Evguenie Sokolov (Paperback)

Serge Gainsbourg is one of the world's great eccentrics. His kinky obsessions, smothering fashion with tastelessness have catapulted him into super stardom in France. This is his only novel and you have never read anything like it Evguénie Sokolov will make you squirm. It will make you laugh. It also may very well make you sick. Gainsbourg's vision is his own: authentic and convulsive. But don't forget to hold your nose." John Zorn

Gainsbourg takes one childish, cheap and tasteless one-joke idea and manages to keep it entertaining enough to last for a whole book. he has an envious command of adjectives and adverbs. Mark Webber, Pulp

It's a parable of a guy who's got a serious farting problem. I know it sounds ludicrous, but it's one of the most well-written books I've ever read. It's really serious in tone because this guy has this malady and uses it to create art. It's not for the faint of heart. Russell Mael, Sparks

Like the songs he penned for Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin, and himself, this novelette by French singer/provocateur Serge Gainsbourg (who died in 1991) is infantile, shockingly frank, and extremely clever. First published in 1980 but previously unavailable in English, Evguénie Sokolov is the fictional autobiography of the uncontrollably flatulent title character, an artist who makes his distinctive drawings ("gasograms") by letting his hand move while passing violent wind. Hiding his condition by publicly blaming the inevitable sounds and odors on his bulldog, and artificially inducing it when it mysteriously vanishes, Sokolov climbs to the pinnacle of art-world success before his untimely end. This is not a book for the easily nauseated, but there's more substance than the one-joke premise suggests. Gainsbourg's book is a scatological allegory for the dangers facing artist, like the author himself, who turn their own internal pathologies into public spectacle.

Franklin Bruno, CMJ: New Music Monthly (May 1999)

'Ooo, don't come near me!' my grandmother said as I went to kiss her good-bye. 'Why, Gran, have you got that flu?' I innocently asked. 'No,' she said, wafting the air around her, 'I just fluffed.' Since bowel movement always been a subject of great discussion in my family, I had been dying to read famed French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg's 1980 novel Evguénie Sokolov (TamTam Books), about an artist who uses the vibrations of breaking wind to make his work. It's a funny yet tragic story, and Sokolov's technique and the art movement(Hyper-Abstractionism) his gasograms inspire are described so vividly you can almost smell the ---. Georgina Starr, Artforum International (May 1999)

Is there much difference between art and a fart? The recently republished 1980 novel by eccentric French torch singer Serge Gainsbourg wonders just that. ‘Evguénie Sokolov1 grew up ashamed of his chronic gas, but once he learns how to make gasograms, he becomes the darling of the art world. Sophomoric, giddy and insightful, this quick read proves just how well Gainsbourg understood the science of selling controversy and the troubles that come with being an enfant terrible.

Neil Gladstone, Ray Gun (September 1999)

It is axiomatic that an emperor rarely wears old clothes. Yet moldy figs forever carp that our own cultural emperors wear nought but new threads. To the figs, free improvisation or the heavy use of electronics or even playing away from standard Western pitch is evidence of naked sloth. To which we can only reply (in the eloquent words of Jimi Hendrix), 3Woof, woof, blah, blah2. The late French renaissance man, Serge Gainsbourg, was one cultural emperor who didn1t give a rat1s ass whether or not the establishment considered him talented. Gainsbourg understood the implicit nature of art in a post-Duchamp universe. As a creator, he created. If he did so while functioning as an artist, he created art. The fact that Serge often appeared (especially to non-French eyes) as little more than a poorly kept mumbler did not impinge on his view of himself as a great artist and provocateur. The recent interest in Gainsbourg1s recordings (spurred by Mick Harvey, Luna and others) bears out his opinion. Now that he is safely dead, Gainsbourg is becoming internationally acknowledged as one of the few keepers of France1s art flame in the late 20th century. Gainsbourg1s Evguénie Sokolov first appeared in 1980. It is, most simply. a novella about flatulence. Gainsbourg1s contemporaneous musical release of the same name consisted, appropriately, of fart sounds accompanied by reggae rhythms. Neither of these items was designed to be particularly fig friendly. It tells the story of a young painter whose bowels are in a constant uproar. Sokolov1s condition causes him no end of grief until, in an epiphanic moment, he discovers how to harness his gas in the service of his art. Sokolov1s rise through the art world, his battles with critics, and the evolution of his technique comprise the rest of the text. Both lyrically sophomoric and intellectually engaging, Gainsbourg1s only known book is a written parallel to his musical work. It pushes against acceptable boundaries of taste, while making it clear that the author finds such niceties both artificial and inane. What shines through, beyond this, is Gainsbourg1s delight in the process of production and the emergence of the final product itself. It1s apparent that he has internalized Duke Ellington1s dictum, 3if it sounds good, it is good2. And any artist who takes this instinctual route can be assured of a modicum of satisfaction, outside the strictures of externally applied aesthetic criteria. This liberating stance is also one that many of our more tight-assed squares (and even hipsters) might do well to consider. Perhaps if Ebba Jahn had read this story before making his 1984 film, Rising Tones Cross, he wouldn1t have been so automatically dismissive of John Zorn1s noisemaking antics. He could have just laid back and enjoyed the noise for what it was: fun. If you are neither a moldy fig nor an uptight intellectual, you1ll probably dig this funny, smutty little book. And if you are either one of those, man, you need it. Byron Coley, The Wire (May 1999)

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