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The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I
The definitive chronicle of the origins of French avant-garde literature and art, Roger Shattuck's classic portrays the cultural bohemia of turn-of-the-century Paris who carried the arts into a period of renewal and accomplishment and laid the groundwork for Dadaism and Surrealism. Shattuck focuses on the careers of Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, and Guillaume Apollinaire, using the quartet as window into the era as he explores a culture whose influence is at the very foundation of modern art.
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First published January 1, 1960
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November 13, 2025
[An old review. I must’ve read this around 2010 or 2012.]
(I've now reread the important chapter 11, and so will append my notes, in case they should prove useful to anyone -- apologies in advance for whatever typos/errors there are -- I don't have the patience to proofread most of the time...)
First let me say this is an excellent book - probably the best I've read so far on the topic. In addition to a detailed introduction (chs. 1-2), and an illuminating conclusion (chs. 11-12), the book contains detailed studies of the personalities and art of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910); Erik Satie (1866-1925); Alfred Jarry (1873-1907); Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918).
The critical chapter is chapter 11. What follows are simple notes (poorly digested, or at least carelessly thrown together -- so please excuse) from a quick reread of the chapter.
There are two keys, Shattuck thinks, to modernism -- in a formal or technical sense.
First (pp. 326-331), the 19th cen. began with a “spiritual revival”, as man began to search for the divinity within himself. The form of a work of art can imply this inward direction, as the work itself becomes the means or locus of the search. 20th cen. art has thus tended to search itself rather than exterior reality for the beauty of meaning or truth, a condition that entails relationships between author, audience, work, and world.
If all knowledge is subjective (as modern epistemologies suggests: Bergson/Coleridge), then art may come to embody its own reality (and its own infinity). It needs no external world, and indeed replaces the external world as an object of attention. Thus, literature and painting in the 20th cen. cease to be representational (or imitative) of external reality, and become instead self-sufficient creations rivaling reality.
The result is that art becomes self-reflexive and narcissistic – focusing on itself, the creative act, rather than on the world. As Alfred Jarry wrote: “Being, once rid of Berkeley’s burden, consists… not in perceiving or in being perceived, but in the iridescent mental kaleidoscope that thinks itself and of itself” (Mallarmé’s 'Ma pensée se pense'). Stendhal: “I ceaselessly ruminate on what interests me; by dint of regarding it in different positions of mind (âme), I end up seeing something new in it”. Thus, as early as Stendhal, the subject of a work is beginning to dwindle in importance before the carefully watched positions d’âme, which transform it into art. This process of transformation (for Stendhal, crystallization followed by disenchantment; for cubism, a methodical dissolution of material objects, a dissociation of visual ideas) carries all before it. The subject of a painting is not then what it started with, but what it ends up with. (Juan Gris: “To paint is to foresee what is going on in the whole composition of the painting when a certain form or color is introduced.”). Thus, artistic consciousness shrinks from the world into its own, mirrored realm.
The second key point that Shattuck makes (331ff.) concerns parataxis and hypotaxis. It is well known that archaic writers (and, in fact, this is one of the keys to archaic art generally) write paratactically. In Homeric Greek, for example, there are no subordinate conjunctions – what in later attic develop into subordinate conjunctions are simply adverbs in Homer – and so ideas and clauses and indeed, whole sections and ‘chapters’ are simply juxtaposed to one another, without any indication of the logical relations that are in play, and which the reader has to divine or intuit. If you can grasp this essential difference, then finally you will be well on your way to grasping archaic literature. The development of hypotaxis, in Greek, corresponds to the development of a huge suite – an extraordinarly large suite in Greek, as it happens – of the grammatical tricks of subordination (and hence of the subjunctive and of the use of the optative mood in subordinate clauses), which allow writers to specify with great precision precisely what are the logical relations between ideas. In philosophy, it is what allows for the development of logic, rhetoric, and advanced philosophy in Plato and Aristotle; and in literature for the structural properties of plot used by classical authors (5th cen. and later) and described by Aristotle in the poetics as the subordination of the parts to the whole in the unity of plot or mythos.
