I started reading the works Boris Vian wrote in his 20s when I was in my early 20s. “I hate my education Mr. Brul, because there are too many imbeciles who know how to read,” says the hero of Red Grass “When I was in fifth grade, they made me believe that my only advancement should be getting into the sixth grade. I was supposed to give my final exam when I was in the final grade. Then a diploma. Yes, Mr. Brul, I thought I had a purpose, but I had nothing. I was walking in a corridor with no beginning or an end in a herd of imbeciles, watching other imbeciles. We write off our lives with diplomas”. Of course, such sentences were not “great examples” for me at those ages, but Boris Vian’s works were attractive mainly because of this reason! It is no mere coincidence that his books were passed from and to hand during the 68 events, or that he is among the four most popular authors (along with Émile Zola, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus) among French students after 1970. I started reading his books consecutively, and I learnt Boris Vian’s close connection to jazz while reading the introduction penned down by Cemal Bali Akal, the translator of the 1985 edition of Heartsnatcher, published by Can Yayinlari.
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Cemal Bali Akal wrote: “Heartsnatcher, Vian’s last novel, took a long time for him to finish, even though he usually wrote spontaneously and fast, not usually going over what he wrote. Vian, who did not write again after this novel, was also interested in music, especially jazz. Vian was a good trumpet player, and he played in Claude Abadie Orchestra, one of the best amateur jazz orchestras in France, along with his brothers Alain and Lélio. He also worked at Club du Tabou and Club St Germain-des-Prés’de, and played with Claude Luter. He didn’t only play the trumpet, but also became a defender of American Jazz in France, and later on modern jazz, and gave speeches on the topic, as well as writing for magazines such as Jazz Hot and Jazz News.” Therefore, Boris Vian’s name should be mentioned at the intersection between literature and jazz. Even though he doesn’t mention it as a central theme in his books, jazz undoubtedly played a central part in his own life—or more accurately, was one of the central aspects of it…
It was only one of the central aspects, because Boris Vian is neither an author who played the trumpet at his spare times, nor a trumpet player who wrote during these times. It is not fair to call him solely a trumpet player or an author either. For example, Boris Vian gives a interview in the first few minutes of the 2009 documentary Boris Vian, La Vie Jazz. When asked about his professions, Boris Vian replies: “I was an engineer before anything else”. Yes, Boris Vian was also an engineer, who has had one of his clever inventions patented. Trying to list his list of qualifications: Novelist, poet, playwright, engineer, trumpet player, composer, an artist who composed also for ballet and opera, scenarist, musical director… In other words, it was as if Boris Vian knew death would come to him early and produced non-stop in his short lifespan of 39 years.
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Boris Vian’s health had always been a problem for him; the reason he stopped playing the trumpet and “downplayed” his interest in jazz to being a columnist was because his doctor’s strict advice against it. Maybe nobody believed Vian when he said that “Every breath into my trumpet steals from my life”, but his doctor was stern about it. He should take care of his health and steer clear from the exhaustion caused by regularly playing with the orchestra. Death didn’t catch him on stage but in a movie theatre. He was watching the movie adaptation of I Spit on Your Graves when he passed away on 23 Haziran 1959.
As a conclusion, maybe we cannot claim that Boris Vian’s books are books about jazz, but we classify them as books written by a jazz musician. One of the most comprehensive sources about Boris Vian’s life, as well as about his relationship with jazz, that has been translated into Turkish is Noël Arnaud’s Boris Vian’ın Paralel Hayatları (Les Vies parallèles de Boris Vian), which I also consulted for this article. This biography was translated by Alev Er and was published in 2013 by İletişim Yayınları.
