Paul LaFarge
Encyclopedia
Paul La Farge is an American novelist, essayist and academic whose three books, The Artist of the Missing (1999), Haussmann, or the Distinction (2001) and The Facts of Winter (2005) received generally favorable critical notices, with Haussmann, in particular, singled out as the work of a unique and original creative mind.
A native of New York City, La Farge graduated from Yale
and has taught writing at Wesleyan University
on and off since 2002. He is currently a Visiting Professor of English at Wesleyan (2009–2010). He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship
and has been chosen as artist-in-residence at artists' colonies
MacDowell
and Yaddo
. He has taught writing at Columbia
and was the 2005 winner of the fourth annual Bard Fiction Prize bestowed by Bard College
, where he is on the MFA
faculty.
La Farge's first novel, The Artist of the Missing, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in May 1999, and illustrated with surrealist images by cubist
artist Stephen Alcorn, takes place in an anonymous, modern-day city in which people go missing on a regular basis. Frank, the titular character, paints portraits of the missing, among whom are his parents, his brother James and, eventually, even his romantic interest, enigmatic police photographer Prudence, whose job it was to take pictures of corpses. Reviewers compared the debut work to those of Gabriel García Márquez
, Jorge Luis Borges
and categorized him among "literary wizards" and "fantasists".
Two years later, his second novel, Haussmann, or the Distinction (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, September 2001) purports to peel layers from the mysterious private life of Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann (1809–1891), the flawed genius city planner who, in the 1860s, masterminded the carving up of Parisian streets into modern boulevards, of which the Champs-Élysées
is the most renowned example. In his review for The New York Times
, Edmund White
called it "imaginative — indeed, a hallucinatory — approach, one that ends up by transforming his supremely practical subject (for Haussmann was above all a systematic worker) into an elegant and sometimes grotesque fairy-tale hero".
named Paul Poissel, extended to the "reproduction", in the opening pages of the book, of the title page of the "posthumously" published in 1922, "first (and only) French edition of Haussmann, or the Distinction", and the inclusion, in the afterword, of daguerreotype
s, the first of which depicts a female whom the caption identifies as "Yvonne Dutronc, ca. 1872", a character which does not even appear in the main narrative, but is mentioned only in the afterword, in La Farge's own (fictional) footnote and (apparently) on the dedication page—"for Y." The second image purports to be that of "Paul Poissel in 1880" and both are described as having been "found" by the afterword's veritable author, Paul La Farge, himself, in the archives of the French national library, Bibliothèque nationale. An elaborate website, The long sad life of Paul Poissel, which expands the conceit, assigns June 4, 1848–November 17, 1921 as Poissel's dates, along with myriad details about his life and times. The entire website functions as satire, including, at one point, the accusation that the American author "masquerading" under the French name "La Farge" had the audacity to put his own name on front cover, as if he was the actual author. Other parts of the website include quotations, such as an excerpt from a 1934 letter Walter Benjamin
"wrote" to Gershom Scholem
, in which he makes a deeply complicated observation about Poissel, and also MP3
files featuring early archival "recordings" of Poissel's voice, reciting (in French) portions from his own "works". Haussmann, as a whole, also serves to display the depth of La Farge's scholarship into the period of the Second Empire
as well as his playfulness with language (the putative front page of the 1922 work indicates that it was issued "à Paris, chez les Éditions de cire perdu", or by "the Paris Publishing House of Lost-Wax Casting").
The "Poissel" name extends to and, to a degree, arrogates La Farge's third book, The Facts of Winter (McSweeney's, June 2005) which, on its front cover, states, "by Paul Poissel, translated by Paul La Farge". It is also set in Paris, although the year is now 1881, a decade into the Third Republic
, and we are privy to "a series of short dreams, each dreamed by people in and around Paris, which is to say that it is a fictional account of the imaginary lives of people who may or may not be real". Again, La Farge's French erudition is in full evidence, as the dream accounts come to the reader in both French and English, and the descriptive language is hauntingly poetic. The scholarly "afterword" strives to elucidate further the work and thought of the "unjustly neglected" author of this tome, Paul Poissel.
Academic career and first novel
His fourth book, "Luminous Airplanes," is the humourous story of a somewhat lost young man with two mothers who finds a family secret while cleaning out the home of his grandfather in upstate New York.A native of New York City, La Farge graduated from Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and has taught writing at Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
on and off since 2002. He is currently a Visiting Professor of English at Wesleyan (2009–2010). He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
and has been chosen as artist-in-residence at artists' colonies
Art colony
right|300px|thumb|Artist houses in [[Montsalvat]] near [[Melbourne, Australia]].An art colony or artists' colony is a place where creative practitioners live and interact with one another. Artists are often invited or selected through a formal process, for a residency from a few weeks to over a year...
