Awhile back we posted on Olivier Py's 11-hour sit fest of Paul Claudel's Le Soulier de Satin, which if you are a Claudel fan was pig heaven. Some art by its nature is extravagant. Some art grand. Some art gigantic.

And then there is gimmicky bigness, overdoneness, excess-by-design. There is Patrick Huet, notary, poet, and indefatigable scrivener.

PATRICK HUET, LE LONG POÈT
Meters By The Meter

BOUNTIFUL MUSE: FRENCHMAN SHOWS OFF 1KM-LONG POEM

CHAMPIER August 5, 2006 (AFP) - A 30 year-old Frenchman yesterday put on display what he claimed is the longest poem* in the world – nearly 7,600 verses [7, 543] written on a roll of fabric that stretched to almost one kilometre (0.62 miles) [994.1m, 0.617 miles] on a car racetrack in southeast France.

Patrick Huet, a public notary, spent a month and a half composing "Pieces of Hope to the Echo of the World" and then a further month copying it onto the material, which was unrolled with the help of a tractor.**

None of that dilatory Flaubert-fretting-over-the-comma for hours on end. The aesthetic of M. Huet's poem is in its measurements not its measures.

The Muse -- Calliope? -- began chatting up M. Huet on March 1st of this year and, after putting in 10-12 hour days -- being a Greek Muse not a French unionist Muse -- finished up her inspirations on April 9th. The poem delivered was written on 10 fabric rolls of 100m each, requiring 30 hours of stitching to make one big roll, which weighed a total of 110kg. The transcription used 160 felt tips with M. Huet scribing 12-14 hours daily.

But there is yet more gimmickry.

The work is an acrostic, a poem in which the first letters of each verse spell out a message -- in this case the text of the 30 articles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"It came from a deep pressure inside me, a burning desire to express myself on the terrible scourges that have afflicted humanity for so many generations that we lose count," Huet said.

Yes. We too have felt such pressure. Usually following a meal at Tortilla Flats. The poem appears to be rhymed couplets judging from the sample on offer:

Tant de tendres matins ont bleui dans les âges

Offrant aux aurores de nouveaux paysages

Un espoir qui pulsait tout au long des saisons

Saluant les enfants au lever des maisons

Is the poem any good? We don't know. The treacly tease above is all M. Huet offers on his site. Maybe it gets better. Good or bad though is not the point. Longhand length is the point. M. Huet is shooting for Guinness not the Pantheon.

* This claim is only for the continuous physical length of the handwritten poem. The Iliad at some 16,000 verses easily beats M. Huet by 8,400+ verses. The Indian Mahabharata is longer by some 92,000+ verses. The Tibetan Epic of King Gesar is longer still by over 992,400+ verses.

** The weather did not oblige and the unrolling took place in a downpour. The absorbent fabric swelled to some 300kg, scil., 660lbs, requiring the tractor assist.

PFFT (What is this?): Mesure démesuré 4 | Rayonnement français 1½

France is one, shitty, little country...