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Les Diaboliques #1-6
Les Diaboliques
Quant aux femmes de ces histoires, pourquoi ne seraient-elles pas les Diaboliques ? N'ont-elles pas assez de diabolisme en leur personne pour mériter ce doux nom ? Diaboliques ! il n'y en a pas une seule ici qui ne le soit à quelque degré. Comme le Diable, qui était un ange aussi, mais qui a culbuté, la tête en bas, le... reste en haut ! Pas une ici qui ne soit pure, vertueuse, innocente. Monstres même à part, elles présentent un effectif de bons sentiments et de moralité bien peu considérable. Elles pourraient donc s'appeler aussi « les Diaboliques », sans l'avoir volé... On a voulu faire un petit musée de ces dames. L'art a deux lobes, comme le cerveau. La nature ressemble à ces femmes qui ont un oeil bleu et un oeil noir. Voici l'oeil noir dessiné à l'encre - à l'encre de la petite vertu.
Barbey d'Aurevilly.
Barbey d'Aurevilly.
416 pages, Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1874
About the author
Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly
584 books87 followersJules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly was a novelist and literary critic at the Bonapartist paper Le Pays who was influential among fin-de-siècle decadents.
He specialised in mystery tales that explored hidden motivation and hinted at evil without being explicitly concerned with anything supernatural. He had a decisive influence on writers such as Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Henry James and Marcel Proust.
He specialised in mystery tales that explored hidden motivation and hinted at evil without being explicitly concerned with anything supernatural. He had a decisive influence on writers such as Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Henry James and Marcel Proust.
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March 19, 2023
Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly (1808 – 1889), romantic with the sensibility of a decadent, self-styled dandy, teller of risqué novels and short stories, shocked readers and infuriated the authorities with the publication of Les Diaboliques. But there is much more to this captivating novel with its sumptuous, elegant language, well-crafted metaphors and highly visual and sensual imagery than simply shock value. Below are a number of themes common to the six separate tales comprising this novel:
Story within a story
For example, in The Crimson Curtain, the first-person narrator tells us as readers how one evening years ago while returning from a hunting trip he shared a carriage with a rotund, old dandy he calls Vicomte de Brassard. The carriage made a stop in a small provincial town for repair. Gazing up at an upper-story window of one of the town’s large buildings, a crimson curtain caught the narrator’s attention; he points out the captivating tint of the curtain to his riding companion. Ah, such are the twists of fate, since, as it turns out, that exact room with the crimson curtain was a dramatic marker for de Brassard’s life -- it all happened back in the day when he was but a seventeen-year-old sublieutenant. And dandy de Brassard tells the tale.
Storytelling with a hook
There’s a point, usually about half way through, when something unexpected happens to propel the story into overdrive. And what variety of event are we alluding to here? Why, of course, as if lighting a fuse to a stick of dynamite, a woman ignites a man’s passion: BOOM! Now we’re reading a Barbey-d’Aurevilly-style spellbinding page-turner.
Dandyism
For Barbey d’Aurevilly, a dandy is not only a man scrupulously devoted to style, neatness and fashion but, as he describes Vicomte de Brassard, a dandy has a seductive beauty which seduce not only woman but circumstances themselves; has a careless disdain and repugnance of discipline; keeps several mistresses at the same time like seven strings of his lyre; drinks like a Pole; jests about his own immorality; belongs to his own times and transcends his times; and, lastly, above all else, scorns all emotion as being beneath him.
Conversation as a cultural highpoint
In all six of these Barbey d’Aurevilly tales, the characters raise conversation to an art form – probing inquiry; genteel exchange; elaborate, detailed storytelling with all the necessary color and nuance to convey a vivid, sensual picture; and, above all, a deep respect for the speaker, permitting one’s interlocutor time and space – none of those spurious interruptions commonplace in our current world: cutting a speaker off mid-sentence, answering cell-phones, texting, checking emails, looking at one’s watch (the ultimate insult). Indeed, engaging in conversation as a cultivated skill, a consummate refinement, similar to playing baroque music or painting in oils.
Women as the real power players
19th century France: Victorian, bourgeois, patriarchal, or, in other words, a male-centered, conservative, reason-dominated society. But the dirty little secret for the upholders of Victorian patriarchy is our all-too-human life is fueled by passion and emotion, most particularly sexual emotion – sexual attraction, sexual arousal and, of course, erotic love. The power of each of these Barbey d’Aurevilly tales lies in the fact a female instigates or initiates the key action. Talk about turning those Victorian values upside down and shaking! No wonder the authorities hated Barbey d’Aurevilly and banned his 1874 novel – Les Diaboliques also gave the French reading public one of its first tastes of what came to be known as the Decadent Movement, with its smashing to bits the connection and linking of virtue/reward, vice/punishment, good morals/happiness and bad morals/unhappiness, as in Happiness in Crime, a tale of two adulterers and murderers who live happily ever after.
For a more specific rasa, let’s look at one of the tales. In The Greatest Love of Don Juan, we read of a Don Juan-like lover, Comte de Ravila, dining with twelve of his previous romantic conquests. Barbey d’Aurevilly describes the physical strength and mature sensuality of these sumptuous lovers: “Full curves and ample proportions, dazzling bosoms, beating in majestic swells above liberally cut bodices . . . “ And then he writes of the sheer psychic power of these ladies as the evening progresses: “They felt a new and mysterious power in their innermost being of which, until then, they had never suspected the existence. The joy of this discovery, the sensation of a tripled life force, the physical incitements, so stimulating to highly strung temperaments, the sparkling lights, the penetrating odor of so many flowers swooning in an atmosphere overheated with the emanations of all these lovely bodies, the sting of heady wines, all acted together.”
Then, one woman demands our Don Juan tell the story of the greatest love of his life. If effect, he is being asked to choose one of his lovers amongst the present company. Comte de Ravila tells his story but, turns out, the story is not at all what these ladies expected.
