Good day Hivers and Book Clubbers,
Today I'm back in the familiar sphere of non-fiction, after the fictional detour in the last article. Although as far as the subject of this book is concerned, I am still pretty much in the dark. The book that is the subject of this article is a biography of Antonin Artaud, written by David A. Shafer and released in 2016. My e-book version also dates from this year, and numbers about 250 pages.
Artaud's beginnings
Artaud was born in Marseille, France, in 1896 to parents of French and Greek heritage. It was a religous and well-off family, holding the type of values that Artaud would rail against most of his life, which also estranged him of them somewhat. In a way, he was lucky to survive: of the 9 children born to his mother, only 2 made it into adulthood.
Art and insanity
Artaud was drawn to art from a young age: to writing itself, writing poetry and drawing for a start. However, his artistic drive walked hand in hand for the rest of his life. From the age of 18 he was treated by many doctors with the most remarkable of 'remedies' for his problems. However, since treatments for (and knowledge of) mental ailments were not up to par at the time, nothing really helped.
If it did anything, it was that Artaud developed a drug habit that would also remain with him for the rest of his life. Art(ists) and drugs are a notorious combination, and Artaud is no exception to this amalgamation. Remarkably enough, Artaud was drafted into the army in 1916, despite his mental issues, but was discharged a few months later without seeing any action.
Theater, Film and Politics
The trauma of the First World War was immense in France, even though it was one of the winners of that conflict. This trauma quickly reverberated into the realms of both art and politics. In politics, leftist movements criticised the needlesness of the slaughter in the trenches, and lay the blame at the feet of bourgeois society, nationalism/patriotism, capitalism and militarism. To change things politically, it is imperative for things to change culturally as well. One of the movements in the early 1920s that was a synthesis of these issues was Surrealism, a movement which included Artaud for a few years in the early 1920s.
Artaud mostly worked in theatre in these years, both as an actor and as a writer of plays. His acting was intentionally visceral; according to him, more emphasis had to be laid on gestures and non-verbal expression, than in the text or script. One of Artaud's main contentions throughout his work was that language was a hopelessly inadequate tool to express one's thoughts and feelings. To make better/more impactful theater, according to him, one should rely less on language and text in the theatre-setting. The most impactful writing for later generations in his oeuvre dealt with his vision on theatre. Though Shafer mentions that his written works are not easy to follow: often contradictory, and using specific terminology used in a specific, non-usual manner.
As an example, here is Artaud's understanding of the word 'cruelty':
'This Cruelty is concerned with neither sadism nor blood, at least not in an exclusive way. I do not systemically cultivate horror. This word, Cruelty, must be taken in a large sense, and not in the concrete and rapacious way customarily given to it.'
When cinema was invented, Artaud also became an actor on the big screen. His love for the silent film of early cinema can be easily explained: the lack of spoken word in movies forced the actor to rely more on bodily gestures and facial expressions. This way of acting was wholly in line with his view of language as an inadequate form of expression. Though he thought of language this way, he also wrote a lot of poetry in his life. The book gives some examples, which do not click for me at all. This might be in part because poetry almost never lends itself well to translations (in this case from French to English), but his style is described as very idiosyncratic and jarring by contemporary French audience(s) as well.
Travels
The critiques Artaud laid at the feet of French society of his time led to him looking for inspiration elsewhere. He looked up to Eastern cultures and took inspiration for them. His first travels outside of Europe would take him West, not East, however. He left for Mexico for a few months in 1935, in search of Indian cultures untouched by Spanish/European/White cultural influences. He stayed, according to himself, with an isolated Indian tribe in the province of Chihuahua for an extended time, before returning to France with new inspiration. A later travel to Ireland, to rediscover Gaelic/Celtic culture there, would be far less successful: he would be deported back to France within 2 months of arriving.
Asylum & Conclusion
The reason for his deportation went hand in hand with Artaud's deteriorating mental state, and his drug addictions. He would spend the vast majority of his remaining life in mental asylums across France. World War 2 would pass him by while he was incarcerated. The last years of his life, 1945-1947, saw his condition improve, and would see him produce multiple forms of art again, including writings and poetry. This improvement would not last for long: he died in 1948 at the quite young age of 51.
His influence in avant-garde circles was widespread, both while he was alive in France, and in later generations both in France and abroad, hence this English biography, for example. The biography includes several of his drawings and stills from movies, and some examples of his poetry. Simply put, they are not my cup of tea, though this might be in part due to me not being that much of a poetry-lover. Also, his views on politics (anarchism) and religion (atheism) are basically the opposite of mine, which does not help, I suppose.
I'm not tempted to try to read one of his books in full, that much is certain, though I do find his life story to be a fascinating one. The book also posits the well-trodden idea that some people deemed insane are simply misunderstood by society, that a man like Artaud was ahead of its time. And in a way, I'd agree: art has become less structured, more abstract. Though art has not become more visceral: cinema has become a form of leisurely entertainment, and most often is not confronting in any way, as Artaud wished in his time as an actor.
But this article is rambling on a bit. I can recommend this biography as a good overall look into Artaud's life, so if you're looking to know more about French artistry, this might be an interesting one to add to your reading list. Any comments, questions or corrections (those might be very applicable here) are of course very welcome. I'll see you in the next one,
-Pieternijmeijer
(Top image: book cover)
I am curious, where did you get the image from? is it from your own book or from another place?
I'd like to remind you to source the image if it's not taken by yourself. It's better safe than sorry later, if someone is visiting your profile and found that you didn't source the image, it's gonna be a headache for you down the line.
It's the cover-image of the e-book version I own. Since the book itself is mentioned in the article, and the image is described as book cover, I'd assumed that would be sufficient
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