A half-century homage to France”™s master-prankster
by Alison Hird
Radio France Internationale
December 7, 2009
Boris Vian [1920 – 1959], the provocative writer, singer, poet, inventor and jazz trumpeter, was underestimated during his short, fast lifetime. Yet he had – and still has – a huge impact on French cultural and intellectual life. Fifty years after his death, Boris has come of age.
In the preface to his perhaps finest and most famous novel L”™Ecume des jours (Froth on the Daydream) Vian wrote: “There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music”¦of Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly”.
Wilfully provocative maybe, but there was more than a hint of truth in those words: Vian loved jazz and everything frivolous.
He refused to take himself seriously… Read more here.