Jacques Vache and the Roots of Surrealism: Including Vache's War Letters and other Writings

Jacques Vache and Franklin Rosemont

Paperback

IN STOCK$20.00

The first English-language collection of the letters and writings of Jacques Vaché, a close comrade of André Breton, and arguably the inspiration for many of Breton's most memorable theoretical innovations, especially his notion of Black Humor, which is based on Vaché's concept of "Umour." Compiled and introduced by surrealist historian, Franklin Rosemont.

The decade that gave the world Krazy Kat, Rube Goldberg, and Buster Keaton also marked the emergence of Jacques Vaché. A bold jaywalker at the crossroads of history, and an ardent exemplar of freedom and revolt, Vaché challenged all prevailing values, from church and state to white supremacy, and was especially gifted at the fine art of ridiculing the dominant ethics and aesthetics of the emerging age of imperialism. 

Conscripted into the French Army in World War One, he soon became not only the unsurpassed champion of "Desertion from Within," but also theÊ master of "Disservice with Diligence." His post-humous slim book, War Letters(1919) included in the present volume is a classic of surrealiste anti-militarism and subversion. Renowned as the Inventor of Umour (Humour without the H), Vaché was along with Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont the major inspirer of André Breton and the surrealist revolution. The first of its kind in English, this book chronicles Vaché's boundless originality, creative nonconformity, revolutionary morality (or umoral-ity), and his all-out turn-the-world-upside-down hilarity.

ISBN 9780882863214
List price $20.00
Publisher Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company
Year of publication 0
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