What is bad taste? Flaubert had his opinion on the question: “It’s invariably the taste of the time that preceded us. Don’t all children find their father ridiculous?” A synonym then comes to mind: corny. This is of course reductive. Author of a hilarious Bad Taste Lovers Dictionary, Nicolas d’Estienne d’Orves (alias NEO) qualifies this definitive judgment: “There is patent, claimed bad taste, which is not an attitude, a fashion, but an artistic profession of faith, an aesthetic manifesto. is without a doubt what one could call kitsch.” A sort of schoolboy dandy, a cross between Oscar Wilde and Laurent Gerra, NEO refines further by distinguishing between two bad tastes: good and bad.
In the first category, he celebrates in particular: andouillette, Jean-Bedel Bokassa, horse butchers, the arm of honor, telephone pranks, bawdy songs, The Crapouillot, Dumb and Dumberfairgrounds, Benny Hill, flypaper, the Château de Pierrefonds, taxidermy, Dita Von Teese, Paul Verlaine (for “his comical, even naughty vein”)… In the second, he taunts among others: the pets, Beauty of the Lord, botox, sausages in the shape of dachshunds, greeting cards, Anne Hidalgo, the Louvre Museum, the New Roman, Georges Pompidou, wedding dresses, sushi, Omar Sy, holidays, comfortable clothes… Everything a program ! If NEO chooses to laugh at it, he confesses it: “It is undoubtedly the one of my books where I reveal myself the most. A hollow self-portrait, in short.”
Let us raise the debate by quoting Marcel Duchamp: “The great enemy of art is good taste.” Not wrong: Artists with posh credentials are often very boring while those with dubious influences manage to be more creative. This truth goes hand in hand with Baudelaire’s famous phrase: “What is intoxicating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of displeasing.”
Constantly alternate gravity and seriousness
In this Bad Taste Lovers Dictionary, NEO thus brings many loudmouths to the skies: Jean-Pierre Mocky, Daniel Prévost, Professor Choron, Jean Yanne… People who are hard to imagine on France Inter today. We also feel it in the praise he devotes to Joël Séria (the director of Pont-Aven pancakes and of… Like the moon) : NEO is nostalgic for a freedom of spirit which has continued to shrink since the 1970s. Without seeking provocation, he wonders by weighing the pros and cons if one can still love Dieudonné, Tony Duvert , Michel Leeb, Renaud Camus or colonial imagery. Grand-nephew of Honoré d’Estienne d’Orves, hero of the Resistance if ever there was one, NEO can speak without shame of his taste for collaborating writers, on which he is unbeatable – he is also the executor by Rebatet.
It is the charm of this bible that one can read from beginning to end or peck by picking here and there the entries that amuse or intrigue us: NEO constantly alternates gravity and seriousness, proving to be as on the work of Jean-Yves Lafesse than on that of Pierre Louÿs. In our era of compulsory sport, diets and veganism, we cannot resist quoting a few lines from his “ode to fat”, which would have pleased Churchill: “What could be more exquisite than cholesterol? What could be sweeter than a good glass of goose fat in the morning What could be more shimmering than a raw sausage at prayer time And the ecstasies of a heart attack at 50? […] Let’s be indolent, lymphatic, nonchalant, amorphous, flabby, wobbly, lazy, negligent, lazy, cowardly, unproductive, useless, parasites, leeches, cuckoos… It’s a question of survival. Let’s be soft, eat fat and die young!”
On these good resolutions, let’s leave the conclusion to Andy Warhol: “Bad taste makes time pass faster.” Nicolas d’Estienne d’Orves’ book is almost 600 pages long and yet it devours itself without anyone noticing. CQFD? Louis-Henri de La Rochefoucauld
Amorous Dictionary of Bad Taste, pby Nicolas d’Estienne d’Orves. Plon, 583 pages, €26.50.