Boris Vian

Boris Vian (1920 March 10 (Ville d'Avray) — 1959) was an anti-militarist, a pacifist, trained civil engineer (receiving his diploma in 1942), film actor, cabaret singer, translator, inventor, record company executive and Transcendent Satrap of the College de Pataphysique, best known as an extremely gifted writer and jazz musician. He wrote the erotic novel, J'irai cracher sur vos tombes 1947 (I'll Spit On Your Graves), which wass seized by police on moral grounds. In the mid-1950s, at the time of the Algerian crisis, he wrote popular songs (including "Le déserteur", a french classic chanson). Also by Vian: L'Ecume des jours, L'Herbe rouge, L'Arrache-coeur. Vian made his antimitilitarism (and scorn for existentialism) plain when he wrote,

"War is a social phenomenon of capital interest because all those who engage in it may earn a pure and complete objectification and thus reach the corpse state … but war does not provide a solution because often one is not killed."

Vian went to a preview screening of the film J'irai cracher sur vos tombes. He strongly disapproved of the filmʼs treatment of his work, having battled with the film company for years and having all his own film treatments of the book rejected by the producers. Having forgotten to take his medicine that morning, and very agitated, the experience literally killed him.

After ten minutes of attendance, seated in an armchair, he collapsed and died.

External links

• http://www.toadshow.com.au/rob/vian/vian.htm
• http://greenspun.com/boohoo/related.tcl?page_id=boris-vian
• http://web.archive.org/web/20060427193154/http://www.obyron.com/hue00/borisv/cinvit.htm

Audio of his music

• http://membres.lycos.fr/undergronde/mp3/vian_sfaire_engueuler.mp3
• http://membres.lycos.fr/undergronde/jazz/borisvian.html