Jacques Vaché and the Roots of Surrealism: Including Vache's

Jacques Vaché and the Roots of Surrealism: Including Vache's War Letters and other Writings

The decade that gave the world Krazy Kat, Rube Goldberg, and Buster Keaton also marked the emergence of Jacques VachÃ©. A bold jaywalker at the crossroads of history, and an ardent exemplar of freedom and revolt, VachÃ© challenged all prevailing values, from church and state to white supremacy, and was especially gifted at the fine art of ridiculing the dominant ethics and aesthetics of the emerging age of imperialism.

Conscripted into the French Army in World War One, he soon became not only the unsurpassed champion of "Desertion from Within," but also theÃŠ master of "Disservice with Diligence." His post-humous slim book, War Letters(1919) included in the present volume is a classic of surrealiste anti-militarism and subversion. Renowned as the Inventor of Umour (Humour without the H), VachÃ© was along with Isidore Ducasse, Comte de LautrÃ©amont the major inspirer of AndrÃ© Breton and the surrealist revolution. The first of its kind in English, this book chronicles VachÃ©'s boundless originality, creative nonconformity, revolutionary morality (or umoral-ity), and his all-out turn-the-world-upside-down hilarity.

Jacques Vaché and the Roots of Surrealism: Including Vache's War Letters and other Writings