This same pattern repeats itself, by the way, in the move from early Medieval and Renaissance art to the classical art and literature in the West – starting probably with the Quattrocento in painting (perspectival painting), at least.
What Shattuck points out -- and this is the central point -- is that one of the keys to understanding modernism is precisely that the unity of classical composition (what he calls ‘transition’) breaks down again – and we return to parataxis, which he calls 'juxtaposition' (331ff.).
This compares with what William Barrett refers to (Irrational Man, 42-65) as the second of the three great “flattenings” that he identifies as being key to understanding modernism: the flattening of planes; the flattening of climaxes (with explicit reference to this problem in Aristotle); and the flattening of values. In the “flattening of climax”, the Aristotelian (classical) idea of beginning, climax, and denouement (in which the parts are subordinated structurally to the climax or to the central theme are flattened out – and everything, all the parts…, not unlike in Homer, gets its own value and spins off in its own direction. Think cubism).
The result is discontinuity – in style: surprise (Apollinaire’s word), illogicality, abruptness… obscurity; and, philosophically… Shattuck writes (338)…. the “absurd”, this “sense of life-without-links in ‘the discontinuousness of his chopped-up sentences’”, quoting Sartre’s appraisal of Camus narrative style. (Sartre, commenting on the “white” style of Camus’ L’étranger, writes: “But what is the postulate implied by this kind of narrative? It amounts to this, that out of what used to be melodic organization has been made a simple addition of invariable elements; the succession of mere movements is asserted as rigorously identical with the act in its totality…because he slyly filters out all significant connectives…”
(I've now reread the important chapter 11, and so will append my notes, in case they should prove useful to anyone -- apologies in advance for whatever typos/errors there are -- I don't have the patience to proofread most of the time...)
First let me say this is an excellent book - probably the best I've read so far on the topic. In addition to a detailed introduction (chs. 1-2), and an illuminating conclusion (chs. 11-12), the book contains detailed studies of the personalities and art of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910); Erik Satie (1866-1925); Alfred Jarry (1873-1907); Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918).
The critical chapter is chapter 11. What follows are simple notes (poorly digested, or at least carelessly thrown together -- so please excuse) from a quick reread of the chapter.
There are two keys, Shattuck thinks, to modernism -- in a formal or technical sense.
First (pp. 326-331), the 19th cen. began with a “spiritual revival”, as man began to search for the divinity within himself. The form of a work of art can imply this inward direction, as the work itself becomes the means or locus of the search. 20th cen. art has thus tended to search itself rather than exterior reality for the beauty of meaning or truth, a condition that entails relationships between author, audience, work, and world.
If all knowledge is subjective (as modern epistemologies suggests: Bergson/Coleridge), then art may come to embody its own reality (and its own infinity). It needs no external world, and indeed replaces the external world as an object of attention. Thus, literature and painting in the 20th cen. cease to be representational (or imitative) of external reality, and become instead self-sufficient creations rivaling reality.
The result is that art becomes self-reflexive and narcissistic – focusing on itself, the creative act, rather than on the world. As Alfred Jarry wrote: “Being, once rid of Berkeley’s burden, consists… not in perceiving or in being perceived, but in the iridescent mental kaleidoscope that thinks itself and of itself” (Mallarmé’s 'Ma pensée se pense'). Stendhal: “I ceaselessly ruminate on what interests me; by dint of regarding it in different positions of mind (âme), I end up seeing something new in it”. Thus, as early as Stendhal, the subject of a work is beginning to dwindle in importance before the carefully watched positions d’âme, which transform it into art. This process of transformation (for Stendhal, crystallization followed by disenchantment; for cubism, a methodical dissolution of material objects, a dissociation of visual ideas) carries all before it. The subject of a painting is not then what it started with, but what it ends up with. (Juan Gris: “To paint is to foresee what is going on in the whole composition of the painting when a certain form or color is introduced.”). Thus, artistic consciousness shrinks from the world into its own, mirrored realm.
