Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life by Alastair Brotchie (review)

One of the most pleasurable and exciting aspects about studying biographies of Alfred Jarry is tracking the development and resolution of so many legendary anecdotes and seemingly irreconcilable elements of his life. As is typical in biographical research, Jarry scholars regularly make new discoveries or revelations, and along with the contingency of historical contexts, the value of what is included in the scholarship shifts as well. The latest biography on the enigmatic avant-gardist who altered theatre history with his Ubu Roi, Alastair Brotchie’s Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life, is the most comprehensive yet in English. At the forefront of current Jarry scholarship as a regent of the Collège de ‘Pataphysique, Brotchie delivers to English-language Jarry scholars and enthusiasts a convincing narrative of Jarry’s life in which he attempts to nail down certain dubious moments in the received biography of Père Ubu (as Jarry’s closest friends called him). Brotchie’s will remain a key contribution to the field for many years and will add to the pleasure of tracking those Jarry legends moving forward.

The book is written in chronological narrative format and contains fourteen chapters. Appropriating some of Jarry’s own strategies of doubling and opposition, Brotchie alternates each biographical chapter (even numbered) with a short “intercalary” chapter (odd numbered), which is intended “to offer a glimpse of undercurrents which connect the most apparently disparate aspects of Jarry’s thought and personality” (x), to explain, for example, his philosophy of pataphysics or to position him within the late-nineteenth-century modernization of Europe. Some biographical chapters seem long and bog down amid lengthy descriptions of mostly vital, but sometimes inconsequential, players and events in the narrative, which makes Brotchie’s decision to avoid “discursive footnoting” (x) a bit frustrating. The breakdown of Jarry’s timeline, however, is clear and effective.

Brotchie states that he considers Jarry the man and Jarry the writer as one, but he does not necessarily offer a critical biography in the strictest sense, such as Keith Beaumont’s Alfred Jarry (1985) or Linda Kleiger Stillman’s 1983 critical biography of the same title. His evaluations of Jarry’s oeuvre are secondary to the conditions surrounding those works. What Brotchie conveys is a deep evaluation of Jarry’s actions and behaviors within the context of his milieu, which sheds light on how his writing and life were equally affected by Jarry’s contingent geographical, financial, and personal relations.

Brotchie’s narrative fills many gaps in previous English-language biographies (e.g., Roger Shattuck’s The Banquet Years [1968]; Claude Schumacher’s Alfred Jarry and Guillaume Apollinaire [1984]), including the details of Jarry’s military service and other life events between 1894 and 1896, and from 1901 to his death in 1907. Another distinction that separates Brotchie’s work from that of recent biographer Jill Fell is his ability to argue convincingly the validity of many disputed details of Jarry’s life. Fell, on the other hand, who published her biography Alfred Jarry in 2010, leaves many of those details in question. Brotchie reveals that during Jarry’s time in the military he was given frequent leave to Paris, thanks to his father’s connections at the Rennes base, and that the supposedly self-manufactured reason for Jarry’s discharge—that he poisoned himself—may not have been fabricated at all. Brotchie also shows that Jarry had, appropriately, installed a state-of-the-art toilet in his Rue de Cassette apartment. Toward the end of his life, Jarry was dogged by his creditors between Paris, Laval, and his “Tripod” home in Le Coudray, as he moved in and out of the care of his sister while his undiagnosed meningeal tuberculosis progressed.

Among the book’s 156 illustrations are what seem to be nearly all the available photos, portraits, and sketches of Jarry. Also included are images of the places he resided and those with whom he surrounded himself, as well as images of his works...