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| Boris Vian, Red Grass, Published by TamTam Books Boris Vian (1920-1959) was a magnificent jack-of-all-trades--actor, jazz critic, engineer, musician, playwright, songwriter, translator--not to mention the leading social light of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés scene. His third major novel, Red Grass is a provocative narrative about an engineer, Wolf, who invents a bizarre machine that allows him to revisit his past and erase inhibiting memories. A frothing admixture of Breton, Freud, Carroll, Hammett, Kafka and Wells, Red Grass is one of Vian's finest and most enduring works, a satire on psychoanalysis--which Vian wholly and vigorously disapproved of--that inflects science fiction with dark absurdity and the author's great wit. Much in the novel can be regarded as autobiography, as our hero attempts to liberate himself from past traumatic events in the arenas of religion, social life and--of course--sex. Red Grass is translated by Vian scholar Paul Knobloch. With an introduction by Marc Lapprand. |
Showing posts with label Paul Knobloch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Knobloch. Show all posts
Monday, 24 December 2012
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
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| Serge Gainsbourg’s place in French music was thoroughly investigated by Gilles Verlant, whose biography of the singer is now available in an English translation. (Photo: Les Francofolies de Montréal) Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/music/Juan+Rodriguez+Serge+Gainsbourg+genius+lost/7677345/story.html |
By Juan Rodriguez, special to The Gazette
He was loaded with anti-charisma — his first words to Whitney Houston on a TV show were “I want to f--- you” — yet he was a perverse charmer. “Women adore misogynists,” he claimed; one of his preferred pickup lines was “Mind if I sit down, you little tart?” French president François Mitterrand characterized him as “our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire,” but his various musical periods also qualified him as the Picasso of pop. (He stole liberally from Chopin.)
Apart from the admirable but hardly complete A Fistful of Gitanes, by Sylvie Simmons (author of the recent excellent Leonard Cohen biography I’m Your Man), there’s not much in English on the great iconoclast of French pop. Now comes the English translation of Serge Gainsbourg by Gilles Verlant (under the title Gainsbourg: The Biography, from Tam Tam Books), the French journalist who spent more time interviewing Gainsbourg than any other.
The depth of his investigation into the agent provocateur’s place in French music is abundant throughout this hefty 575-page tome, originally published in 2000. Without indulging into too much armchair psychology, we come away with plenty of raison d’être for the man who was forced to wear a yellow Jewish star as an adolescent during the Nazi occupation. He boomeranged the anti-Semitism of those times with perverse irony on the 1975 album Rock Around the Bunker.
He was born Lucien Ginsburg to parents who fled the Russian Revolution and anti-Semitism; his father, Joseph, was a classical pianist who played nightclub gigs to get by; his mother, Olia, was a mezzo-soprano.
The household was cultured (attuned to André Breton, Man Ray et al), something overlooked in Gainsbourg’s penchant for scandal. At the beginning of his career, he suffered from stage fright and was discouraged because of his apparent “ugliness.” He was hardly in the league of Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, Georges Brassens or Yves Montand as a romantic hero, yet his power to shock — in either a disquieting sense or with inimitable irreverence (setting La Marseillaise to a stoned reggae beat) — set him apart, and was somehow more profound than his more genteel contemporaries. When some suggested that his biggest international hit, Je t’aime ... moi non plus, was simply a tape of Gainsbourg and Birkin engaged in sex, he quipped: “Thank goodness it wasn’t, otherwise I hope it would have been a long-player.”
Despite being littered with typos, the book is a page-turner. Although translator Paul Knobloch has drawn some heat for supposedly taking liberties, his adaptation of Gainsbourg’s lyrics is pure genius; most of the translations rhyme — an extraordinarily difficult creative act.
Alongside Simmons’s tome on Cohen, The One: The Life and Music of James Brown by R.J. Smith, and Gustav Mahler by Jens Malte Fischer, this is among the very best musical biographies I’ve read this year.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/music/Juan+Rodriguez+Serge+Gainsbourg+genius+lost/7677345/story.html
Monday, 3 September 2012
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
EVENTS
DATE: 7/30/2012 | BY JANE BROWN
A Gainsbourg Evening at ARTBOOK @ Paper Chase
On a warm Tuesday evening at the ARTBOOK @ Paper Chaseshowroom in Hollywood, the Paris-based biographer Gilles Verlantwaxed poetic about the life and times of the legendary French chanteur, actor and director Serge Gainsbourg. Joining Verlant wereTamTam Books publisher Tosh Berman and translator Paul Knobloch. Tuesday's event was a celebration of Verlant's newly translated Gainsbourg biography. The panel kept the standing-room-only crowd riveted with stories and anecdotes about the late, great pop icon—the French Cole Porter.
In putting together this biography, Verlant spent hundreds of hours interviewing Gainsbourg himself, as well as his relatives, and, of course, his many lovers—including Jane Birkin and Brigitte Bardot.
