Christian Bok – författare

A critical look at the historical and cultural implications of Alfred Jarry's pseudoscience, pataphysics 'Pataphysics, what Alfred Jarry calls ""the science of imaginary solutions,"" has until now gone largely ignored by literary scholars, due in part to its academic frivolity and hermetic perversity. Nevertheless, this capricious philosophy has inspired nearly one hundred years of avant-garde experimentation. Christian Bok redresses this critical omission by tracing the tangled history of pataphysics, discussing the tension between science and poetics, in order to demonstrate that pataphysics constitutes an intrinsic, but neglected, cornerstone of postmodernity itself. Bok examines the work of Jarry, arguing that it represents a humorous addendum to the philosophy of Nietzsche, while also considering the influence of 'pataphysics upon the poetic legacy of the twentieth century, particularly the work of Italian Futurists, French Oulipians, and Canadian Jarryites. Bok resorts to the radical poetics of such contemporary philosophers as Delauze, Derrida, Baudrillard, and Serres in order to explicate the 'pataphysical relationship between rationalism and its discontents. Bok draws on a wide range of reading in poetry and theory to establish a firm historical ground for understanding the influence of 'pataphysics - all the while making a variety of seemingly difficult or obscure material accessible in a surprisingly charming and poetic manner. A long overdue critical look at a significant strain of the twentieth-century avant-garde, his book raises important historical, cultural, and theoretical issues germane to the production and reception of poetry, how we think about it, how we write it, how we read it, and what sorts of claims it makes upon our understanding.

Winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize (2002)

Stunning and masterful in its execution, Eunoia is a five-chapter book in which each chapter is a univocal lipogram.

The word ‘eunoia,’ which literally means ‘beautiful thinking,’ is the shortest word in English that contains all five vowels. Directly inspired by the Oulipo (l’Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), a French writers’ group interested in experimenting with different forms of literary constraint, Eunoia is a five-chapter book in which each chapteris a univocal lipogram – the first chapter has A as its only vowel, the second chapter E, etc. Each vowel takes on a distinct personality: the I is egotistical and romantic, the O jocular and obscene, the E elegiac and epic (including a retelling of the Iliad!).

Stunning in its implications and masterful in its execution, Eunoia has developed a cult following, garnering extensive praise and winning the Griffin Poetry Prize. The original edition was never released in the U.S., but it has already been a bestseller in Canada and the U.K. (published by Canongate Books), where it was listed as one of the Times’ top ten books of 2008.

This new edition features several new but related poems by Christian Bok and an expanded afterword.

''Eunoia is a novel that will drive everybody sane.'' —Samuel Delany

''Eunoia takes the lipogram and rendersit obsolete.'' —Kenneth Goldsmith

''A marvellous, musical texture of rhymes and echoes.'' —Harry Mathews

''An exemplary monument for 21st century poetry.'' —Charles Bernstein

''Bök''s dazzling word games are the literary sensation of the year.'' —The Times

''A resounding success ... brilliant.'' —The Guardian

''Brilliant ... beautiful and strange.'' —Today Programme, BBC Radio 4

''Impressive.'' —Sunday Telegraph

''No mere Christmas stocking filler for Countdown fans. Rather, it''s an ingenious little novel ... playful and irreverent ... charming.'' —Metro