The second key point that Shattuck makes (331ff.) concerns parataxis and hypotaxis. It is well known that archaic writers (and, in fact, this is one of the keys to archaic art generally) write paratactically. In Homeric Greek, for example, there are no subordinate conjunctions – what in later attic develop into subordinate conjunctions are simply adverbs in Homer – and so ideas and clauses and indeed, whole sections and ‘chapters’ are simply juxtaposed to one another, without any indication of the logical relations that are in play, and which the reader has to divine or intuit. If you can grasp this essential difference, then finally you will be well on your way to grasping archaic literature. The development of hypotaxis, in Greek, corresponds to the development of a huge suite – an extraordinarly large suite in Greek, as it happens – of the grammatical tricks of subordination (and hence of the subjunctive and of the use of the optative mood in subordinate clauses), which allow writers to specify with great precision precisely what are the logical relations between ideas. In philosophy, it is what allows for the development of logic, rhetoric, and advanced philosophy in Plato and Aristotle; and in literature for the structural properties of plot used by classical authors (5th cen. and later) and described by Aristotle in the poetics as the subordination of the parts to the whole in the unity of plot or mythos.
This same pattern repeats itself, by the way, in the move from early Medieval and Renaissance art to the classical art and literature in the West – starting probably with the Quattrocento in painting (perspectival painting), at least.
What Shattuck points out -- and this is the central point -- is that one of the keys to understanding modernism is precisely that the unity of classical composition (what he calls ‘transition’) breaks down again – and we return to parataxis, which he calls 'juxtaposition' (331ff.).
This compares with what William Barrett refers to (Irrational Man, 42-65) as the second of the three great “flattenings” that he identifies as being key to understanding modernism: the flattening of planes; the flattening of climaxes (with explicit reference to this problem in Aristotle); and the flattening of values. In the “flattening of climax”, the Aristotelian (classical) idea of beginning, climax, and denouement (in which the parts are subordinated structurally to the climax or to the central theme are flattened out – and everything, all the parts…, not unlike in Homer, gets its own value and spins off in its own direction. Think cubism).
The result is discontinuity – in style: surprise (Apollinaire’s word), illogicality, abruptness… obscurity; and, philosophically… Shattuck writes (338)…. the “absurd”, this “sense of life-without-links in ‘the discontinuousness of his chopped-up sentences’”, quoting Sartre’s appraisal of Camus narrative style. (Sartre, commenting on the “white” style of Camus’ L’étranger, writes: “But what is the postulate implied by this kind of narrative? It amounts to this, that out of what used to be melodic organization has been made a simple addition of invariable elements; the succession of mere movements is asserted as rigorously identical with the act in its totality…because he slyly filters out all significant connectives…”
September 5, 2021
"The art and science of the twentieth century have not yet shown any signs of being able to surpass the state of human consciousness here expressed."
They're on the cover of the book, superimposed above a small rise in a flattish landscape well suited to the testing of flying machines: Erik Satie, Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Guillaume Appolinaire: composer, poet-Pataphysician, painter, and painter-poet: the première of the avant-garde.
As far as ART is concerned, this is a fantastic and fantastical book about the men and women who challenged and rewrote the rules of engagement. The Symbolists of the generation preceding them managed to exhaust--most wondrously and effectively--the possibilities of the artwork of transition, which had felt the steady pricking of progress ever since its birth, under the auspices of demonstrations of spacial integrity, during the Renaissance. Never before had the western world seen such extreme concentrations of energy put toward the erection of externals of utter nonconformity in the pursuit of internals of total conformity: a new-eyed authenticity that permitted Picasso, Delaunay, Chagall to paint the way they did; Apollinaire, ushering in a punctuation kill-squad, to poetize the way he did; Satie, who invented what we now scoff at as elevator music, to compose the way he did; Jarry, who devised an imaginary science of the imaginary, to write the way he did; and Rousseau, late-bloomer extraordinaire, to so boldly load canvases so lacking in perspective as to undo, in a matter of days, 600 years of painterly progress.