My take is Ravila did the exactly the right thing. True, his story was not a tale of wild, heart-stopping, hot-blooded passion – he probably had twelve equally erotic and fantastically romantic stories to tell on that subject, one for each lady present, however his story was of a completely different cast but a story that had, from his perspective, a happy ending – he escaped from the banquet with the real prize: his life.
What an impossible question to ask a man: to choose one woman amongst twelve surrounding him. If he did, he most likely would have been torn to shreds by eleven Dionysian-frenzied former lovers. That’s the way to think on your feet and save your skin, Ravila. Bravo!
October 15, 2022
Stories of Les Diaboliques are rather decadent than satanic… Decadent tales, written in the exquisite style and brandishing neither virtues nor morality, never fail to fascinate me.
In The Crimson Curtain, told by an old viscount, a young innocent girl becomes a victim of her utterly fatal passion…
The heartbreaker of The Greatest Love of Don Juan is Don Juan not by blood but by vocation… At the supper in the boudoir he recounts a story of his most extraordinary worshipper to the dozen of his former odalisques…
In Happiness in Crime the raconteur accidentally encounters an exceptionally blissful old couple… But it turns out the spouses had the exceptionally dark past…
Beneath the Cards of a Game of Whist is about the secret lust of Comtesse who seems to be cold as ice and perfidious as a snake…
In the totally doomy tale At a Dinner of Atheists the veterans cynically recall their wartime courtesans and their amorous adventures…
And A Woman’s Revenge, as the title suggests, is about vengeance…
When lewdness turns a man into a devil his mistress becomes a succubus.
In The Crimson Curtain, told by an old viscount, a young innocent girl becomes a victim of her utterly fatal passion…
There are women who tell you: ‘I have ruined myself for you’; and there are others who say: ‘How you must despise me!’ They are different ways of expressing the fatality of love – but she, no! She said nothing! A strange thing! A still stranger personality! She gave me the idea of a thick, hard marble slab which had a fire burning beneath it. I believed there would come a moment when the marble would be cracked by the heat, but the marble continued to be as solid as ever.
The heartbreaker of The Greatest Love of Don Juan is Don Juan not by blood but by vocation… At the supper in the boudoir he recounts a story of his most extraordinary worshipper to the dozen of his former odalisques…
Alas and alas! for them as for him, ’twas the hour for the grim supper with the cold white-marble commendator, after which only Hell is left – first the Hell of old age, then the other! And this perhaps is why, before sharing with him this last, bitter meal, they planned to offer him this supper of their own, and made it the miracle of art it was.
In Happiness in Crime the raconteur accidentally encounters an exceptionally blissful old couple… But it turns out the spouses had the exceptionally dark past…
“What!” replied the Doctor; “in the fashionable society in which you mix, you have never heard the Comte and Comtesse Serlon de Savigny held up as the models of conjugal love?”
“No,” I replied; “in the fashionable world in which I mix, we do not talk much about conjugal love.”
Beneath the Cards of a Game of Whist is about the secret lust of Comtesse who seems to be cold as ice and perfidious as a snake…
Yes! romance was there, in that correct, irreproachable, well-regulated life, a life cold and cynical to a fault, where intellect scorned to count for everything, and soul for nothing, gnawing, under all this outside show of ultra-respectability and good repute, gnawing at its vitals, like worms that have begun to devour a man’s body before the breath was out of it.
In the totally doomy tale At a Dinner of Atheists the veterans cynically recall their wartime courtesans and their amorous adventures…
Whether you cared for her or not, you were bound to confess that she was a pretty woman. But the love philtres she gave men to drink had nothing to do with her beauty. They came from elsewhere. They were where you would never guess in this monster of lubricity who dared to call herself Rosalba – who dared to bear the spotless name of Rosalba, which should only be borne by innocence, and who, not satisfied with being Rosalba – the White Rose – called herself as well, over and above, ‘Pudica, the Modest.’
And A Woman’s Revenge, as the title suggests, is about vengeance…
It is of this kind of tragedy that I wish to give a specimen in relating the history of a vengeance of a most terribly original nature, in which no blood flowed, and neither steel nor poison was used; a civilized crime, in fact, in which the narrator has invented nothing but his manner of relating the story.
When lewdness turns a man into a devil his mistress becomes a succubus.
December 10, 2019
" 'Keep in the ranks, Ranconnet,' said Mesnilgrand, as though he had been commanding his squadron, 'and hold your tongue. Are you always going to be as hot-headed and impatient as you are before the enemy? Let me make my story manoeuvre as I like.' "
Thus Napoleon's old commander upbraids a former officer who presumes to suggest that he get to the point of his narrative in "A Dinner of Atheists," one of the six stories included in Barbey d'Aurvevilly's "Les Diaboliques."
It is good advice for any reader of this book of tales. These stories are each above 15,000 words in length--close to the length of a short novella, twice the length of the average long short story--and each tells a tale of female sexuality and evil that is memorable, extremely daring for its time, and still packs a considerable punch. Still, I imagine many readers will occasionally be frustrated--as I initially was--both by the wealth of detailed observation of each social milieu and also by the extraordinary length of each of the framing narratives--often as long as the tales themselves.
Soon, though, I learned to "keep to the ranks," and accept the fact that my general Barbey d'Aurevilly was in charge of maneuvers. As soon as I did so, I found that the portraits in the frame stories themselves--superannuated dandies, elegant roues, provincial monarchist nobles, free-thinking followers of the Emperor in exile--are not only just as interesting as the tales of female perfidy themselves, but often hold the key to the male-dominated world that calls forth this "diabolic" behavior in woman.
Somewhat eccentric, but a unique and influential book. Not to be missed by anyone interested in the literature of decadence.
September 12, 2014
He was no longer thinking about her beauty. He was looking at her as if he wanted to attend her autopsy.
[Il ne pensait plus à sa beauté. Il la regardait comme s’il avait désiré assister à l’autopsie de son cadavre.]
I once heard someone explain what ‘rococo’ meant by saying that it’s what happens when the baroque out-baroques itself. Barbey d’Aurevilly is what happens when the Romantic movement out-Romantics itself. These stories are obsessed with the Romanticism of high emotion and the sublime – only here it’s all much darker and more ‘decadent’: le sublime de l’enfer, as Barbey calls it at one point.
