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| Wyndham Lewis: |
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| Tarr – The 1918 Version |
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Edited with an Afterword by Paul O'Keeffe
Illustrations by Wyndham Lewis |
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This is Wyndham Lewis's first modernist novel and in many ways his most fascinating, particularly for its memorable characters. Tarr was originally serialized in the 'Romantic Egoist', as was Joyce's 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'. Together they signaled a new era in literature and the start of the Modernist movement in the English language. This edition presents Tarr as it left Lewis's hand in 1915, before he completely rewrote it in 1928. The present text, unavailable for the past 60 years, restores the original punctuation which lent Lewis's prose a distinctive Vorticist appearance.
A vivid and largely autobiographical account of expatriate life in Paris before the Great War, Tarr draws heavily on Lewis's own experience in Montparnasse between the years 1903-1908, and brings to life the bohemian milieu of turn of the Century Paris, where artists from all parts of the Continent gathered to pursue painting and ego satisfaction. Tarr contains one of the great characters of 20th Century literature, the ridiculous and frightening Otto Kreisler: |
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...Anastasya's laughter had upset and ended everything in his ''imaginary life.'' He told himself now that he 'hated' her.==''Ich hasse dich! Ich hasse dich!==he hissed to himself, enjoying the wind of the 'hasse' in his moustaches.==But (there was no doubt about it) the laugh had crushed him.==Ridiculous and hateful had been his goal. But now that he had succeeded, he thought, chiefly in the latter affair, he was overwhelmed. His vanity was wounded terribly. In 'laughing' at him she had puffed out and transformed in an extraordinary way, also his infatuation.==For the first time since he had first set eyes on her he realized her sex. His sensuality had been directly stirred.==He wanted to 'kiss' her now. He must get his mouth on hers.-he must revel in the laugh, where it grew.==She was néfaste.==She was in fact evidently 'the Devil'. |
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432 pages, Paperback, 6'' x 9'' (230 x 150 mm)
10 b/w illustrations, English
ISBN: 0-87685-784-5 |
| $ 17.50 |
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| About the Editor: |
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Paul O'Keeffe was born in Liverpool in 1950. He attended the University of Manchester in the 1970s and was awarded his doctorate and the University of Liverpool in 1989. In between he taught English in Paris and was a professional actor in London. He now works as a part-time tutor for the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Liverpool. Paul O'Keffee is the Editor of Enemy News, the Journal of the Wyndham Lewis Society.
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