Tarr

By Wyndham Lewis

Book Overview

Percy Wyndham Lewis's "Tarr" is a sharp and satirical novel exploring the tumultuous intersection of art, bohemianism, and intellectual life in the early 20th century. Set against the backdrop of pre-World War I Europe, this English fiction delves into the lives of artists and thinkers navigating a world on the brink of dramatic change.

A powerful example of modernism, "Tarr" offers a biting commentary on societal norms and the artistic avant-garde. Lewis masterfully uses satire to dissect the pretensions and passions of his characters, creating a compelling and thought-provoking narrative. This historical work provides a glimpse into a pivotal era, capturing the anxieties and aspirations of a generation facing unprecedented upheaval. "Tarr" remains a relevant and insightful exploration of the human condition, offering timeless observations on art, love, and the search for meaning in a world in crisis.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1023564734
• ISBN13: 9781023564731
• Release Date: March 2025
• Publisher: Anson Street Press
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Organisms with Pretensions

If you were to take with you on vacation Wyndham Lewis's Tarr as a beach read, it'd somehow manage to kick sand in your face. It isn't breezy, nor especially pleasant. There really isn't a character to like in the whole work. And, upon finishing it, you'll feel as if you spent a long time at a greatly demoralizing task like checking behind the testicles of prisoner after prisoner for crack rocks or razor blades. Yet, the novel succeeds on its own terms. Lewis's puerile Nietzscheanism blares from every page, and his prose is as jagged as his Vorticist paintings. But Lewis really was the modernist's modernist (sorry Joyce fans, but it's true), almost singlehandedly introducing Cubism to Ruskin-worshiping Albion, and, of course, shaking up the literary scene with his journal, Blast. In Tarr you see just this sort of modernist: a writer not afraid to take risks, not reluctant to enrage a reading public fattened on the solicitous complacency of realist novelists. Make no mistake, the guy was a fascist and a raging misogynist. But he was also a great artist. Oh, and take special care to get only the 1918 edition; Lewis heavily revised Tarr in the twenties, much to the novel's detriment.

Wyndham Was Respected by Orwell for this Book

Wyndham's power derives from his tendency to be reactionary. Orwell, Pound, T.S. Elliot and Lewis all began with leftist tendencies, and evolved into a realization of the folly of superimposed mind control as practiced by the left. This novel is a stark satire of these "artistic" propoganda aspects as channeled through art. To attempt to label Lewis with all the ghastly "--isms" is to attempt to superimpose a like kind of modern leftist template over a wonderful '30's rebellion against exactly this kind of labelling. Hard as it may be to believe it, this putative thought control was even worse then, during the political ascendancy of communism.