Each story centres on a woman whose passions prove fatal, for her or for someone else. But although the women are so central to what happens, they are all so remote and unknowable, with utterly mysterious motives – like characters from a folktale. We know them only through the men that endlessly discuss them, lust after them, or hate them. They are – brace yourself as I reach for this adjective – positively sphingine, by which I mean cool, beautiful, mysterious and deadly.
Nothing interior illuminated the outside of this woman. And nothing from the outside had any effect on her interior.
[Rien du dedans n’éclairait les dehors de cette femme. Rien du dehors ne se répercutait au-dedans!]
In the first story, ‘The Crimson Curtain’, the woman around whom the entire plot revolves does not speak even a single line. Although not the most shocking, this tale was in some ways my favourite, and passed the test of a good short story – that it works perfectly as an anecdote. I told it to my wife over a pint in the pub and she had her hand over her mouth with tension. Strangely, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the ‘Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace’s Wife’ chapter of Pulp Fiction, in that they both concern an illicit liaison that takes a sudden (very similar) U-turn for the worse.
The ending of The Crimson Curtain is very artful, in that almost everything that matters is left unresolved and up in the air. It’s an effect I like very much, and which Barbey deploys at several points throughout the book. There is a very modern feeling in Les Diaboliques that what is left unsaid is much more exciting than any resolution could ever be – ‘what is not known,’ the narrator says somewhere, ‘multiplies the impression of what is known a hundredfold.’
‘Ah!’ said Mlle Sophie de Revistal passionately. ‘It is the same in music as it is in life. What gives expression to both are the silences more than the harmonies.’
[—Ah ! — dit passionnément Mlle Sophie de Revistal, — il en est également de la musique et de la vie. Ce qui fait l’expression de l’une et de l’autre, ce sont les silence bien plus que les accords.]
So you end up in this rather oppressive world of suspicion, rumour, and frightful supposition, peopled by these strange sphinxy women and the Byronic protagonists who are fascinated by them.
All but one of the stories are bracketed in direct speech from one of the characters, and with some longish introductions you might be tempted to wonder why the author doesn’t just hurry up and get on with it. But after a while, there emerges a strong sense that having these stories come out ‘in conversation’ is very important to Barbey – Les Diaboliques is, among other things, a love letter to the art of sparkling conversation, which Barbey reveres as ‘the last glory of the French spirit’. (The original title for the collection was Conversational Ricochets.) So conversation is the primary tool on display here, although ‘At a Dinner of Atheists’ does open on a wonderful descriptive passage about a Valognes church at dusk which makes me wonder what might be on offer in Barbey's other books.
For all that these conversations may seem hopelessly dated to some readers now, there is a real cumulative effect building as you work your way through, and the last couple of stories here pack quite a punch. Impossible to imagine anything like this being published in England in 1874. ‘A Woman’s Vengeance’, the final piece, takes the clichéd 19th-century narrative of the poor innocent girl forced into a life of prostitution (Fantine from Les Misérables, for instance – a book which, incidentally, Barbey loathed) and turns it on its head in the most remarkable way. It takes in a surprisingly frank sex scene and includes a moment of almost medieval violence and jealousy.
Barbey was basically a royalist disillusioned by France's endless social revolutions, and he was sceptical about life in a democratic future. Instead of cheap moralising and hookers with hearts of gold, he gives you deep emotional doubt and damaged, incomprehensible strangers. Passion may drive these people to excesses of lust, intrigue and horror – but at their worst, Barbey seems to feel they are also at their most essentially human – beyond society’s conventions, and perhaps even, in some way that we are not, free.
April 21, 2020
Duplicité, dissimulation, ambiguïté, raffinement dans le mal. Voilà les thèmes communs aux 6 nouvelles qui forment Les Diaboliques.
Les 6 nouvelles sont pour l'essentiel racontées par des témoins indirects des événements, et ne donnent pas toutes les clefs de leur résolution. À l'exception de la dernière des 6, c'est donc à vous, à partir de ces indices imparfaits donnés par la narration subjective, de construire votre propre interprétation des causes profondes derrières les actions des Diaboliques.
Accompagnement :
Resonemus hoc natali - Suzanne Ehly, Elizabeth Gaver, Barbara Thornton, Benjamin Bagby
----------------------------------
La composition :
1) Le rideau cramoisi
Au cours d'une étape lors d'un trajet en diligence, un passager tremble de peur devant la mystérieuse fenêtre éclairée dans la nuit...
La curieuse passivité du héros me fait penser à :
- L'homme sans souffle/Short of Breath d'Edgar Allan Poe.
- au Voyeur multiforme de Baudelaire (Les fenêtres, Le mauvais vitrier, au fond Le Spleen de Paris dans son intégralité ; Les tableaux Parisiens dans Les Fleurs du Mal, ...), parfois secondé par le contemplateur plongé dans la torpeur, comme halluciné (La Chambre double...)
2) Le plus bel amour de Don Juan
Des amantes haut placées et vieillissantes d'un Don Juan sur le déclin l'invitent à souper, pour savoir laquelle d'entre elles lui a donné la plus grande joie de sa vie. À leur grande surprise, c'est une toute autre personne qu'elles.
La Nuit de Valognes d'Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, qui se passe également à Valognes y fait comme un reflet inversé, où ce sont les femmes qui ont la situation en main et Don Juan qui brise son propre mythe.
3) Le bonheur dans le crime
L'histoire dépravée du couple Serlon de Savigny.
À l'image de Hauteclaire de Stassin, l'héroïne du bonheur dans le crime, on trouve un personnage de femme forte, amazone plus militaire que les hommes les plus aguerris dans Les Chouans de Balzac : Marie de Verneuil.
L'entente criminelle du duo Serlon de Savigny trouve des points communs avec le duo Vicomte de Valmont-Marquise de Merteuil des Liaisons dangereuses de Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.
