Andre Murciel isn't a Superman, he's a man who surpassed the steam engine phase.

Reading note

The Superman

by Alfred Jarry — read in September 2025

I translate "L'oltremaschio" the title of this novel. In French, the Nietzschean overman is "surhomme." In this key, it's easier to read the work. Andre Murciel isn't a Superman, he's a man who surpassed the steam engine phase and guides humanity toward a new destiny.

The machine and its promise of transcendence return also in La patafisica è l’arte del vedere, where the problem is the opposite: what remains when technique occupies all reality.