 29 Jan 2004 @ 12:32, by D
Before having known
The black mexican dogs
Who sleep without dreaming
The butt-naked monkeys
Gobbling up tropics
The silver spiders in
Webs riddled with bubbles
I wouldn't want to die
Not knowing if the moon
Behind its fake nickel look
Has a sharper side
If the sun is cold
If the four seasons
Are really only four
Not having tried
To wear a dress
On the boulevards
Not having peeped
Through a sewer peephole
Not having put my dick
Inside weirdo corners
I wouldn't want to end
Without experiencing leprosy
Or the seven diseases
One catches over there
Neither the good nor the bad
Would cause me some sorrow
If if if I knew that
I would get it firsthand
And there iz also
Everything I know
Everything I like
That I know that I like
The green bottom of the sea
Where the seaweeds waltz
On the rippled sand
The burnt grass in June
The crackling earth
The smell of conifers
And the kisses of the one
She's this and she's that
The belle here she comes
My bearcub, Ursula
I wouldn't want to die
Before having used up
Her mouth with my mouth
Her body with my hands
The rest with my eyes
I say no more one should
Remain polite
I wouldn't want to fade
Without someone inventing
Eternal roses
The two hour day
The sea at the mountain
The mountain at the sea
The end of pain
Newspapers in color
All children happy
And so many other tricks
That sleep inside the brains
Of genius engineers
Of jovial gardeners
Of concerned socialists
Of urban urbanists
And of thoughtful thinkers
So many things to see
To see and to hear
So much time to wait
Searching in the dark
And me I see the end
It swarms and it comes closer
With its ugly face
And it opens its arms to me
Like a cripplety frog
I wouldn't want to die
No sir no madam
Before having tested
The taste which torments me
The taste which is the strongest
I wouldn't want to die
Before having tasted
The flavour of death...
Boris Vian
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Unlike his friend and contemporary Jean Paul Satre, Vian never took himself very seriously. He celebrated his extraordinary imagination and astonishing facility with language with a disorganised career of writing, playing music (Jazz Trumpeter), fixing old cars, throwing and attending parties and attacking any form of pretention or bureaucracy. He particularly disliked organised religion and the military, but also scorned any regimentation in public or personal life.
His works range from the best-selling sex-and-violence thrillers under the name of Vernon Sullivan through popular songs, plays, short stories, to the beautiful and surreal novels he wrote under his own name, L'Arrache Coeur (Heartsnatcher), L'Herbe Rouge and his masterpiece L'Ecume des jours (Froth on the daydream).
Vian was surrealist and an absurdist by nature as well as intention. His goal in writing was to convey delight in the capacity language has to present an imaginary world more real and telling than the drab day-to-day existence of "ordinary life".
After his death he became a hero to the '68 student revolution, especially in France, where his literary fame also grew. In English he is barely known. Stanley Chapman captured Vian's spirit with his quintessential translation Froth on the Daydream, which has become a minor classic.
Robert Whyte
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