4) Les dessous d'une partie de whist
Au cours d'une partie de whist, un témoin raconte l'histoire macabre d'une triple mort aux circonstances plus que suspectes. Les détails sont amenés au compte-goutte, jusqu'à l'abjecte révélation finale.
Des échos dans :
L'amour du mensonge de Baudelaire.
Les récits emboîtés et la construction narrative bâtie sur l'occulte de Lovecraft.
5) À un dîner d'athées
C'est l'histoire d'un sacrilège atroce commis par un soldat et sa concubine, Rosalba 'la Pudica', pendant la Campagne d'Espagne de 1808.
La profanation et le sacrilège sont ici plus aboutis et leur traitement plus ordonné que dans Huysmans (les messes noires de Là-Bas) ou Léon Bloy (les imprécations du Désespéré).
6) La vengeance d'une femme
Un sybarite est irrésistiblement attiré par une femme qu'il rencontre par hasard dans les rues de Paris. Cette prostituée n'est pas seulement ce qu'elle paraît être... C'est la seule des 6 nouvelles des Diaboliques où les motifs derrière le comportement de l'héroïne sont clairement renseignés.
Quelque chose du sublime romantique de Wuthering Heights s'y retrouve, dans la férocité consommée et la concentration de malveillance exercés dans la vengeance.
Dans tous leurs avatars, Les Diaboliques ont en partage avec Baudelaire et Huysmans la même ambiguïté fondamentale dans les différents narrateurs, entre horreur et fascination pour le mal qu'ils racontent et dont ils reproduisent quelque chose en le racontant.
Le lien vers une critique fouillée du livre :
http://www.juanasensio.com/archive/20...
Les 6 nouvelles sont pour l'essentiel racontées par des témoins indirects des événements, et ne donnent pas toutes les clefs de leur résolution. À l'exception de la dernière des 6, c'est donc à vous, à partir de ces indices imparfaits donnés par la narration subjective, de construire votre propre interprétation des causes profondes derrières les actions des Diaboliques.
Accompagnement :
Resonemus hoc natali - Suzanne Ehly, Elizabeth Gaver, Barbara Thornton, Benjamin Bagby
----------------------------------
La composition :
1) Le rideau cramoisi
Au cours d'une étape lors d'un trajet en diligence, un passager tremble de peur devant la mystérieuse fenêtre éclairée dans la nuit...
La curieuse passivité du héros me fait penser à :
- L'homme sans souffle/Short of Breath d'Edgar Allan Poe.
- au Voyeur multiforme de Baudelaire (Les fenêtres, Le mauvais vitrier, au fond Le Spleen de Paris dans son intégralité ; Les tableaux Parisiens dans Les Fleurs du Mal, ...), parfois secondé par le contemplateur plongé dans la torpeur, comme halluciné (La Chambre double...)
2) Le plus bel amour de Don Juan
Des amantes haut placées et vieillissantes d'un Don Juan sur le déclin l'invitent à souper, pour savoir laquelle d'entre elles lui a donné la plus grande joie de sa vie. À leur grande surprise, c'est une toute autre personne qu'elles.
La Nuit de Valognes d'Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, qui se passe également à Valognes y fait comme un reflet inversé, où ce sont les femmes qui ont la situation en main et Don Juan qui brise son propre mythe.
3) Le bonheur dans le crime
L'histoire dépravée du couple Serlon de Savigny.
À l'image de Hauteclaire de Stassin, l'héroïne du bonheur dans le crime, on trouve un personnage de femme forte, amazone plus militaire que les hommes les plus aguerris dans Les Chouans de Balzac : Marie de Verneuil.
L'entente criminelle du duo Serlon de Savigny trouve des points communs avec le duo Vicomte de Valmont-Marquise de Merteuil des Liaisons dangereuses de Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.
4) Les dessous d'une partie de whist
Au cours d'une partie de whist, un témoin raconte l'histoire macabre d'une triple mort aux circonstances plus que suspectes. Les détails sont amenés au compte-goutte, jusqu'à l'abjecte révélation finale.
Des échos dans :
L'amour du mensonge de Baudelaire.
Les récits emboîtés et la construction narrative bâtie sur l'occulte de Lovecraft.
5) À un dîner d'athées
C'est l'histoire d'un sacrilège atroce commis par un soldat et sa concubine, Rosalba 'la Pudica', pendant la Campagne d'Espagne de 1808.
La profanation et le sacrilège sont ici plus aboutis et leur traitement plus ordonné que dans Huysmans (les messes noires de Là-Bas) ou Léon Bloy (les imprécations du Désespéré).
6) La vengeance d'une femme
Un sybarite est irrésistiblement attiré par une femme qu'il rencontre par hasard dans les rues de Paris. Cette prostituée n'est pas seulement ce qu'elle paraît être... C'est la seule des 6 nouvelles des Diaboliques où les motifs derrière le comportement de l'héroïne sont clairement renseignés.
Quelque chose du sublime romantique de Wuthering Heights s'y retrouve, dans la férocité consommée et la concentration de malveillance exercés dans la vengeance.
Dans tous leurs avatars, Les Diaboliques ont en partage avec Baudelaire et Huysmans la même ambiguïté fondamentale dans les différents narrateurs, entre horreur et fascination pour le mal qu'ils racontent et dont ils reproduisent quelque chose en le racontant.
Le lien vers une critique fouillée du livre :
http://www.juanasensio.com/archive/20...
October 10, 2022
"Las diabólicas" es un conjunto de seis cuentos o nouvelles que fueron escritas en diversas épocas del autor y que fueron publicadas como un libro en 1874. La característica común es que se trata de historias donde las protagonistas son mujeres y que están salpicadas por sensualidad, espanto y degradación. Ya he reseñado algunas como "El más bello amor de Don Juan" (Le Plus Bel Amour de Don Juan), "La venganza de una mujer" (La Vengeance D'une Femme), "La cortina carmesí" (le rideau cramoisi) y "El secreto de una partida de whist" (le Dessous de cartes d'une partie de whist).
