Twice Two - Five (Alfons Alle)

The collection of Alfonso Allé “Twice Two - Five (2 + 2 = 5)" is almost exactly in the middle of the list of books published by this author during his lifetime. At the same time, it is one of the most mature and popular storybooks, which has received the greatest distribution.

This book includes 65 stories (in some publications - 63), ^[1] published a year or two years earlier (from the end of 1893 to the end of March 1895) in the Paris newspapers The Journal ( French Le Journal) ) and Black Cat ( French: Le Chat Noir ). This method of compilation of collections was traditional for Alla: to begin with, he received some wishes of the publisher (Paul Ollendorf), then he made up his own “annual” collection, as a rule, from those newspaper stories that he considered the best in recent times (in the widespread the best of last genre).

In the collection "Twice Two - Five (2 + 2 = 5)" there are many stories in the spirit of black humor that anticipate surrealism or Dadaism . Many surrealists (in particular, Rene Magritte , Max Ernst , Valentina Hugo , Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp ) generally considered Alfons Alla (and in his person all the fumism , speaking more broadly) as one of his early forerunners. Andre Breton included three stories in his (first of its kind) Anthology of Black Humor, recognizing, thus, the high surreal qualities of Alfons Allé's prose. ^[2] And in fact, many plots of Alla do not have a “sound” ordinary explanation.

In the table of contents of the collection “Twice Two - Five,” you can find several very special stories that carry features that are not at all humorous, and sometimes eerie or visionary. For example, Economic Patriotism ( French Patriotisme économique ) not only anticipated (more than a hundred years) this strange bureaucratic term, introduced in July 2005 by the Social Democratic Prime Minister of France, Dominic de Villepin, at his press conference , ^{[ 2]} but also described in detail the future appearance of bacteriological (and chemical) weapons in Europe twenty years before the outbreak of World War I. In a terrible grotesque form, the story describes the main features and slogans of the Nazi ideology of the destruction of individual peoples, created after three decades, ^[3] looking at this question from the opposite side of the trenches. Speaking with an exalted “public letter” to the then leader of Parisian nationalists, Paul Derule, in the voice of a “patriot of France” (in fact, the future French fascist), Alfons Alle directly offers a miraculous means: “destroy all Germans” without firing a shot with the help of “bacilli and poisoners alone” substances ”.

“... Imagine, we could fire a bulky army and set up beautiful casinos in the barracks, we would send horses to the races, and sell all useless guns to scrap. All this trash in one minute would become unnecessary. And we would eliminate it, that's how!

Instead of all this noisy, stupid and expensive equipment, it would be possible to secretly equip several small military laboratories in which our best scientists would cultivate and propagate the most dangerous pathogenic viruses in the nutrient medium necessary for them ... " ^[2]

- ( Alfons Alle , from the story "Economic Patriotism") ^[4]

And in a small circus play stylized as a story (with elements of the afterlife mysticism) called “Revenge of Magnum” ( French: La Vengeance de Magnum , the Russian translation of the story is called “Chekusheva's revenge”), ^[2] Alfons Alle prescribes the main performers roles, repeat one clearly written out small mise-en-scene “at least two dozen times”, and continue it until the audience turns blue. ^[2] Thus, the author of the play for more than seven decades anticipated the main features of the future style of minimalism : immediately in literature, theater and cinema ... ^[3]

Another story, An Interesting Position ( French Proposition ingénieuse ), is made in the form of a legislative initiative written either by an idiot or a terry anarchist . In the spirit of the extremely cynical and harsh satire of his senior contemporary Peter Schumacher , Alfons Alle proposes to officially allow all cavaliers of the Order of the Legion of Honor (the highest award of France) to be cuckolds. ^[3]

“... And I understand perfectly well that out of all our press you are the only one who is able to give my project enough attractiveness and authority, and then attract the attention of the Parliament , in which there are so many empty asses with useless voices. Here is a great chance for them to finally justify their extremely stupid existence ... ” ^[2]

- ( Alfons Alle , from the story "An Interesting Situation")

The collection ends with an ironic and short, like aphorisms, “Notes from the Cote d'Azur ”. The genre of “travel notes” was very fashionable and widespread in the last third of the XIX century, when Europeans travel gradually became mass due to the rapid technological development of transport. Almost all famous writers and journalists, on the instructions of their publishers or magazines, were noted in this genre. However, in his brief ironic notes (almost jokes), Alfons Alle managed to breathe new life into this seemingly obscure and mundane way of telling about his vacation.

In 2013, the publishing house Center of Middle Music and Faces of Russia , St. Petersburg , published a book: Yuri Hanon , Alphonse, which was not there. This is the first book in Russian with texts about Alphonse All and his stories. ^[2] It included two well-known collections of short stories by Alfons Allé: “We are not beef”, “Twice two almost five”, as well as a micro-collection (as noted in the text) “Three shoes” ^[2] and two large Preface: “Alphonse That Was” and “Alphonse That Wasn't.” The Russian text of the book was completely compiled by Yuri Hanon.

“... In this book ... I repeat, I have put everything into this book ...,
... all that I still knew about stupidity and
about stupidity ..., I repeat, about stupidity and stupidity ...,
your stupidity ... madame, monsieur ... and even mademoiselle.

And I would ask everyone else not to worry.

Because worrying is late. ” ^[2]

- ( Yuri Hanon , an epigraph from the book “Which Alfons Was Not”)

As can be seen even from one title of the collection “Twice Two - Almost Five”, the author not only translated the book into Russian, but also strengthened the impression of the severity of the absurdity of the word play of Alfons Allé. Similarly, Yuri Hanon did the same with the texts of the stories of Alfons Alla. Here is what he himself writes about this:

From the very beginning, having found on the page not one, but two whole authors of this text, the reader was supposedly honestly warned: before him is not a word-for - word translation and not even a pedantic translation (or adaptation) from one language into another language of articles and other texts by Alfons. Simply put, this literary product is not a professional translator. No one. And even more than that, the reader can be sure that the Russian text is noticeably different from the French original, at least in the same inevitable way as the poetic original is different from the translation of another original poet.

The main goal of the second author was not to convey the text, but the spirit, intonation and intentions of such an original and harshly eccentric author as Alphonse Allé was. Many, if not most of his texts, cannot be adequately translated into Russian at all (in the exact sense of the word “translation”). ^[2]

• “Twice Two - Almost Five” on the Hanograf website
• “Economic Patriotism” (a story from the collection “Twice Two - Almost Five”)
• Alfons Alle, Yuri Hanon: “Alfons, which was not there” (excerpts from the book)
• “ Bad varnishing ” in Wikisource (a story from the collection “Twice Two - Almost Five”)
• “A vile joke ” in Wikisource (a story from the collection “Twice Two - Almost Five”)