MacDowell
MacDowell Colony
The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...
and Yaddo
Yaddo
Yaddo is an artists' community located on a 400 acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment."...
. He has taught writing at Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and was the 2005 winner of the fourth annual Bard Fiction Prize bestowed by Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
, where he is on the MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
faculty.
La Farge's first novel, The Artist of the Missing, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in May 1999, and illustrated with surrealist images by cubist
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
artist Stephen Alcorn, takes place in an anonymous, modern-day city in which people go missing on a regular basis. Frank, the titular character, paints portraits of the missing, among whom are his parents, his brother James and, eventually, even his romantic interest, enigmatic police photographer Prudence, whose job it was to take pictures of corpses. Reviewers compared the debut work to those of Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
, Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
and categorized him among "literary wizards" and "fantasists".
Two years later, his second novel, Haussmann, or the Distinction (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, September 2001) purports to peel layers from the mysterious private life of Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann (1809–1891), the flawed genius city planner who, in the 1860s, masterminded the carving up of Parisian streets into modern boulevards, of which the Champs-Élysées
Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strip of real estate in the world. The name is...
is the most renowned example. In his review for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Edmund White
Edmund White
Edmund Valentine White III is an American author and literary critic. He is a member of the faculty of Princeton University's Program in Creative Writing.- Life and work :...
called it "imaginative — indeed, a hallucinatory — approach, one that ends up by transforming his supremely practical subject (for Haussmann was above all a systematic worker) into an elegant and sometimes grotesque fairy-tale hero".
Paul Poissel
The work's insistently presented conceit—that the author, Paul La Farge, is merely the translator of an obscure French-language text by a forgotten minimalist metaphysicianMetaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
named Paul Poissel, extended to the "reproduction", in the opening pages of the book, of the title page of the "posthumously" published in 1922, "first (and only) French edition of Haussmann, or the Distinction", and the inclusion, in the afterword, of daguerreotype
Daguerreotype
The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate....
s, the first of which depicts a female whom the caption identifies as "Yvonne Dutronc, ca. 1872", a character which does not even appear in the main narrative, but is mentioned only in the afterword, in La Farge's own (fictional) footnote and (apparently) on the dedication page—"for Y." The second image purports to be that of "Paul Poissel in 1880" and both are described as having been "found" by the afterword's veritable author, Paul La Farge, himself, in the archives of the French national library, Bibliothèque nationale. An elaborate website, The long sad life of Paul Poissel, which expands the conceit, assigns June 4, 1848–November 17, 1921 as Poissel's dates, along with myriad details about his life and times. The entire website functions as satire, including, at one point, the accusation that the American author "masquerading" under the French name "La Farge" had the audacity to put his own name on front cover, as if he was the actual author. Other parts of the website include quotations, such as an excerpt from a 1934 letter Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
"wrote" to Gershom Scholem
Gershom Scholem
Gerhard Scholem who, after his immigration from Germany to Palestine, changed his name to Gershom Scholem , was a German-born Israeli Jewish philosopher and historian, born and raised in Germany...
, in which he makes a deeply complicated observation about Poissel, and also MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
files featuring early archival "recordings" of Poissel's voice, reciting (in French) portions from his own "works". Haussmann, as a whole, also serves to display the depth of La Farge's scholarship into the period of the Second Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
as well as his playfulness with language (the putative front page of the 1922 work indicates that it was issued "à Paris, chez les Éditions de cire perdu", or by "the Paris Publishing House of Lost-Wax Casting").
The "Poissel" name extends to and, to a degree, arrogates La Farge's third book, The Facts of Winter (McSweeney's, June 2005) which, on its front cover, states, "by Paul Poissel, translated by Paul La Farge". It is also set in Paris, although the year is now 1881, a decade into the Third Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
, and we are privy to "a series of short dreams, each dreamed by people in and around Paris, which is to say that it is a fictional account of the imaginary lives of people who may or may not be real". Again, La Farge's French erudition is in full evidence, as the dream accounts come to the reader in both French and English, and the descriptive language is hauntingly poetic. The scholarly "afterword" strives to elucidate further the work and thought of the "unjustly neglected" author of this tome, Paul Poissel.
External links
- Paul La Farge's web site
- Brief biography of Paul La Farge at the Timothy McSweeney publisher's website, describing LaFarge as "a leading scholar on the work of Paul Poissel, one of the least known of the little-known French 'tiny metaphysician' writers of the late 19th century"