Translator Paul Knobloch with publisher Tosh Berman and author Gilles Verlant.
Aperture’s Leslie Martin with Ice Plant’s Mike Slack.
Jane Brown and Maripol.
Mikie Shioya and Japanese journalist Kiichiro Yanashita.
Paris Photo organizers Jean-Christophe Harel and Julien Frydman.
Marc Jacobs' Jennifer Baker and Randy Shelp.
Gilles Verlant with Tracey Quiqley and Fawn Hall.
Leslie Rubinoff and Libby Kauper.
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Just a quick note to say thank you for all of you who came to the event on July 17, 2012 for "Gainsbourg." The author Gilles Verlant, the translator Paul Knobloch, and the publisher Tosh Berman (me) all had a great time and we sold out on the books.
Merci to everyone!
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| Tosh Berman, Gilles Verlant, and Paul Knobloch |
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| TamTam Books' publisher Tosh Berman |
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| Tosh Berman and author of "Gainsbourg" Gilles Verlant |
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| Gainsbourg...sort of there |
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| Book cover by Tom Recchion |
Monday, 9 July 2012
ARTBOOK @ Paper Chase, Book Soup and Tam Tam Booksinvite you to the launch party for Gainsbourg: The Biography.
Join us for a tribute to Serge Gainsbourg, the French singer, songwriter, poet, composer, artist, actor and the country’s most beloved pop export since Edith Piaf. The evening will feature Gainsbourg videos and music, and a discussion with the Biography author, Gilles Verlant, in conversation with translator, Paul Knobloch and Tam Tam publisher, Tosh Berman.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
7:00 pm
7:00 pm
RSVP@dapinc.com
FREE but RSVP required and will be accepted until venue capacity is reached
ARTBOOK | Paper Chase
7174 Sunset Boulevard
(corner of Sunset and Formosa)
Hollywood, California
(corner of Sunset and Formosa)
Hollywood, California
(323) 969-8985
Serge Gainsbourg redefined French pop, from his beginnings as cynical chansonnier and mambo-influenced jazz artist to the ironic “yé-yé” beat and lush orchestration of his 1960s work to his launching of French reggae in the 1970s to the electric funk and disco of his last albums. He was the self-proclaimed ugly lover of such beauties as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, the iconic provocateur whose heavy-breathing “Je t’aime moi non plus” was banned from airwaves throughout Europe and whose reggae version of the “Marseillais” earned him death threats from the right.
Gilles Verlant’s biography of Gainsbourg is the best and most authoritative in any language. Drawing from numerous interviews and their own friendship, Verlant provides a fascinating look at the inner workings of 1950s–1990s French pop culture and the conflicted and driven songwriter, actor, director and author that emerged from it: the young boy wearing a yellow star during the German Occupation; the young art student trying to woo Tolstoy’s granddaughter; the musical collaborator of Petula Clark, Juliette Greco and Sly and Robbie; the seasoned composer of the Lolitaof pop albums, Histoire de Melody Nelson; the cultural icon who transformed scandal and song into a new form of delirium.
Special thanks to the evening's bookseller, Book Soup.
Dear Gang,
I was very recently interviewed by Kristian Goddard for his uber-cool blog. For those who want to read it - look here: http://www.kristiangoddard.net/Kristian_Goddard_Blog.htm
I was very recently interviewed by Kristian Goddard for his uber-cool blog. For those who want to read it - look here: http://www.kristiangoddard.net/Kristian_Goddard_Blog.htm
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
When Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991, France went into mourning: François Mitterand himself proclaimed him “our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire.”
Gainsbourg redefined French pop, from his beginnings as cynical chansonnier and mambo-influenced jazz artist to the ironic “yé-yé” beat and lush orchestration of his 1960s work to his launching of French reggae in the 1970s to the electric funk and disco of his last albums. But mourned as much as his music was Gainsbourg the man: the self-proclaimed ugly lover of such beauties as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, the iconic provocateur whose heavy-breathing “Je t’aime moi non plus” was banned from airwaves throughout Europe and whose reggae version of the “Marseillais” earned him death threats from the right, and the dirty-old-boy wordsmith who could slip double-entendres about oral sex into the lyrics of a teenybopper ditty and make a crude sexual proposition to Whitney Houston on live television.
Gilles Verlant’s biography of Gainsbourg is the best and most authoritative in any language. Drawing from numerous interviews and their own friendship, Verlant provides a fascinating look at the inner workings of 1950s–1990s French pop culture and the conflicted and driven songwriter, actor, director and author that emerged from it: the young boy wearing a yellow star during the German Occupation; the young art student trying to woo Tolstoy’s granddaughter; the musical collaborator of Petula Clark, Juliette Greco and Sly and Robbie; the seasoned composer of the Lolita of pop albums, Histoire de Melody Nelson; the cultural icon who transformed scandal and song into a new form of delirium.
