry would refer again
to Kelvin’s lectures in an article for La Plume in 1903, in which he
claimed, perhaps eccentrically, that the roman scientifique was a direct descendant of alchemical tales from the Mille et Une Nuits, and
he held up H.G. Wells as the modern master of the genre without
mentioning Verne at all – an omission which seems bold enough to be
deliberate (II, pp. 519-20).
Jarry is a hugely eclectic writer (indeed this is a significant
part of his charm), and Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien is a highly experimental text. It does however bear examination as a sustained attempt to justify its subtitle of “roman néoscientifique”, through if not a fusion then certainly a juxtaposition of
what were then “advanced” figures in both science and the artistic
avant-garde. Jarry’s fantastical perspective of a Paris distorted according to artistic principles serves as an appropriate parallel to the work
of scientists who – most prominently Kelvin – were coming to question the inherited limits and certainties of their sciences, just as much
as the writers and artists of fin-de-siècle Paris were challenging the
conventions of their own disciplines.
___________________________
21 This is a potential but unstated parallel with Verne, who maintains through the “science” of Le Voyage au centre de la Terre that the core of the Earth is cold.