Le puse unas, creo, merecidas 5 estrellas ya que a pesar que no todos los relatos me gustaron tanto fue muy interesante encontrarlos y es un gran hallazgo.
En esta oportunidad hablaré de los otros dos relatos:
LA DICHA EN EL CRIMEN
"He penetrado todo cuanto he podido en la vida de esos dos seres, con el afán de averiguar si en su extraña y escandalosa dicha no había un defecto, un resquicio, por pequeño que fuese, en algún lugar oculto; pero lo único que he encontrado siempre ha sido una felicidad envidiable, que sería una excelente y triunfante burla del Diablo contra Dios, ¡si existiesen un Dios y un Diablo!"
Aquí mientras el autor está paseando con el peculiar Dr. Torty por París se les aparece una pareja de esposos que a la vista del autor son bellos como dioses. La mujer observa a una pantera negra majestuosa que está en el zoológico y la domina aparentemente con la mirada. La belleza y la fuerza mental de la aún joven esposa impresionan a los paseantes. Esto será punto de partida de la historia de la hermosa y talentosa Hauteclaire Stassin.
El doctor Torty cuenta cómo en la provincia de V... llega un antiguo militar el ejército napoleónico muy ducho en el manejo de la espada e instaura en la provincia una sala de armas y se dedica a enseñar a los entusiastas pobladores de la región. Producto de él nace esta hija, la bella Hauteclaire, con una fuerza y talento sobrenatural pues domina la esgrima mejor que cualquier otro y de hecho se vuelve la nueva instructora de la región. Todos los hombres la respetan y la desean pero es muy misteriosa, no gusta que le vean ni el rostro y en las clases de esgrima aún peor. Un buen día desaparece como tragada por la tierra. El doctor Torty será el único que podrá desvelar este terrible secreto. de este relato me gustó la fuerza de Hauteclaire y la historia desde luego espantosa que explica el origen de su "felicidad". También la serenidad y abnegación extraña de la condesa de Savigny hacia el final del relato.
"Todo afán desmedido acaba depravándonos"
EN UN BANQUETE DE ATEOS
"En la Edad Media, hubieran pasado a ser cruzados, forajidos, aventureros, pero no escoge uno su época; con los pies atrapados en los carriles de una civilización que tiene sus proporciones geométricas y sus precisiones imperiosas, veíanse forzados a permanecer tranquilos, a tascar el freno, a echar espumarajos reducidos, a no poder moverse, a comerse y beberse la sangre y aguantarse las náuseas."
La historia empieza con un hombre cuarentón ex-soldado del ejército napoleónico quien va a una iglesia a hablar con un cura. Su compañero de armas, el impertinente Ranconnet lo encuentra y le reclama a viva voz su conducta pues le parece negativo que compañero de armas tan valiente y que ha llevados las almas al cielo por centenares ahora se las dé de beato. Dicho hombre es Mesnil quien tiene su padre en la ciudad al que lo llaman Mesnilgrand para diferenciarlo de su hijo. Él adora a Mesnil y a pesar que lo ve caído en desgracia lo compadece y admira pues sabe que ha sido un excelente soldado pero que fue perseguido luego por la Restauración que le quitó todos sus beneficios. Cuando su hijo viene a su casa suele organizar grandes banquetes donde se bebe y come mucho. La particularidad es que todos son ateos, algunos militares, médicos y hasta ex-sacerdotes. En esta reunión Ranconnet al tener a su amigo en la mesa le pregunta delante de todos por qué razón fue a la iglesia.
Aquí comenzamos con el verdadero relato en el cual la mujer que lo protagoniza es la hermosa Rosalba, apodada "la Púdica", quien vino acompañando al mayor Ydow, extraño soldado con cabello y barba de diferente color que parecía ser un experto en tener amantes. Sin embargo, Rosalba, entrando al regimiento del cual formaba parte Mesnil, empezó con una conducta que no era nada acorde a su expresión y rostro extremadamente candoroso. Esta actitud bastante extraña que no llega a aclararse del todo será el desencadenante de una serie de sucesos que explica lo que hizo al final Mesnil en la iglesia. Me gustó bastante por la "sorpresa" final que realmente te pone los pelos de punta y también por todo el ambiente que corresponde a las guerras napoleónicas.
"Quedóme la convicción de que no podía darse otra mujer como ella; y el pensarlo me infundió en lo sucesivo una gran tranquilidad e indiferencia respecto a todas las mujeres. Gracias a ella me convertí en un canal oficial. Después de aquellas relaciones, me dediqué con ahínco al servicio"
Le puse unas, creo, merecidas 5 estrellas ya que a pesar que no todos los relatos me gustaron tanto fue muy interesante encontrarlos y es un gran hallazgo.
En esta oportunidad hablaré de los otros dos relatos:
LA DICHA EN EL CRIMEN
"He penetrado todo cuanto he podido en la vida de esos dos seres, con el afán de averiguar si en su extraña y escandalosa dicha no había un defecto, un resquicio, por pequeño que fuese, en algún lugar oculto; pero lo único que he encontrado siempre ha sido una felicidad envidiable, que sería una excelente y triunfante burla del Diablo contra Dios, ¡si existiesen un Dios y un Diablo!"
Aquí mientras el autor está paseando con el peculiar Dr. Torty por París se les aparece una pareja de esposos que a la vista del autor son bellos como dioses. La mujer observa a una pantera negra majestuosa que está en el zoológico y la domina aparentemente con la mirada. La belleza y la fuerza mental de la aún joven esposa impresionan a los paseantes. Esto será punto de partida de la historia de la hermosa y talentosa Hauteclaire Stassin.
El doctor Torty cuenta cómo en la provincia de V... llega un antiguo militar el ejército napoleónico muy ducho en el manejo de la espada e instaura en la provincia una sala de armas y se dedica a enseñar a los entusiastas pobladores de la región. Producto de él nace esta hija, la bella Hauteclaire, con una fuerza y talento sobrenatural pues domina la esgrima mejor que cualquier otro y de hecho se vuelve la nueva instructora de la región. Todos los hombres la respetan y la desean pero es muy misteriosa, no gusta que le vean ni el rostro y en las clases de esgrima aún peor. Un buen día desaparece como tragada por la tierra. El doctor Torty será el único que podrá desvelar este terrible secreto. de este relato me gustó la fuerza de Hauteclaire y la historia desde luego espantosa que explica el origen de su "felicidad". También la serenidad y abnegación extraña de la condesa de Savigny hacia el final del relato.
