Reviews

Evguénie Sokolov by Serge Gainsbourg, John Weightman, Doreen Weightman, Russell Mael

stewarthome's review

5.0

Serge Gainsbourg is best known in the Anglo-American world for his 1969 hit single Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus made with the English actress Jane Birkin. Gainsbourg worked mainly as a musician and in Evguénie Sokolov (1980), his only novel, it is amusing to witness the boldness with which he moves from the world of entertainment into high brow literature in the form of a post-dadaist shaggy dog tale. Evguénie Sokolov the eponymous anti-hero of the book is a man who can’t stop farting. He takes what is potentially a socially debilitating condition and uses it to his own advantage by producing art works that record the way in which his farts drive his hand across the various surfaces on which he chooses to record the gaseous spasms of his bowel tract. By mercilessly riding out this quasi-materialist aesthetic, Sokolov becomes a famous artist.

Read my full review here: http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/sex/tam.htm