Trouble in the Swaths - Boris Vian

Trouble in the Swaths by Boris Vian, translated by Terry Bradford / ISBN 9781939663962 / 128-page paperback published in 2024 by Wakefield Press *** First published posthumously in 1966, Trouble in the Swaths was written for a small audience of family and friends during the Nazi Occupation of Paris, but it presented little evidence of those dark years. It is a flippant, at times outrageous parody of genre fiction laced through with bursts of Sadean violence, absurdist slapstick, and excessive wordplay in which Vian makes his fictionalized debut under such anagrammed monikers as the Baron Visi and the detective Brisavion. Preceding Ian Fleming’s novels by several years, Trouble in the Swaths nonetheless anticipates and ridicules such spy thrillers and their sexism, casual murders, plot twists, and technological gadgetry. The plot quickly shifts from mock realist novel to comic-book escapade as our two young dandy heroes, Count Adelphin de Beaumashin and Sérafinio Alvaraide, quickly aban