L'Equarrissage pour tous: Boris Vian's Reproof of History

Abstract

Now that three decades have elapsed since the invasion of Normandy by Allied forces in World War II; now that patriotic and nationalistic sentiments concerning the event have diminished considerably, if not vanished altogether, it is time, perhaps, to look back at an early account of the fateful military action which led to the liberation of France. It is time, also, because the author of this account, although deceased since 1959, is beginning to gain more and more in reputation, here and abroad. Although in his own lifetime only the avant-garde literary elite paid attention to this obscure novelist, playwright, journalist, pamphleteer, songwriter, ballet and opera composer, slightly existentialist and overly pataphysician mystifier and jester, today he is enjoying no less than a legend on the Continent, his books are being translated in this country, and there is little doubt about the literary validity of his work. While some of his output is as dated as his popular songs, and his violent rejection of bureaucracy, militarism, and clericalism is repugnant to many, his outspokenness and predilection for paradox and mystification are beginning to earn more and more the appreciation of a contemporary public better prepared by the vogue of the Anti-Theatre, a school for which Vian had played the role of precursor.l Since he is no longer the idol of a small literary coterie,2 his depiction of D-Day from the vantage point of an (almost) eye-witness has, in addition to its highly humoristic quality, a pertinence of appeal to the present anti-war generation all over the world.