"Todo afán desmedido acaba depravándonos"
EN UN BANQUETE DE ATEOS
"En la Edad Media, hubieran pasado a ser cruzados, forajidos, aventureros, pero no escoge uno su época; con los pies atrapados en los carriles de una civilización que tiene sus proporciones geométricas y sus precisiones imperiosas, veíanse forzados a permanecer tranquilos, a tascar el freno, a echar espumarajos reducidos, a no poder moverse, a comerse y beberse la sangre y aguantarse las náuseas."
La historia empieza con un hombre cuarentón ex-soldado del ejército napoleónico quien va a una iglesia a hablar con un cura. Su compañero de armas, el impertinente Ranconnet lo encuentra y le reclama a viva voz su conducta pues le parece negativo que compañero de armas tan valiente y que ha llevados las almas al cielo por centenares ahora se las dé de beato. Dicho hombre es Mesnil quien tiene su padre en la ciudad al que lo llaman Mesnilgrand para diferenciarlo de su hijo. Él adora a Mesnil y a pesar que lo ve caído en desgracia lo compadece y admira pues sabe que ha sido un excelente soldado pero que fue perseguido luego por la Restauración que le quitó todos sus beneficios. Cuando su hijo viene a su casa suele organizar grandes banquetes donde se bebe y come mucho. La particularidad es que todos son ateos, algunos militares, médicos y hasta ex-sacerdotes. En esta reunión Ranconnet al tener a su amigo en la mesa le pregunta delante de todos por qué razón fue a la iglesia.
Aquí comenzamos con el verdadero relato en el cual la mujer que lo protagoniza es la hermosa Rosalba, apodada "la Púdica", quien vino acompañando al mayor Ydow, extraño soldado con cabello y barba de diferente color que parecía ser un experto en tener amantes. Sin embargo, Rosalba, entrando al regimiento del cual formaba parte Mesnil, empezó con una conducta que no era nada acorde a su expresión y rostro extremadamente candoroso. Esta actitud bastante extraña que no llega a aclararse del todo será el desencadenante de una serie de sucesos que explica lo que hizo al final Mesnil en la iglesia. Me gustó bastante por la "sorpresa" final que realmente te pone los pelos de punta y también por todo el ambiente que corresponde a las guerras napoleónicas.
"Quedóme la convicción de que no podía darse otra mujer como ella; y el pensarlo me infundió en lo sucesivo una gran tranquilidad e indiferencia respecto a todas las mujeres. Gracias a ella me convertí en un canal oficial. Después de aquellas relaciones, me dediqué con ahínco al servicio"
April 27, 2021
amoureuse de Mesnilgrand et de la duchesse de Sierra-Leonne autodiag
si certaines nouvelles sont relativement oubliables, la première, Le Rideau cramoisi, marque par l'image envoûtante de ce rideau qui dissimule un crime empli de passion ; et les deux dernières, À un dîner d'athées et La Vengeance d'une femme, sont de véritables chefs-d'œuvre du romantisme noir à la Byron, dont le nom est omniprésent dans le recueil. la figure de la Diabolique, telle qu'elle est esquissée par d'Aurevilly, est envoûtante en ce qu'elle incarne un Absolu par lequel toute âme romanesque ne peut qu'être fascinée et auquel elle veut irrémédiablement atteindre. la dernière nouvelle, surtout, est d'une puissance formidable et menaçante : c'est la Diabolique qui se raconte dans sa vengeance funèbre et dans le caractère absolu et carnal (plus que charnel) de son amour.
« Tressignies n'avait pas pensé à cette profondeur dans la vengeance, qui dépassait tout ce que l'histoire lui avait appris. Ni l'Italie du XVIe siècle, ni la Corse de tous les âges, ces pays renommés pour l'implacabilité de leurs ressentiments, n'offraient à sa mémoire un exemple de combinaison plus réfléchie et plus terrible que celle de cette femme, qui se vengeait à même elle, à même son corps comme à même son âme ! Il était effrayé de ce sublime horrible, car l'intensité dans les sentiments, poussée à ce point, est sublime. Seulement, c'est le sublime de l'enfer. »
ravie, aussi, de trouver chez d'Aurevilly cette dualité féminine centrale chez Léon Bloy, cette pureté oxymorique de la femme qui ne peut être trouvée que dans le pur ou l'impur les plus absolus, que dans le très-Haut ou dans le plus bas que terre (que ce soit misogyne je n'en ai rien à faire, parce que c'est trop beau de sublime et d'absolu pour être autre chose qu'une Image purement littéraire). et puis la perfection poétique de cette prose...
si certaines nouvelles sont relativement oubliables, la première, Le Rideau cramoisi, marque par l'image envoûtante de ce rideau qui dissimule un crime empli de passion ; et les deux dernières, À un dîner d'athées et La Vengeance d'une femme, sont de véritables chefs-d'œuvre du romantisme noir à la Byron, dont le nom est omniprésent dans le recueil. la figure de la Diabolique, telle qu'elle est esquissée par d'Aurevilly, est envoûtante en ce qu'elle incarne un Absolu par lequel toute âme romanesque ne peut qu'être fascinée et auquel elle veut irrémédiablement atteindre. la dernière nouvelle, surtout, est d'une puissance formidable et menaçante : c'est la Diabolique qui se raconte dans sa vengeance funèbre et dans le caractère absolu et carnal (plus que charnel) de son amour.