I am glad to have gotten to know the era and its most prominent figures. So much that I have taken for granted--in terms of conventions one has found laid up in a sling, of any grounding I might profess in the knowledge of what is knowable or possible in the realm of Art--did officially begin (its roots arranged above ground) with the Banquet Years, the Belle Epoque, and its strange and alluring people.
They're on the cover of the book, superimposed above a small rise in a flattish landscape well suited to the testing of flying machines: Erik Satie, Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Guillaume Appolinaire: composer, poet-Pataphysician, painter, and painter-poet: the première of the avant-garde.
As far as ART is concerned, this is a fantastic and fantastical book about the men and women who challenged and rewrote the rules of engagement. The Symbolists of the generation preceding them managed to exhaust--most wondrously and effectively--the possibilities of the artwork of transition, which had felt the steady pricking of progress ever since its birth, under the auspices of demonstrations of spacial integrity, during the Renaissance. Never before had the western world seen such extreme concentrations of energy put toward the erection of externals of utter nonconformity in the pursuit of internals of total conformity: a new-eyed authenticity that permitted Picasso, Delaunay, Chagall to paint the way they did; Apollinaire, ushering in a punctuation kill-squad, to poetize the way he did; Satie, who invented what we now scoff at as elevator music, to compose the way he did; Jarry, who devised an imaginary science of the imaginary, to write the way he did; and Rousseau, late-bloomer extraordinaire, to so boldly load canvases so lacking in perspective as to undo, in a matter of days, 600 years of painterly progress.
I am glad to have gotten to know the era and its most prominent figures. So much that I have taken for granted--in terms of conventions one has found laid up in a sling, of any grounding I might profess in the knowledge of what is knowable or possible in the realm of Art--did officially begin (its roots arranged above ground) with the Banquet Years, the Belle Epoque, and its strange and alluring people.
November 8, 2007
Excellent introduction of the eccentric artists that sort of tore a hole though turn of a century Paris. Erik Satie, Roussel (the painter), Alfred Jarry - all nutty as hell, and fantastic as well. Sort of what we call now 'outsider' artists - they lead a revolution that is still felt today.
This book was written in the 60's and still is in print. It is an extremely entertaining read and just makes you want to listen to Satie, etc.
This book was written in the 60's and still is in print. It is an extremely entertaining read and just makes you want to listen to Satie, etc.
April 7, 2008
Biographies of Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, & Guillaume Apollinaire - all creative people in Paris active from 1885 to 'WWI'. I LOVED this bk. I had just turned 22 when I read it. I was substantially familiar w/ all the characters & was engrossed by them. Satie & Jarry were both esp important to me. Rousseau & Apollinaire not so much so but still of interest. Shattuck clearly knows & loves the subject & writes about it well. The intertwining of these personalities creates a meta-personality for Parisian culture that's god-like in its crazed creativity.
Shattuck does a great job of establishing the lasting significance of these people. It's reassuring to know that even the most obscure person can have a long-term impact just b/c of what keeps them in obscurity while they're alive: their full-blown 'inaccessible' inventiveness.
If someone were to pick 4 such people in Pittsburgh (or any other city) now, who wd they pick? I'd like to read a bk that gradually expands out from "The Banquet Years" - these 4, then 12 more, then 16 to the 16th - eventually describing in detail everyone alive in the city during those 3 decades. Is that too much to ask?
Shattuck does a great job of establishing the lasting significance of these people. It's reassuring to know that even the most obscure person can have a long-term impact just b/c of what keeps them in obscurity while they're alive: their full-blown 'inaccessible' inventiveness.
If someone were to pick 4 such people in Pittsburgh (or any other city) now, who wd they pick? I'd like to read a bk that gradually expands out from "The Banquet Years" - these 4, then 12 more, then 16 to the 16th - eventually describing in detail everyone alive in the city during those 3 decades. Is that too much to ask?
