[Item #3590] Here Then The Question. Antonin Artaud.
Here Then The Question

Here Then The Question

N/P: Filthythumb Press, 1968. First Printing. Stapled Wrappers. On approaching the work of French dramatist, poet, essayist & actor Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), one is by turns intrigued and bewildered, but is perhaps most notably (albeit occasionally) brought to epiphany. If the contemporary English slang adjective "batshit" was then in use, it would have been employed in virtually all descriptions of Artaud. An unlikely casualty of medical misdiagnoses as a child and a sanitarium veteran by his late-teens, Artaud was nursed back to "health" by the riotous reveries of Baudelaire & Rimbaud, and aided by spoonful after spoonful of French laudanum. Artaud as Young Junky seeks to eclipse his delusional interiority and move to Paris, which he does in March of 1921 against his father's protestations. Artaud waltzes in and out of favor with a glittering array of Parisians, beginning with his apprenticeship with Charles Dullin and later Alfred Jarry. He tangles with the Surrealists, and an unsurprising fracas breaks out with Breton after Artaud characterizes Marxism as "...a lazy man's revolution," and is (of course) summarily expelled from Breton's version of Surrealism. He "leaves" the Movement having impressed and influenced nearly all of Breton's onetime collaborators and constituents, perhaps most notably in his written 1928 film scenario "The Seashell and the Clergyman," which would influence Dali and Bunuel's 1929 work "Un Chien Andalou," widely-acknowledged as the first Surrealist film. In Artaud, epiphany walks hand-in-hand with delusion--and it is for this reason we find him resonant still today. Book in near fine condition with modest shelf-wear to fine-edges; slight spotting, browning; to front, back covers; bumps to top right-hand, bottom right-hand corner of front cover. Near Fine. [Item #3590]

Price: $25.00