Tag: Surrealism

DOUBLE YOUR TREASURE

We invite you to double your treasure with this pair of backlist beauties.

CHARLES CROS: COLLECTED MONOLOGUES

Charles Cros was one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, equally adept at poetry, fiction, and scientific inquiry. He wrote smutty verses with Verlaine, synthesized gems with Alphonse Allais, contributed wild prose fantasies to Le Chat Noir, and experimented with color photography and sound recording, only to die young, poor, and alcoholic. Not incidentally, he also invented the comic monologue for the actor Coquelin Cadet. This edition collects all of Cros’s monologues—masterfully translated & introduced by Doug Skinner—and includes performance notes, plus two biographical essays by his friend and colleague Alphonse Allais. 

UPSIDE-DOWN STORIES

Charles Cros and Émile Goudeau were quintessential Bohemian poets. This first English translation of their inspired collaboration of “Upside-Down Stories” satirized hot topics of the 1880s such as as divorce and capital punishment with bawdy humor and wild flights of fancy. These nutty gems will surprise & delight contemporary readers.

“THE SHEER PLAYFULNESS OF CERTAIN FANCIFUL PARTS OF CROS’S WORK MUST NOT LET US FORGET THAT IN THE CENTER OF SOME OF HIS FINEST POEMS, A REVOLVER IS AIMED AT US.”—ANDRÉ BRETON

SURREAL DEAL

“There is another world and it is in this one.”

—Paul Éluard

Paul Éluard’s Capital of Pain (Capitale de la douleur ) appeared in 1926 and established his reputation as the preeminent French surrealist poet. 

Éluard’s surrealist vision is illuminated by a painter’s eye; his imagery includes light, surfaces, reflections, sunlight, mirrors, halos and radiance, although he deploys them to evoke suffering, despair and emptiness. Details of the poet’s personal life are found in this collection’s two-part central poem, “In the Flame of the Whip.” Each line crackles with irrepressible power – resembling the criss-cross lash marks left on human flesh by the whip.

Both sides of the mirror are exposed in Capital of Pain – the reflective surface and the tain on its reverse side. The mirror is, of course, Éluard himself, because, as the collection’s title suggests, it reveals the poet’s private anguish and personal agony.

Paul Éluard was a dedicated and devoted surrealist who championed the juxtaposition of distinct elements and the play of dualities which give surrealist poetry its profundity and vitality. As readers, we are fortunate he chose to expose the mysterious and hidden aspects of his life with lyrical brilliance.

“…it is gratifying to find a collection of Paul Éluard’s poetry translated into English by R. J. Dent, and published (with a glorious cover!) by Black Scat Books – one of the last publishers to keep the flag of Olympia, Éditions Jean-Jacques Pauvert and Grove Press flying, with new writing as well as classics of Surrealism, the Absurd, Dada, Erotica and ‘Pataphysics…. All in all, Dent, a poet and novelist in his own right, demonstrates clearly the truth of the old maxim, it takes a poet to translate a poet.” —Reese Saxment, Surrealerpool

CLICK HERE to read the complete review.

Capital of Pain
Paul Éluard
Translated from the French by R J Dent
paperback; 132 pp., $14

Anna Karina holding Éluard’s Capitale de la douleur in
Godard’s classic film Alphaville.

Watch Out! — Here Comes Jean-Fucque!

A Born-Again Surrealist Classic

Inspired by Louis Aragon’s obscure surrealist text, this new adaptation by R J Dent proudly presents… [insert drumroll] the one and only, Jean-Fucque Le Cocque, a large, disembodied penis and his Parisian adventures — his satisfactory encounters with female passengers on the Metro, his small room in a hotel frequented by prostitutes, and his reason for buying a hat. (Mon dieu!)

Merci beaucoup!

IS THE FOURTH WALL A URINAL?

In Eckhard Gerdes’s fifteenth novel, two women friends — one from the city, the other from the suburbs — attend opening night of a cryptic new play: “Pissers’ Theatre.” Oddly enough, both the play and the theatre it’s being presented in have been designed to accommodate audience incontinence. Thus, the production pauses whenever someone needs to empty their bladder. This bizarre experiment plays havoc with the show’s continuity and leads our heroines into strange places — onstage and off.

“Gerdes’s Pissers’ Theatre shares Godot’s deft moments of humor and sad conclusions about existence. With no signposts in a literary void, lost travel­ers we remain, lost in a writer’s lost designs. This novel deserves to be translated into a theatrical piece someday soon.” —American Book Review

“The Pissers’ Theatre will keep you reading with its captivating storytelling and relatable characters. While it is a light read, there are many hidden metaphors and subtle satirical points… I highly recommend Eckhard Gerdes’ novel to all sophisticated readers (and theatergoers!). It would be a great vacation companion or the perfect novel to read on a rainy weekend.” — Windy City Reviews

THE PISSERS’ THEATRE
Eckhard Gerdes
Trade paperback; 112 pp., $12.95
ISBN 978-1-7357646-9-6

BRING ME THE HEAD OF FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN!

Jason E. Rolfe‘s mesmerizing new chapbook, THE PUPPET-PLAY OF DOCTOR GALL, is a shadowy existential drama — an absurdist murder-mystery set in Vienna in 1820, with a cast of curious characters: Franz Joseph Gall, The Stranger, Ernst Sieber, Tomas Hocheder, Madam Denebecq, and Count Sedlnitzky.

Are they mere puppets whose every move is directed from above by Madam Denebecq, a self-titled mechanikus? Or are they all too human, performing their lives before our very eyes? And who, in the name of heaven, has stolen the head of Franz Joseph Haydn?

We had intended to reveal the answers to these questions but, alas, it’s too late. The lights have dimmed and the audience is holding its collective breath (if breathe they do).

Order your copy before the curtain rises.

No strings attached.

DADA LIVES AGAIN!

On August 17 1911—seven years before Max Ernst took up scissors and paste to create his early Dada  art—WHAT A LIFE! was published in London by Methuen & Co. The authors, Edward Verrall Lucas (humorist & travel writer) and George Morrow ( illustrator and regular contributor to Punch), produced their satirical pictorial autobiography using illustrations cut from the pages of Whiteley’s General Catalogue. This inspired act of vandalism was a precursor to many works of avant-garde collage art and satire.

Long out of print in the U.S., Black Scat is proud to  bring this proto-Dada classic  back to life as #34 in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series.

WHAT A LIFE ! was  exhibited at MoMA’s 1936 “Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism” show.

WHAT A LIFE! seems to have made little impression, either in England or in France, even though it has the remarkable distinction of being illustrated solely by collages drawn from the catalogue of a large department store in London (Whiteley’s), and therefore of being—as much by the images as by the text that they comment on—one of the first manifestations of that spirit we call “modern.” —Raymond Queneau, Bâtons, chiffres et lettres (1950)

What a Life!
E. V. Lucas & George Morrow

Absurdist Texts & Documents – No. 34
Perfect-bound,  illustrated; 134 pages
$12
click here to grab a copy on Amazon

 

Ceci n’est pas Magritte

Move over Mona Lisa, the subject of René Magritte’s classic painting Le fils de l’homme (1964) has been transformed into an iconic  Everyman — forced to confront the forces of contemporary life.

Portuguese artist Paulo Brito reanimates the  mysterious figure in a series of satirical  collages you won’t soon forget.

The future of Dada is here!

SONS OF MAN
by Paulo Brito
with a preface by mercie pedro e silva
Absurdist Texts & Documents No. 33
Illustrated, full color; perfect-bound; $15
$5 digital edition

CLICK HERE TO ORDER