The Supermale

The Supermale is a novel published in 1902 by the French writer Alfred Jarry, the last he wrote before his death in 1907. Blending irreverent, darkly comic humour with elements of science fiction, it is considered one of the most singular works of its author and of the avant-garde literature of its day.

Most of the action takes place on Andre Marcueil's estate, the Château de Lurance, and the story is set in a near future, roughly the 1920s relative to the time of writing. It opens with a dinner party where several guests debate the nature of love and propose competing definitions: an emotion, an impression on the soul, an enfeebled sensation, or an activity, the last of which Andre sets out to prove. The narrative then turns back to Andre's childhood, showing a sexually repressed boy who, taking bromide and training his body, aims to become superhumanly strong. This is the origin of the 'supermale' of the title.

The plot then branches into several episodes: a ten-thousand-mile race between a train and a team of cyclists sustained by perpetual-motion food, an experiment in which Andre and a young woman named Ellen set a record for sexual encounters, and finally a love machine built to force Andre to fall in love. The ending is as brutal as it is ironic.

The book caused a scandal at the time and found few readers, but it has since been championed for its audacity, its black humour and its anticipation of themes such as technological obsession and sexuality pushed to its limits. It was translated into English by Barbara Wright in 1968.