« Tressignies n'avait pas pensé à cette profondeur dans la vengeance, qui dépassait tout ce que l'histoire lui avait appris. Ni l'Italie du XVIe siècle, ni la Corse de tous les âges, ces pays renommés pour l'implacabilité de leurs ressentiments, n'offraient à sa mémoire un exemple de combinaison plus réfléchie et plus terrible que celle de cette femme, qui se vengeait à même elle, à même son corps comme à même son âme ! Il était effrayé de ce sublime horrible, car l'intensité dans les sentiments, poussée à ce point, est sublime. Seulement, c'est le sublime de l'enfer. »
ravie, aussi, de trouver chez d'Aurevilly cette dualité féminine centrale chez Léon Bloy, cette pureté oxymorique de la femme qui ne peut être trouvée que dans le pur ou l'impur les plus absolus, que dans le très-Haut ou dans le plus bas que terre (que ce soit misogyne je n'en ai rien à faire, parce que c'est trop beau de sublime et d'absolu pour être autre chose qu'une Image purement littéraire). et puis la perfection poétique de cette prose...
July 24, 2010
Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly has written a strange, but beautifully composed set of decadent short stories. The unifying theme is a set of heroines who are intent on vengeance, crime, or violence. In most of the six stories, there is a framing story, usually involving aging roués recalling their youths over coffee, brandy, and cigars. Typical are the old soldiers in "At a Dinner of Atheists," in which the conversation turns to women:
Les Diaboliques: reminds me of such works as Joris Karl Huysmans, author of Against Nature and other decadent tales redolent with the pessimism that followed in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune. (And yet, this was the same period that gave rise to Marcel Proust and his monumental Remembrance of Things Past Volume 1-3 Box Set.)
Although Les Diaboliques is about women, I do not think women would like it, as the viewpoint is so exclusively masculine. Still, I liked it enough to consider seeking out other of his works which may have been rendered into English.
All took part in this abuse of women, even the oldest, the toughest, and those most disgusted with females, as they cynically called women -- for a man may give up sex love but he will retain his self-love in talking about women; and though on the edge of the grave, men are always ready to root with their snouts in the garbage of self-conceit.Even when the company is mixed, as in "The Crimson Curtain," the ambiance is masculine, upper-class, and deeply cynical.
Les Diaboliques: reminds me of such works as Joris Karl Huysmans, author of Against Nature and other decadent tales redolent with the pessimism that followed in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune. (And yet, this was the same period that gave rise to Marcel Proust and his monumental Remembrance of Things Past Volume 1-3 Box Set.)
Although Les Diaboliques is about women, I do not think women would like it, as the viewpoint is so exclusively masculine. Still, I liked it enough to consider seeking out other of his works which may have been rendered into English.
November 13, 2017
It may be that creatures of that sort love deception for deception's sake, as others love art for art's sake, or as the Poles love battles.Ladies.
First and foremost, d'Aurevilly is concerned, enchanted, and perhaps obsessed by les dames du salon, and the more clever and deceptive, the better appreciated. He will concede that his Royalist, Catholic codes are double-edged, double-sided, even, and can be reversed for interesting effect. And he knows that (for 1820) the gallant gentleman's heroic domain is still the field of battle, whilst for les femmes it is, as ever, the drawing room.
The tales of Les Diaboliques are themselves deceptive, though, and shouldn't be anticipated as revelling in decadence and the dark side. Rather, the author seems to be mining a hidden seam of pre-revolutionary morality tale, stories that are, with careful framing by d'Aurevilly, mounted in circumstances that only appear to imply that potential for decadence. In the end, the author is voluntarily, unapologetically still held in the sway of the ancien régime, and ready to counter very adult complexity with very humane outcome. These are romances, but play out tauntingly, as if directed by theater-of-cruelty practitioners.
...there isn't one among us who hasn't witnessed some of those mysterious workings of feeling or passion which ruin a whole career, some of those heartbreaks which give out only a muffled sound, like that of a body falling into the hidden abyss of an oubliette, and over which the world spreads its myriad voices or its silence... I myself, in my childhood, saw--no, saw isn't the right word--I guessed, I sensed one of those cruel, terrible dramas which are not staged in public, although the public sees the actors in them every day: one of those sanguinary comedies, as Pascal called them, but presented in secret, behind the curtain of private life... what you don't know multiplies a hundredfold the impression made by what you know...
Arranged sometimes like jewels around a perfumed neckline, but more often candle-lit around a grand dinner table, the ladies are the preoccupation, but there are also dandies, libertines, rakes, and warlords. Duchesses here may become whores in the course of the proceedings, true loves may become ghosts, and atheists may burn with the inner flame of the martyrs. M d'Aurevilly prepares the ground like a medieval siege, layering exposition and revelation in carefully patient steps, extreme at times. But when he throws the switch and lets his drama unfold, he soars. Like some gothic seer who has most certainly got a message to send, for d'Aurevilly it is a given that pride, loss, shame, sin, and guilt really never go away.
But there is something else. There is here, in Paris after midnight or in the windswept environs of provincial Cotentin, the flavor of the long-ago, the frisson of someone-else's world, not ours... though somehow familiar. It is the receding coastline of the Age Of Faith. Beneath his well composed equilibrium, the author can't escape the vexing sense that the Age Of Reason, newly arrived, has thrown some gorgeous white magic to the winds, a never-again state of grace now lost ...
Night was beginning to fall in the streets of ----, but in the church of that picturesque little town in Western France it was already dark. Night is almost always in advance in churches. It falls earlier there than anywhere else,, either on account of the stained-glass windows, when there are stained-glass windows, or on account of the number of pillars, so often compared with the trees in a forest, and the shadows cast by the arches. But scarcely anywhere are the doors closed because this night of the churches has slightly anticipated the death of the day outside. They generally remain open after the Angelus has rung--sometimes till a very late hour, as on the eve of the great feast-days in pious towns, where great numbers of people go to confession in preparation for communion the next day.
Never, at any hour of the day, are churches in the provinces more frequented by churchgoers than at that twilight hour when work comes to an end, daylight fades, and the Christian soul prepares for the night--night which resembles death, and during which death may come. At that hour it is borne in on one that the Christian religion was born in the catacombs and that it still retains something of the melancholy of its cradle...
