Avant Garde A Clue [Kindle Edition]

A sobering thought that haunts many in Academia is that the world would still be unaware of Paul Déaveroin had it not been for the intellectual sleuthing of Icelandic Professor Isskot Belsohn. There can be no doubt that without Belsohn's struggle up the slopes of inquiry to the summit of Dadaism the world would be exactly the same but precisely different. The linguistic demands that "Avant Garde A Clue" makes of the reader are repaid "dans bêches" as the genius of Déaveroin is revealed in all its eclectic glory. To call it an artistic tour de force would be a cliché. And anyone familiar with Déaveroin's work knows that he regarded "cliché" as a crime against humanity. In fact, the only description of his art that one can imagine Déaveroin countenancing is "Pis ce tais que". And I think that says it all, although it doesn't stop me having more to say. Critics who accuse Déaveroin of pretension should ask themselves this simple question: "How can one pass judgement on an artist if one is not thinking what he thinks, seeing what he sees, knowing what he knows, and smelling what he smells?" The answer is 'Impossible'. Or, as the French say, 'Impossible'. I firmly believe that "Avant Garde A Clue" has cast off the surly bonds of conventional art and ploughed its own unique furrow in the muddy field of much better art. Isskot Belsohn's initials are IB, which also stands for Intellectual Bravura, which I find an appropriate coincidence. The fact that IB also stands for Iceland's Broke is an irrelevance. I can confidently say it's the most different book I've ever read, and very funny. Reading this imaginative masterpiece has been a surreal and rewarding experience, and I'd rank it alongside William Boyd's discovery of Nat Tate.

So there we were ... me, my newly acquired Kindle (an early Christmas present from me to me) and the first published work of a man (and his equally deluded mate Albert) who'd apparently taken total leave of his senses. The situation wasn't improved by a fulsome foreword from The Earl of Portland (aka Tim Bentinck) telling us how brilliant Professor Belsohn was and recommending, in particular, that you read the poems aloud with a strong French accent. As recommendations go, it lacked - what's the word I'm looking for? Ah yes - objectivity. A bit like Eric Blair telling us George Orwell is the best thing since sliced bread ...

On the face of it, Avant Garde a Clue is about an obsessive Icelandic academic in pursuit of a long-dead and justly forgotten Dadaist poet whose truly appalling collected works were found hidden in the walls of a chalk cliff at La Roche-Guyon.

The poems are given in their original French, with a handy English translation and then analysed to within an inch of their incoherent lives, leaving you absolutely no wiser than when you started.

In desperation, I took Lord Portland's advice and in the wee small hours of the morning declaimed this gem aloud, in an accent that fetched up somewhere between Inspector Clouseau and René Artois:-

Hier ce terre dais.
Haut le m'a tour à boules si me c'eau phare haut est.
N'a où ail nid de plait ce tu ail d'à où est.
Eau ail bey lit vigne
Y est ce terre dais.

Translation:

Yesterday this land was covered.
From my high position in the lighthouse I can see
not only the water, but the men playing boules.
Please don't put me in the nest of garlic
I'd rather sleep with the smelly wet Turk in the vineyard.
There, on that earthen platform.

It's fortunate that I didn't have a mouthful of Horlicks at the time, because it would have come straight down my nose and all over my brand new Kindle.

Feverishly, I clicked the `back' button ... and with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, wondered how on earth I could have failed to twig when I read this:

Pay Guy sous, paix Guy sous,
Eaù à où maille artes y heure n'est-ce faux y où ...

Once you've identified one, you just can't stop trying - which could have unlooked-for consequences if you're on public transport at the time. Muttering to yourself in a foreign language and periodically punching the air with a triumphant "Yesss!!" is guaranteed to clear a sizeable space around you pretty damn quick. And it isn't just the `poems' that are a joy, either. Once you're in on the joke, the bonkers but quite brilliant translations and `analyses' are just as much fun, along with the completely dotty story of how the poems were found.

If you're looking for inexpensive Christmas family entertainment, look no further. Avant Garde a Clue is a snip at just £2.99, from a Kindle Store near you.

There may well those who will say that this really IS the story of the unknown Dada poet Paul Déaveroin by Isskott Belsohn and any resemblance Led Zeppelin lyrics is purely coincidental. To them I would say: Pull the other one - it's got bells on.

Not only does one have to read this masterpiece of hyper-intellectual poetry in, at least, three different strata of perception, but also (if one is multi-lingual too, as I am) one must laugh, where appropriate, in more than two or three languages, in order to really take in the apparently serious intellectual discourse that is, in turn, 'taking' the more seriously-orientated reader 'in'.

Based, it goes without saying, on the magnificent work in the original Icelandic by Herr Belsohn, the "Editors" have produced perfect transliterations and translations into more or less intelligible jargon, of one of the most hilarious pieces of literature one has ever read. When one reads the apparently Dadaist poetry by the brilliant Belsohn,Isskott, in its worthy rendition into perfect French (with a slightly mock-Gavotte a la Parisienne twist), one is immediately reminded of a quartet that appeared somewhere in Cheshire in the 1960s, who as a musical ensemble almost bore the names of insects, were it not for a single letter and the rock-and-roll context of their work. They can, collectively, through their music, be a tantalising clue to understanding this brilliant Dadaist poetry from Belsohn's generous pen, brought to us solely thanks to the assiduous work of these two brilliant Translator/Editors who are of one mind.

The Italians have a saying: "Traduttore, Traditore" ("Translator, Traitor"; meaning that the original text can be lost in its translation). This hardly applies in the case of these fine Editors, who spared no effort in rendering every precise nuance of the relevant terminology. If a take-away were to open on the High Street, selling this book, the sales notices outside the establishment, should read:
"ISSKOTT-TO-GO".
PER ARDUA AD BELSOHN und ASTI SPUMANTI. Joe A A Silmon-Monerri, in a city not far from Liverpool, UK, January, 2011.