September 13, 2018
One of those marvelous books that you bump into almost by accident, or that a friend of a friend recommends you try (which is what happened to me). This influential and long-lived work by Roger Shattuck profiles four significant creative figures in fin-de-siecle France -- playwright Alfred Jarry, artist Henri Rosseau, composer Erik Satie and poet Guillaume Apollinaire -- and shows how their spirit of revolt led French culture into the Twentieth Century, modernism, a new self-awareness, and tendencies to abstraction. You could almost call this work "Introduction to Modernism" and that's probably one of the reasons it has never gone out of print since it was first published in 1968.
If I knew of any other one book so good at limning out the Zeitgeist of this period, I'd recommend it too.
If I knew of any other one book so good at limning out the Zeitgeist of this period, I'd recommend it too.
July 10, 2011
Apollinaire, Satie, Rousseau and Jarry. Never the central figures, not Picassos or Cezannes perhaps, but more reliable practitioners cannot be found. I don't think you get to Duchamp without these industrious kiddies setting the tone ...
A mad-hatter's tea-party, an atheist's rosy cross, a flaming arrow in the forehead of the status quo. Visit, for the logical dissonance, but stay for the majestic squalor.
Four absolute madmen and their relentless pursuit of the avant in all the itchiest, most wine-dark and vomit-crusted arrondissements of the City Of Light. Ooh la la.
Five stinging, grubby, winking stars.
A mad-hatter's tea-party, an atheist's rosy cross, a flaming arrow in the forehead of the status quo. Visit, for the logical dissonance, but stay for the majestic squalor.
Four absolute madmen and their relentless pursuit of the avant in all the itchiest, most wine-dark and vomit-crusted arrondissements of the City Of Light. Ooh la la.
Five stinging, grubby, winking stars.
October 17, 2008
Very nice mix of narrative, cultural commentary and critical analysis. If you have any interest in pre-war arts scene in Paris or avant-garde in general, I strongly recommend this one. A rigorous but accessible book. Shattuck writes very well. (see also Shattuck's Forbidden Knowledge)
July 9, 2014
I read this book every seven years to remind me what it is to be an artist.
January 20, 2025
An utter delight in parts, especially when anecdotal and recounting historical events. Could have done without the theoretical and analytical chapters that made it read like someone’s Ph.D. contractually converted into a book. Ends with a hilarious punch-up in the Closerie des Lilas, the last banquet ushering in an era of nationalism and conflict in bathetic form.
June 13, 2016
Hurm. This one was a slog. I seized a chance to read it, intending to extend my knowledge of modern art even further into the past, my previous cutoff point being Dada and Surrealism. I knew a few things about folks like Rousseau, Satie, Jarry, and Apollinaire, and wanted to know more. I did get that, but Shattuck serves it all up with thick slabs of thoroughly footnoted academic prose. Fair put me to sleep, it did. I can tolerate a certain degree of dense text in the name of learning about the arts, but this book surpassed my limits. Shattuck definitely knows his subject. After giving a general picture of France, circa 1885, he opts to focus on four individuals--Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, Alfred Jarry, and Guilliame Appolinaire--using their stories to illustrate the birth of the avant-garde. Each person gets two chapters: a biography, and a critical overview of their work. It's a structure that I don't believe I've ever encountered before--focusing on life and work separately--but it works fairly well. The book could have benefitted from more illustrations, and especially from some color plates. I understand keeping costs down and all, but it seems odd to rhapsodize about Rousseau's use of color but only reproduce his paintings in black and white. Ultimately, this book seems intended for more of a scholarly audience than myself, and, while I don't regret reading it, I don't think I'll be rereading it at all.
Want to read
September 26, 2018Not only does this appear to be an interesting read but this revised edition has an amazing Monty Python style cover.
Looking forward to reading it.
Looking forward to reading it.
May 7, 2020
Busy days over here, but I will just shoot off a few quick lines to recommend this book:
Really impressive craftsmanship! Shattuck manages to both elucidate and entertain, and his insights are spot on and inspired. I read this book slowly in order to not miss out on anything; will read it again soon for pleasure.
