Hommage à mes mages (FICTION) (French Edition)
At the start of the book Clotilde is desperately poor, but good fortune conspires to see her rise up in the world and temporarily find happiness. Of course, in the second half, the good life she has made for herself comes tumbling down in the most overwrought and melodramatic fashion imaginable. Like his contemporary Huysmans, Bloy's writing is often at its strongest when he's venting his spleen against something that disgusts him, and like Huysmans, there's very little that doesn't disgust Bloy.
In the pages of this book he rails against modernity, Paris, the Jews, Marianne: And you can usually guess how much Bloy likes a character by how they're described, in that the more likeable characters such as Clotilde are usually given very brief physical descriptions, whereas her loathsome neighbor Monsieur Poulot is described thusly: Still, when he had drunk a few glasses of absinthe, with his wife, as they soon learned, his high-boned cheeks would glow like a couple of light-houses on a stormy sea.
And then, from the centre of a face whose tint oddly reminded one of a Tartar camel in the moulting season, there jutted out a bugle of a nose whose tip, usually veined with purplish streaks, would at such times display a sudden rosy hue and glow like an altar lamp. Beneath it there shrank from sight a weak, flaccid mouth, shaded with one of those bristly moustaches favoured by certain bailiff's men, to give an air of military ferocity to the professional cowardice of their calling.
Arthur B. Evans
There is little to be said about his eyes; at the best, their expression might be compared to that in the eyes of a sated seal, when it has gorged its fill and is giving itself up to the raptures of digestion. Indeed, one of the more perverse pleasures of this book is trying to decide who the most horrible person in it is: Monsieur and Madame Poulot are the obvious contenders, but Clotilde's harpy of a mother described alternately as a "sniveling old termagant," a "mummified old crone" and a "nightmare houri" and her drunken lout of a boyfriend could easily qualify as well.
Because Bloy had at least one toe dipped in the pool of Naturalism, many of the characters that appear in this book are based on real-life people for the curious, the list may be found here: Never one for modesty, Bloy apparently modeled the two most heroic male characters after himself. His old frenemy J. Actually, it is for this reason why I'm docking this book one star, being something of a Huysmans loyalist myself.
It's bad enough that Bloy here describes Huysmans as a "diarrhetic grisaille merchant" and a "plagiarist of the null" though to be fair, Bloy does grudgingly admit that Huysmans was "not miserly," and he would know, when you factor in how much money Huysmans gave "the ungrateful mendicant" over the years. Never mind that some of the details that Bloy attributes to Huysmans are fairly accurate: However, it's flat-out character assassination when Bloy insinuates that Huysmans possibly possessed by the "Evil One" isolated a dying Villiers de L'Isle Adam from all his friends and forcing him to marry his mistress while on his deathbed.
It's worth remembering that for a fairly long span of time to late Huysmans and Bloy were the best of friends, and by all accounts remaining friends with Bloy for even a small period of time was a great feat in and of itself, for he had a knack for alienating people usually when they grew tired of giving him money.
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Huysmans often helped Bloy out financially: In , when Bloy's publisher decided to not publish his first novel at the last minute, Huysmans went out of his way to find a new home for it. In he helped Bloy get a job with a newspaper. He even tried to convince his friends to help Bloy out for proof of this, see a letter he wrote to his friend Arij Prins on August 11th, , which may be read on page 76 of The Road From Decadence: From Brothel to Cloister: Selected Letters of J.
Even after their falling out in , Bloy would still hit-up Huysmans for cash, and as late as was still asking him for handouts which was somewhat cheeky of him, in light of what he wrote about Huysmans in his novel.
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The fact of the matter was, Bloy and Villiers had had a falling out months before Villers' death Villiers had even said the following about Bloy: In regards to Bloy, in the year Huysmans wrote the following to a friend: He's an unhappy wretch whose pride is truly diabolical and whose capacity for hatred is immeasurable The theological aspects of it are quite fascinating, and Bloy certainly knew how to "turn a phrase.
La Femme pauvre est un roman admirable. Uneven fiction, but remarkable theology. Near the end, a priest says in his heart, not out loud , "God, my brethren, is very terrible, when it pleases Him to be terrible. Nov 07, Piedad Restrepo V. Jul 15, Circle of Hope Pastors rated it really liked it Shelves: Read this book as much to get a taste of the enigmatic and truculent Bloy as to read a captivating story about a woman who suffers the vagaries of fortune in late 19th century France.
