Museum Visits (Paperback)

Eric Chevillard

ISBN 10: 0300254113 / ISBN 13: 9780300254112

Published by Yale University Press, 2024

About this Item

Paperback. The daring, mischievous micro-essays of award-winning French humorist Eric Chevillard, published in English for the first time Eric Chevillard is one of Frances leading stylists and thinkers, an endlessly inventive observer of the everyday whose erudition and imagination honor the legacy of Swift and Voltairewith some good-natured postmodern twists. This ensemble of comic miniatures compiles reflections on chairs, stairs, stones, goldfish, objects found, strangers observed, scenarios imagined, reasonable premises taken to absurd conclusions, and vice versa. The author erects a mental museum for his favorite artworks, only to find it swarming with tourists. He attends a harpsichord recital and lets his passions flare. He happens upon a piece of paper and imagines its sordid back story. He wonders if Hegels cap, on display in Stuttgart, is really worth the trip. Throughout, Chevillards powers of observation chime with his verbal acrobatics. His gazeinitially superficial, then deeply attentive, then practically sociopathicmanages time and again to defamiliarize the familiar with a coherent and charismatic charm. Daniel Levin Beckers translation deftly renders the marvels of the original, and a foreword by Daniel Medin offers rich contextual commentary, making a vital wing of French literature and humor newly accessible in English. The daring, mischievous micro-essays of award-winning French humorist Eric Chevillard, published in English for the first time Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780300254112

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Museum Visits (Paperback)
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300254113
• ISBN 13: 9780300254112
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

The daring, mischievous micro-essays of award-winning French humorist Éric Chevillard, published in English for the first time
 
Éric Chevillard is one of France’s leading stylists and thinkers, an endlessly inventive observer of the everyday whose erudition and imagination honor the legacy of Swift and Voltaire—with some good-natured postmodern twists.
 
This ensemble of comic miniatures compiles reflections on chairs, stairs, stones, goldfish, objects found, strangers observed, scenarios imagined, reasonable premises taken to absurd conclusions, and vice versa. The author erects a mental museum for his favorite artworks, only to find it swarming with tourists. He attends a harpsichord recital and lets his passions flare. He happens upon a piece of paper and imagines its sordid back story. He wonders if Hegel’s cap, on display in Stuttgart, is really worth the trip.
 
Throughout, Chevillard’s powers of observation chime with his verbal acrobatics. His gaze—initially superficial, then deeply attentive, then practically sociopathic—manages time and again to defamiliarize the familiar with a coherent and charismatic charm. Daniel Levin Becker’s translation deftly renders the marvels of the original, and a foreword by Daniel Medin offers rich contextual commentary, making a vital wing of French literature and humor newly accessible in English.

About the Author

Éric Chevillard (b. 1964) is an award-winning French writer. His many books include The Valiant Little Tailor, Prehistoric Times, and Palafox. Daniel Levin Becker is the author of Many Subtle Channels and What’s Good and a member of the Parisian literary collective OULIPO. Daniel Medin is professor of comparative literature and English at the American University of Paris and a director of its Center for Writers and Translators.