This piece originated from the sixth Colloque des Invalides, once again organized by Jean-Jacques Lefrère and Michel Pierssens, in June 2002. As a frequent participant in these unique, always enlightening gatherings, I didn’t want to miss it. Each speaker was allotted five minutes, and I believed I had just enough to say within that constraint.

I was thinking of Tzara’s definition of the proverb as a “little collective folly of a pleasurable sound.” And I had on hand the anthology signed for me by Michel Corvin in 1966: Petite folie collective, illustrated by Copi. I had no intention of revisiting Dada per se.

I decided instead to comment on Tzara’s extended work with anagrams of Rabelais and Villon—an effort that applied a methodical mathematical formula and led only toward a new poetic reading. Wasn’t that, after all, a form of arithmomania—that obsessive tendency, seen for instance in Zola, to reduce everyday acts to numerical calculations?

The 2002 colloquium was quickly published, presenting all the contributions without the time restrictions:

Literary Madmen: New Frontiers: André Blavier, Léon Bopp, Auguste Boncors, André Breton, Colins de Ham, Jean Descombes, Guy Debord, Gustave Flaubert, Ladislav Klima, Paulin Gagne, Constantin Olympov, Raoul Ouffard, Georges Perec, Raymond Queneau, Schwarz-Abrys, Tristan Tzara, etc., texts edited by Jean-Jacques Lefrère and Michel Pierssens. Tusson: Du Lérot, 2003, 201 pp., illus., color cover; 23 cm. Collection En marge.

Cover illustration: Paulin Gagne as depicted in La Scie and L’Éclipse.

• François Caradec: Les Mariniers
• Pierre Popovic: Disappointment and the Messiah-Woman. A Rival and Loser to Flaubert: Paulin Gagne
• Jean-Louis Debauve: Paulin Gagne Writes to Ernest d’Hervilly
• Marc Angenot: An Overlooked Genius: Colins and Rational Socialism
• Vincent Laisney: Nodieriana or the “Follies” of a Man of Letters
• Jean-Didier Wagneur: Pierre-Paul Poulalion, the Foe of Participles
• Jacques Neefs: Léon (Bopp) and Emma (Bovary)
• Jean-Paul Goujon: Auguste Boncors or “By Everyone’s Reckoning, I Reincarnate Lautréamont”
• Eric Dussert: To Be or Not To Be
• Michel Braudeau: Raymond Queneau and the Vertigo of Literary Madness
• Dominique Noguez: Raoul Ouffard: His Life, His Work, or A Mad Writer and a Half
• Michel Décaudin: The Hexagon from the Pre-humans to François Mitterrand in 700 Sonnets
• Roger Grenier: Schwarz-Abrys: From Nailism to the Knife
• Anne-Lise David: Ladislav Klima: Everything Crushes Nothing
• Jacques Noizet: Hell Is a Firewall
• Henri Béhar: Another Little Collective Madness: Tristan Tzara’s Arithmomania
• Paul Braffort: Madness and the Sciences
• Marc Décimo: The Celtomaniacs
• Valéry Kislov: Constantin Olympov, Procreator of the Universe
• Christophe Bourseiller: Guy Debord or Transcending Madness
• David Bellos: Perec’s “Mad” Projects
• Anne Herschberg-Pierrot: From Bouvard and Pécuchet to Les Enfants du limon
• Alain Chevrier: André Breton and Literary Madness
• Roundtable

Download my article in PDF: Another Little Collective Madness: Tristan Tzara’s Arithmomania

Read:
Petite folie collective. Illustrated by Copi, Tchou, 1966, 255 pp. A collection of quotes, aphorisms, etc., compiled by Michel Corvin and illustrated by Copi.
[Digital edition available]