Really impressive craftsmanship! Shattuck manages to both elucidate and entertain, and his insights are spot on and inspired. I read this book slowly in order to not miss out on anything; will read it again soon for pleasure.
December 18, 2008
Like a foundling baby, a basket of books turned up on the doorstep of my building - who is this neighbor who discards things I would cross a river (by subway) to obtain?
I read a borrowed copy of this some years ago and mentally filed it as one of those books any decent cultural history shelf should have and yet was somehow unobtainable (Anthony Heilbut's excellent "The Gospel Sound" held a similar spot but I found that as well last year). Whether I could in fact have mail-ordered a copy from Powell's or other online seller (in retrospect, this would have taken seconds) is irrelevant compared to the serendipitous pleasure of finding one on the stoop.
What's it about? - oh, any number of Web pages can tell you that.
I read a borrowed copy of this some years ago and mentally filed it as one of those books any decent cultural history shelf should have and yet was somehow unobtainable (Anthony Heilbut's excellent "The Gospel Sound" held a similar spot but I found that as well last year). Whether I could in fact have mail-ordered a copy from Powell's or other online seller (in retrospect, this would have taken seconds) is irrelevant compared to the serendipitous pleasure of finding one on the stoop.
What's it about? - oh, any number of Web pages can tell you that.
Read
August 26, 2025Toch een van mijn favoriete periodes: Parijs voor de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Shattuck schreef in 1955 een heerlijke studie naar de oorsprong van de avant-garde en doet aan de hand van vier artiesten: Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, Alfred Jarry en Guillaume Apollinaire. Na een fijne inleiding bespreekt hij de vier steeds in twee hoofdstukken, een meer biografisch, de ander meer kritisch. En dat bevalt heel goed, hij strooit met heerlijke details over deze toch wel naïeve, excentrieke, knettergekke en hardwerkende heren. Echt zo'n Amerikaan die zich op zijn onderwerp stort en wiens taalgebruik nog opvallend bij de tijd is, want laten we wel wezen dit boek is dichterbij de dood van Satie geschreven (vreemd genoeg de laatste van het stel die het loodje legde) dan ons 2025. Weer veel geleerd. Shattuck vertilt zich wat in het een na laatste kunstfilosofische hoofdstuk waar bijkans geen touw aan vast is te knopen, daar merk je het bouwjaar wel, net wat later en hij had het over de invloed van Jarry op Ballard & Baudrillard kunnen hebben.
Read
September 3, 2022'My name is Erik Satie, just like everybody else.'
May 1, 2017
17th August 2016: I've started this to get a feeling for the background of Proust's work. Shattuck's introductory chapter breathlessly gallops through some of the main highlights and personages of the age, and I thought that yes, Berma must be inspired by Bernhardt (there's a brilliant recording of her performing Phèdre on YouTube, and this is performed on young Marcel's first visit to the theater, what he yearned to experience for years); Shattuck also mentions a courtesan which sounds similar to Odette, and a somewhat vulgar woman who ran a salon that sounds suspiciously similar to Mme Verdurin's with its "rules", and attendees being in danger of being excommunicated at any moment for a faux pas...
(Maurois in his book Quest for Proust mentions the recurring issue of people recognising themselves in the novel, who then became upset (or, in some cases I suspect, secretly pleased), and how Proust tried to persuade them his characters weren't really them: well, yes and no! )
... and I got some background on why the Prince of Wales was in Paris, and a run thru of some of the French aristocracy, who also seem to be present in one way or another. Its quite strange seeing all these people discussed in another context.
Shattuck then goes on to explore the times through four artists: Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, and Guillaume Apollinaire. I'll dip into this as I go along with Proust. It's so exciting and interesting! I haven't felt this engaged for years, and feel like whole new vistas are opening up, and can't wait to get stuck into this book.
----
test.
