Le génie des autres and remembering 1998

.


At the bottom of this post is a picture of the French translation of my very first book Unrehearsed Beauty (from 1998, translated into French as Le génie des autres.) Thinking back to 1998 (the year I moved to Montreal and began working with PME-ART) is really something else. I was so focused on the desire to make a new kind of theatre. And then we did. (Our performance Unrehearsed Beauty/Le Génie des autres was perhaps the best example of this.)

As you might already know, Christophe Bernard is in the process of translating all of my books for Le Quartanier. They’ve already done four:

Le génie des autres
La famille se crée en copulant
La joie criminelle des pirates
Riches et pauvres

https://lequartanier.com/auteur/95-jacob-wren

[In the original English these books are Unrehearsed Beauty, Families Are Formed Through Copulation, If our wealth is criminal then let’s live with the criminal joy of pirates and Rich and Poor.]

Today I’ll be signing books at the Le Quartanier table at the Salon du livre de Montréal from 6pm-7pm. A moment when I go back in time, instead of promoting my current book Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim.


*


Here’s a short excerpt from Unrehearsed Beauty:


“The corpse must properly digest its food.


The food must be grown in pastures where just the briefest hint of ideology remains.


Ideology pertains to time.


Time is a character in a morality play with the following title.


The title of the morality play is “Actions Against Reason.”


In the play a corpse is featured prominently.


The corpse neither eats nor digests but is somehow made aware of the presence of food.


Food is laid out on the table in such a way that it spells out the defeat of those who understand only what they were born to someday understand.


When you are born you admit defeat.


Admitting defeat is the same as committing a crime.


And there is only one crime: to vomit when you know from the bottom of your heart that it is unproductive to do so.


Productive vomiting is tolerated but not encouraged.


Criminals require encouragement. Corpses do not.”

.