Release date: July 31, 2012
$24.95
ISBN: 9780966234671
Translated from the French by Paul Knobloch
Sunday, 22 April 2012
Gainsbourg: The Biography
By Gilles Verlant. Translated by Paul Knobloch.
GAINSBOURG: THE BIOGRAPHY
TAMTAM BOOKS
LIST PRICE: U.S. $24.95
CANADIAN: CDN $24.95
ISBN: 9780966234671 | TRADE
Pbk, 8.5 x 5.5 in. / 400 pgs.
PUB DATE: 6/30/2012
CANADIAN: CDN $24.95
ISBN: 9780966234671 | TRADE
Pbk, 8.5 x 5.5 in. / 400 pgs.
PUB DATE: 6/30/2012
When Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991, France went into mourning: François Mitterand himself proclaimed him “our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire.” Gainsbourg redefined French pop, from his beginnings as cynical chansonnier and mambo-influenced jazz artist to the ironic “yé-yé” beat and lush orchestration of his 1960s work to his launching of French reggae in the 1970s to the electric funk and disco of his last albums. But mourned as much as his music was Gainsbourg the man: the self-proclaimed ugly lover of such beauties as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, the iconic provocateur whose heavy-breathing “Je t’aime moi non plus” was banned from airwaves throughout Europe and whose reggae version of the “Marseillais” earned him death threats from the right, and the dirty-old-boy wordsmith who could slip double-entendres about oral sex into the lyrics of a teenybopper ditty and make a crude sexual proposition to Whitney Houston on live television.
Gilles Verlant’s biography of Gainsbourg is the best and most authoritative in any language. Drawing from numerous interviews and their own friendship, Verlant provides a fascinating look at the inner workings of 1950s–1990s French pop culture and the conflicted and driven songwriter, actor, director and author that emerged from it: the young boy wearing a yellow star during the German Occupation; the young art student trying to woo Tolstoy’s granddaughter; the musical collaborator of Petula Clark, Juliette Greco and Sly and Robbie; the seasoned composer of the Lolita of pop albums, Histoire de Melody Nelson; the cultural icon who transformed scandal and song into a new form of delirium.
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
http://www.americanethnography.com/article.php?id=124
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Press Release
“To Hell With The Ugly”
(ET ON TUERA TOUS LES AFFREUX)
Boris Vian (Vernon Sullivan)
978-0-9662346-6-4 $15.95
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| Boris Vian, 1949 copyright afp |
Translated from the French and Introduction by Paul Knobloch
Artwork and interior Illustrations by Jessica Mnckley
Book Design by Tom Recchion
Boris Vian was the leading light of the Post-War years in Paris. 'The Prince of Saint-Germain' knew everyone that was culturally important in those rich years. From Miles Davis to Jean-Paul Sartre to Jean Cocteau to Juliette Gréco.
Besides being one of the great French novelists of the 20th Century, Vian was also a translator of hard-boiled Amercian crime novels (Raymond Chandler among others), songwriter, singer, A&R man at a record company, engineer, playwrite, jazz critic, screenwriter and sometimes actor. And the leading light of the Saint Germain-des-Prés social scene. A man who knew everyone that was interesting, and yet always stood apart from any organized movement.
“To Hell With The Ugly” is a novel Vian wrote under the name Vernon Sullivan, who had a very serious scandal history with his first Sullivan novel “I Spit On Your Graves.” “To Hell With The Ugly” according to its translator Paul Knobloch is 'like a pornographic Hardy Boys novel set on the Island of Dr. Moreau to a be-bop soundtrack.'
The narration is a mixture of Young Adult adventure novel, science fiction, Los Angeles Noir, and sex romp. A group of adventursome teenagers get involved in a case where a mad doctor has an island of nothing but beautiful looking people. Clones whose purpose is to have sex with good looking people to bring more good looking people on this earth. Utopian dream or nightmare? This novel written in 1948 brings up issues that are proment in today's world. Like an early J.G. Ballard, Vian held the pulse of a culture that was about to embrace the future with teptation, fear and wonder.
Here are the critical blurbs:
“Boris Vian was a rascal, a chameleon, and a visionary. In his crime novles –channeling the elusive Vernon Sullivan—he displays America as a Left Bank fever dream, a place where Dashiell Hammett is president of the Academie and Sartre splits philosophical hairs with Frankie Yale. Go there, and you might not return.”
- Luc Sante
“Imagine being aught in a dream in which you're still you – with all your complex cmotions, thoughts, and tastes- but the only way you can express them is through the language of a noir novel. Also, your ability to direct your own actions has been removed so the noir begins to tell your story for you, almost against your will. The end result? You are simultaneously a hero and a victim of a genre you never intended to inhabit. Such is the amazing effect of Vian's “To Hell With The Ugly, a novel about – among other things – perfection.”
- Jim Krusoe
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| cover by Tom Recchion |
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