I have also continued with The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I – I hoped to it would give me a flavor of Parisian fin de siècle, thinking it would provide a background for Proust's world. I suppose it has, but reading (so far) explorations of Henri Rousseau and Erik Satie (Jarry and Apollinaire to follow), maybe, rather, they and the milieu they inhabit stand in opposition to Proust's... Ostensibly Proust, privileged, is drawing on the past (unsurprisingly); while they, impoverished, dissatisfied, seek to break from it. But, but – its not that simple, but I struggle yet to put my finger on it, to express how I feel they seem to be revolving around one another, around the same center of gravity, maybe straining to escape one another, but… I'm not sure.
A brief word on Satie. I had no idea of how extraordinary and provocative Satie was. I had only known him for his soporific piano pieces, but wow! What an eccentric delight, what I surprise to seek out and listen to his later work, from the “invention” of background music (musique d'ameublement), to repetitive compositions that last a day or more, named, appropriately, Vexations (championed by amongst others John Cage). And it seems Satie was (also) fascinated with, and sought boredom:
"For boredom is mysterious and profound"
"Experience is a form of paralysis"
So in a sense, there is a connection with Proust there, at least for me, in my experiencing their work. Boredom occurs as much as, and often as a form of provocation, in both artists; all the while drawing me in, entrancing me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpr8m...
(Maurois in his book Quest for Proust mentions the recurring issue of people recognising themselves in the novel, who then became upset (or, in some cases I suspect, secretly pleased), and how Proust tried to persuade them his characters weren't really them: well, yes and no! )
... and I got some background on why the Prince of Wales was in Paris, and a run thru of some of the French aristocracy, who also seem to be present in one way or another. Its quite strange seeing all these people discussed in another context.
Shattuck then goes on to explore the times through four artists: Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, and Guillaume Apollinaire. I'll dip into this as I go along with Proust. It's so exciting and interesting! I haven't felt this engaged for years, and feel like whole new vistas are opening up, and can't wait to get stuck into this book.
----
test.
I have also continued with The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I – I hoped to it would give me a flavor of Parisian fin de siècle, thinking it would provide a background for Proust's world. I suppose it has, but reading (so far) explorations of Henri Rousseau and Erik Satie (Jarry and Apollinaire to follow), maybe, rather, they and the milieu they inhabit stand in opposition to Proust's... Ostensibly Proust, privileged, is drawing on the past (unsurprisingly); while they, impoverished, dissatisfied, seek to break from it. But, but – its not that simple, but I struggle yet to put my finger on it, to express how I feel they seem to be revolving around one another, around the same center of gravity, maybe straining to escape one another, but… I'm not sure.
A brief word on Satie. I had no idea of how extraordinary and provocative Satie was. I had only known him for his soporific piano pieces, but wow! What an eccentric delight, what I surprise to seek out and listen to his later work, from the “invention” of background music (musique d'ameublement), to repetitive compositions that last a day or more, named, appropriately, Vexations (championed by amongst others John Cage). And it seems Satie was (also) fascinated with, and sought boredom:
"For boredom is mysterious and profound"
"Experience is a form of paralysis"
So in a sense, there is a connection with Proust there, at least for me, in my experiencing their work. Boredom occurs as much as, and often as a form of provocation, in both artists; all the while drawing me in, entrancing me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpr8m...
May 15, 2018
This book didn’t grab me immediately so I put it down. I skimmed the Introduction, and chapters on Rousseau and Satie.
In the chapter on Rousseau the only points he made are that the style was called primitivism, and Rousseau was considered to be a simpleton. The chapters on Satie emphasize that his childlike sound conceals complexities in tone, and he revealed a different style in the twilight of his career.
In the chapter on Rousseau the only points he made are that the style was called primitivism, and Rousseau was considered to be a simpleton. The chapters on Satie emphasize that his childlike sound conceals complexities in tone, and he revealed a different style in the twilight of his career.
October 31, 2015
Given the subject matter, The Banquet Years was surprisingly accessible. One comes away with a more nuanced picture of modernism, surrealism, cubism, and other artistic modes most commonly associated with the twentieth century through four early "avant garde" figures: Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, Alfred Jarry, and Guillaume Apollinaire. They represent both a variety of artistic genres (painting, music, drama, poetry) and a progression through time from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth. All represent a break from earlier traditions, whether by dint of "primitivism," art as spectacle, or the blurring of the lines that separate art and artist, as elite salons gave way to raucous cafes.
