Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician

Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician is a novel by Alfred Jarry, written in 1898 and published posthumously in 1911, four years after the author's death. Together with Ubu Roi, it is considered one of Jarry's most representative works and the forerunner of pataphysics, the discipline the author invented to study the laws that govern exceptions and explain a universe added to our own.

The book is divided into eight parts with titles such as "Introduction," "Elements of Pataphysics," "From Paris to Paris by Sea, or the Belgian Robinson," "Cephalorgy," "Officially," "At Lucullus's House," "Khurmookum" and "Eternity." Its protagonist, Doctor Faustroll, is a scholar born at the age of sixty-three who founds pataphysics. The story begins with his eviction from his residence and proceeds through a haphazard plot, accompanied by a baboon named Bosse-de-Nage, which can only repeat "Ah-ah." The narrative is studded with philosophical and mathematical references, and its at times nonsensical language brings it close to Dada.

Although little read at the time, the work has exerted considerable influence on avant-garde literature and later culture, both for its humor and formal experimentation and for the legacy of pataphysics, which inspired the group of the same name founded in France decades later.