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Boris Vian's America: Representing the New World in post-war France
Abstract
This paper explores mythical and imaginary representations of America by Boris Vian and examines the personal and social context in which they were nurtured and produced. The purpose is to contribute to an understanding of the extent and nature of the transmission of cultural values and myths between the US and France in the period between 1930 and 1955, roughly corresponding to the most productive years of Vian's life. The central texts in this discussion are those in which the American influence is most strongly present: Vian's reviews of the jazz press, written for Jazz Hot over a period of 10 years, and his four pseudo-translations of American romans noirs published under the name Vernon Sullivan, especially J'irai cracher sur vos tombes. Background discussions include Vian's childhood in the Thirties, French opinion and the U.S., the importance of American expatriates and cultural imports like the New American Novel, cinema, black American writings, American influences in other mid-century French writing, and the war-time zazou movement. The evaluation of Vian's jazz criticism involves comparisons using critical texts from Vian's French and American contemporaries as well as new critical appreciations of recorded performances which would have influenced Vian. The readings of the Sullivan novels are accomplished through a comparative look at the hardboiled American school, specifically Raymond Chandler and James Cain, both writers explicitly acknowledged by Vian to have been major influences. The paper closes with an examination of the importance of myth in evaluating both the Vian production and its American antecedents.
Subject Area
Romance literature|Modern literature|Literature
Recommended Citation
Jones, Christopher Mark, "Boris Vian's America: Representing the New World in post-war France" (1994). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9420636.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9420636