September 11, 2017
Paris and art in the years between Impressionism and Surrealism through the lives and work of Rousseau, Satie, Jarry, and Apollinaire, this book tells the story of the birth of the very concept of an avant-garde. I knew something about most of these fellows, except Jarry, who may be the most interesting of the lot, a definite grand-dada of attitudes and postures that would be more familiar a couple of decades later. In general, I preferred the chapters about the men's lives to the chapters about their work, which rely, at least for Satie, Rousseau, and Jarry, on simultaneous listening, looking, and viewing for best effect. In my continuing effort to understand how Romanticism evolved into Modernism, this is a pretty good sideshow.
July 6, 2007
I go back to this book when spirits are low and my nostalgia needs to be met by descriptions of another place and time-namely Paris during the turn of the 20th century. Descriptions of Henri Rouseau and Eric Satie are flawless and read in certain passages with more of a narrative concern than for the sake of historical accuracy. It's as if its author transcends his subject matter for more romantic notions of the characters that made Parisian bohemia a idea of longing for generations to follow. If you are ever discouraged by the time you live in or the place you call home, read this book and indulge.
September 19, 2012
Oh artists! Never has such a flattering portrayal of the rat-infested, syphilis spawning, opiate hazed backwaters of turn of the century Montmarte been written. Clearly Shattuck wishes he was born into la vie boheme than his own time. That being said, past the ass kissing is some interesting details on the often eccentric and brilliant men who ushered the avant garde into our 20th century consciousness. Yahoo!
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November 9, 2019This book was a challenge for me to read because I was largely unfamiliar with the era and these four individuals. I read a hard copy of the book and referenced my iPad frequently to get more detail, see examples of their work, try to get a better understanding of the whole scene.
Ultimately very definitely worth the effort. MUch to my surprise and delight, I'm very much an Erik Satie fan now, nice result that makes me happy I took the time to read this one.
Ultimately very definitely worth the effort. MUch to my surprise and delight, I'm very much an Erik Satie fan now, nice result that makes me happy I took the time to read this one.
December 7, 2012
Fascinating history of an exciting time for art, literature, music and drama. Shattuck chooses four representatives from each of those fields to illustrate the era: Henri Rousseau, Guillaume Apollinaire, Erik Satie, and Alfred Jarry. If you loved the characters of the Belle Epoque in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" this will give you a fascinating look into the main players of that time.
June 11, 2008
Stories of poets that only eat white foods? An artist that is consistently made fun of, even invited to the center of government as a joke? The advent of background music? This book has everything. It's funny. It's smart. It's even a fast read. I would recommend it 100%.
December 9, 2008
I have finished the bios on Eric Satie and Alfred Jarry. The eccentricities! Also, the first chapter on the time period is excellent. How I wish (in some ways) that I was in Paris during the turn of the century at the cafés and salons.
June 4, 2010
Am reading this for the third time and listening to Satie, dreaming into rousseau, and wrote two papers on Jarry, and ready to rediscover Appolinaire.
These are the four figures of the Belle Epoque who went on to influence Modernism so much.
Read it the first time while living in Paris.
These are the four figures of the Belle Epoque who went on to influence Modernism so much.
Read it the first time while living in Paris.
September 21, 2010
a really insightful read about an intimidating subject. Shattuck effortlessly keeps pace with the tumultuousness of Paris at the turn of the century, and provides the context for its emerging art scene. i learned a lot!
November 20, 2013
Pretty cool book, but it was dense in quite a few spots. But I learned so much about these four characters - definitely worth the effort. I likely will revisit this book to refresh my memory regarding what these artists accomplished.
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September 19, 2008I love this book, from which, up till now, I've only read excerpts. It is increasingly (the further along I get into it) in my top-5 fav. books about modernism.
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February 11, 2008
Worth reading again every once in awhile.
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