Like Chesterton, Bloy was uncompromising about the truth and unafraid to offend anyone in defending it, but lacked Chesterton's playful charm and his sensuality. Born in poverty, he depended throughout his life on the mercy of others, and it was from the perspective of poverty that he wrote. He called himself alt Read this book as much to get a taste of the enigmatic and truculent Bloy as to read a captivating story about a woman who suffers the vagaries of fortune in late 19th century France.
He called himself alternately the "ungrateful beggar" and "the pilgrim of the Absolute," and both sides of him show through in this novel.
Jules Verne and the French Literary Canon
The character of Clotilde, cast and off and rejected by Parisian society, becomes a vehicle through which he expresses the sublimity and power of the Gospel, as understand through the experience of marginalization and poverty which unites her to Christ's suffering and to the suffering of all. Apr 28, Ian rated it liked it.
Had this book not been finished in the wake of Bloy's loss of two young sons during a period of intense poverty, and were we not in possession of the testimony of Jacques and Raissa Maritain's tremendous respect for him, it would be tempting to dismiss this book as sentimental rubbish. Perhaps the fault lies in the old translation: But whatever Bloy was and he was many things, not all of them good , he was spiritually and theologically formidable and he understood the mise Had this book not been finished in the wake of Bloy's loss of two young sons during a period of intense poverty, and were we not in possession of the testimony of Jacques and Raissa Maritain's tremendous respect for him, it would be tempting to dismiss this book as sentimental rubbish.
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But whatever Bloy was and he was many things, not all of them good , he was spiritually and theologically formidable and he understood the misery of poverty better than almost any other writer. So the book has to be taken seriously, though its style is so different from what we expect today. I can only conclude that Bloy's meaning is largely opaque for me, despite many years' study of Christian theology and asceticism. The book is the source of the much-loved line that first made Bloy known to me: But if you want to know what he means by that line rather than simply filling it with your own meaning, it must be read.
A lovely story about a woman who goes from rags to riches to rags, all the while clothed in the light of Christ. A must-read novel for all people of all religions. The arc of the story is not an easy ride, but once you learn to get through it there is a windfall of spiritual payoff. Thus, it appears to have been a convergence of many different factors which dictated that Jules Verne, despite the enormous popular success of his Voyages extraordinaires , was not recognized as an important literary figure in France during his lifetime. Of course, no simple answers can be given to such a complex question.
In the preceding pages, I have discussed several different hypotheses to account for why I believe Jules Verne did not or could not become part of the French literary canon during his lifetime. But two facts are inescapable: As Verne explained to one of his American interviewers in Hetzel fils sold his rights to the novels to the large publishing house Hachette in Sales immediately picked up, the strategy was seen as an unqualified business success, and the two series continue today.
During the late s and early s, several new critical studies on Verne and his romans scientifiques appeared from within the very heart of the French literary community. Whereas Butor integrates Verne solidly into the French literary heritage, Carrouges links Verne to the mythological origins of all Western literatures and concludes his richly suggestive psycho-historical study of these human archetypes by concluding:.
The Woman Who Was Poor : A contemporary novel of the French 'Eighties
In the wake of this sudden influx of scholarly and semi-scholarly publications into the French belles lettres marketplace, Verne and his Voyages extraordinaires began gradually to emerge from hallowed oblivion. Let us take a closer look at the details of this Vernian renaissance in France during the s and s.
It appears to have occurred in two successive waves, peaking in the years and The first crescendo seems to have been generated by two scholars in particular: The impetus given to the study of Verne by the many events of continued through the end of the decade and into the next. For example, an early harbinger of things to come, Jules Verne and his Voyages extraordinaires were cited for the first time in and in two academic anthologies of French literary history: Thus, three quarters of a century after his death, Jules Verne finally gained the literary recognition denied him during his own lifetime.
Although perhap not yet viewed as being of the literary stature of a Baudelaire or a Zola, his place in the history of French literature was. First, Verne is thought of as a writer of adventure novels for children.