Brotchie, Alastair (Atlas Press)

Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life - The MIT Press Brotchie, Alastair (Atlas Press)

Commendation Quotes: Who was Alfred Jarry really? And how did this angry young man from the provinces come to invent pataphysics and to write the revolutionary drama " Ubu Roi"? In this, the first full-length biography of Jarry in English, Alastair Brotchie, himself a central figure in the 'Coll "e"ge de 'Pataphysique' and scholar of the avant-garde, gives us a richly documented, beautifully illustrated, and intimate portrait of the complex personality behind the Ubu masks. I found it a real page-turner."Commendation Quotes: Alastair Brotchie has achieved something very rare. In giving us the first detailed account of Jarry's life, he shares a lot of discoveries and unknown documents but avoids reducing the life to a collection of biographical or archival facts. Indeed, he makes us feel, think, act, see, and almost speak in connivance with this delicate and strange monster, Alfred Jarry. Commendation Quotes: Aficionados of Alfred Jarry's writings will welcome this urgently necessary life of the inventor of 'Pataphysics, that mad and minor science of imaginary solutions. Alastair Brotchie's biography fills an enormous gap in our understanding not only of Jarry's complex life but of the tangled sociocultural networks of tastes and antipathies that constructed the Banquet Years. Impeccably researched, masterfully written, and profusely illustrated, "Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life" is guaranteed to broaden and deepen Anglophone interest in Jarry (whom Cyril Connolly dubbed the Santa Claus of the atomic age) and 'Pataphysics alike. Review Quotes: "Alfred Jarry "provides many new facts, some pertinent analyses, and a clutch of outrageously amusing yarns.--Mark Polizzotti ""Bookforum" "Review Quotes: Alastair Brotchie brilliantly evokes the avant-garde artistic movements of fin-de-siecle Paris in all their glittering grubbiness.--Charlotte Keith ""Varsity" "Review Quotes: An enthralling, scrupulously researched, and elegantly written biography.--Mark Ford ""The New York Review of Books" "Review Quotes:[Brotchie] gives us an unmatched and vivid picture of the belle epoque's avant-garde, of which Jarry was an important, original part.--Michael Moorcock ""The Guardian" "Review Quotes:...[Brotchie's] tone is clear and informed, rooted in a familiarity with Jarry that has something quite personal about it, which is all for the good.--Allan Graubard ""Leonardo On-Line" "Review Quotes:[Brotchie] skilfully moves between providing a relatively straightforward and sympathetic account of the writer's life and critically sorting through the narratives that have sustained and shaped the long-standing image of Jarry... Brotchie's refusal to mythologise stands as the book's greatest strength, and as a fitting testament to the manifold complexity of Alfred Jarry.--Karl Whitney ""3: AM Magazine" "Review Quotes: How a schoolboy caricature evolved into Jarry's best-known creation, his monstrous 'every-man', Pere Ubu, is a fascinating story which Brotchie tells with impressive scholarship, sympathy and wit.--Peter Blegvad ""The Spectator" ""Review Quotes: That Jarry comes across as both more and less than we might expect from his reputation and his writings is a result of Brotchie so resolutely and expertly keeping his eye on the available facts and not allowing himself to wander into speculation and hero-worship.--William Bamberger ""Rain Taxi" "Review Quotes: Brotchie's painstaking and drily funny biography is now the most ample account of Jarry and his importance that is available in our language; it is unlikely ever to be bettered.--Kevin Jackson ""The Literary Review" "Publisher Marketing: When Alfred Jarry died in 1907 at the age of thirty-four, he was a legendary figure in Paris -- but this had more to do with his bohemian lifestyle and scandalous behavior than his literary achievements. A century later, Jarry is firmly established as one of the leading figures of the artistic avant-garde. Even so, most people today tend to think of Alfred Jarry only as the author of the play "Ubu Roi, " and of his life as a string of outlandish "ubuesque" anecdotes, often recounted with wild inaccuracy. In this first full-length critical biography of Jarry in English, Alastair Brotchie reconstructs the life of a man intent on inventing (and destroying) himself, not to mention his world, and the "philosophy" that defined their relation. Brotchie alternates chapters of biographical narrative with chapters that connect themes, obsessions, and undercurrents that relate to the life. The anecdotes remain, and are even augmented: Jarry's assumption of the "ubuesque," his inversions of everyday behavior (such as eating backward, from cheese to soup), his exploits with gun and bicycle, and his herculean feats of drinking. But Brotchie distinguishes between Jarry's purposely playing the fool and deeper nonconformities that appear essential to his writing and his thought, both of which remain a vital subterranean influence to this day. Review Citations:

Chronicle of Higher Education 10/14/2011 pg. 16 (EAN 9780262016193, Hardcover)

Choice 02/01/2012 (EAN 9780262016193, Hardcover)

New York Review of Books 05/10/2012 pg. 63 (EAN 9780262016193, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:  Brotchie, Alastair Alastair Brotchie is a founder of the London publishing house Atlas Press, a Regent of the College de 'Pataphysique in Paris, and the editor of books and anthologies on Surrealism, Dada, and the Oulipo.