It isn't hard to see how this author is something of a forerunner to Mallarmé, to Baudelaire. While d'Aurevilly is an equal opportunity reporter, and will hurl a few anti-clericalisms with the best of them, at heart he longs, at one with his romantic sensibilities, for the days of a more profound certainty, a prior understanding.
Lovely book, probably best to buy it and savor each of these near-novella tales individually, rather than as a string of stories; they're similar but each has a unique quality. The last, called A Woman's Vengeance, is nothing short of devastating.
January 18, 2023
Πάντα μου έκανε εντύπωση πώς το κακό, το διαβολικό, το εκπορευόμενο από τα Νότια του Παραδείσου αποτελούσε πηγή έμπνευσης για ετερόκλητους καλλιτέχνες: για εκείνους που το προσεταιρίζονταν και για τους άλλους που το πολεμούσαν. Ο ντ’ Ωρεβιγύ ανήκει στη δεύτερη κατηγορία: φανατικός καθολικός, ακραιφνής συντηρητικός / μοναρχικός που απεχθανόταν τη Γαλλική Επανάσταση και τις κατακτήσεις της, δείχνει παγιδευμένος στη «σκοτεινή πλευρά», καταγράφοντας με εντυπωσιακή λογοτεχνική ακρίβεια τα δεινά μιας ανθρωπότητας που υποκύπτει συνεχώς.
Τι κι αν στην εισαγωγή του επιχειρεί να μας πείσει περί του αντιθέτου; Ότι δηλαδή οι περίτεχνα διακοσμημένες ιστορίες του έχουν στόχο τους να καταδείξουν την παρουσία του κακού, του Σατανά, ο οποίος περιφέρεται αναμεταξύ μας διαφθείροντας τον άνθρωπο, τουτέστιν τον άντρα. Ο ντ’ Ωρεβιγύ δείχνει να προσελκύεται έντονα από τη σκοτεινή πλευρά του θηλυκού στοιχείου τοποθετώντας το στο επίκεντρο των ιστοριών του. Πρόκειται για ιστορίες εκδίκησης, μυστηρίου, παθών, αλλά όχι υπερφυσικού στοιχείου. Όσα περιγράφονται αποτελούν διηγήσεις και μάλιστα σε «ρεαλιστικό» πλαίσιο με τα ονόματα μόνο να απουσιάζουν.
Διότι εδώ κρύβεται το μυστικό, καθότι, προφανώς, ο διαφθορέας είναι πάντα το θήλυ. Στις έξι νουβέλες που απαρτίζουν αυτό το βιβλίο υπάρχει αυτό κοινό: όλες οι ηρωίδες -αν και όχι πάντα πρωταγωνίστριες- καίτοι ίσως υποφέρουν τα πάνδεινα, υφίστανται ταπεινώσεις, βάσανα και διωγμούς, κατορθώνουν τελικά να συμπαρασύρουν στην πτώση τους άντρες με τους οποίος τυχαίνει να σχετίζονται. Όχι πως οι άντρες είναι αθώοι, τουναντίον, αλλά σίγουρα τα κρίματά τους δεν αγγίζουν, δεν φτάνουν τη μεγαλειώδη Πτώση των θηλυκών. Εκείνοι είναι ελαττωματικά όντα, εκείνες είναι Διαβολικά. Εκεί που οι πρώτοι, έρμαια των παθών τους, θα υπογράψουν συχνά συμβόλαιο με τον Διάβολο, οι δεύτερες είναι ο ίδιος ο Μεφιστοφελής. Ακόμα και η αυτοκαταστροφή τους, η οποία επιτελείται βαρύγδουπα και ηχηρά, δεν τις αποκαθαίρει, καθώς το κίνητρό τους είναι η εκδίκηση ενός άντρα, οπότε και πάλι παραμένουν ηθικά αμφίσημες και εν τέλει βέβηλες. Ο άντρας αμαρτάνει, η γυναίκα πίπτει ανέλπιδα και οριστικά.
Ήδη ακούω απ’ τα θεωρεία τις αγανακτισμένες κραυγές των αγαπητών αναγνωστριών, αντιρρήσεις σχετικά με τον ρόλο των γυναικών, ταυτόχρονα με την απορία γιατί να διαβάσει κάποιος/ α αυτό το βιβλίο. Η άμεση απάντηση είναι: «Για την απόλαυση που προσφέρει η τέχνη του λόγου». Και στο επιχείρημα ότι είναι αδύνατον κάποια να απολαύσει ένα κείμενο που παρουσιάζει τις γυναίκες ως διαβολικά όντα, θα πω τα εξής: Αφενός, δεν διαβάζουμε λογοτεχνία γιατί συμφωνούμε πάντα και σε όλα με την οπτική του συγγραφέα και αφετέρου είναι κάτι άλλο που μας προσελκύει σ’ αυτή και συγκεκριμένα το αφηγηματικό ύφος του συγγραφέα. Εάν αυτό είναι ικανοποιητικό μπορούμε να συγχωρήσουμε τις όποιες διαφορές μας και να απολαύσουμε το συγγραφικό του ταλέντο. Εάν πάλι δεν είναι, τότε θα κυριαρχήσουν οι ιδεολογικές/ κοινωνικές μας αντιρρήσεις και το βιβλίο θα περάσει παραχρήμα στ’ αζήτητα, σε κάποιο σκονισμένο ράφι.
Εν ολίγοις, το συγγραφικό ταλέντο θα καθορίσει και την ισχύ των επιχειρημάτων μας και όχι το αντίστροφο. Εφόσον ισχύσει το αντίθετο, απλά δεν υπάρχει αρκετό ταλέντο. Και σ’ αυτή την περίπτωση το ταλέντο του ντ’ Ωρεβιγύ είναι υπερχειλίζον. Ο συγγραφέας κυριολεκτικά κεντάει, αναπτύσσοντας το θέμα του με «κατατηξίτεχνο» τρόπο, παρασύροντάς μας στους μαιάνδρους της ιστορίας του. Η έμφαση στις ψυχολογικές περιγραφές, στην ανάδειξη των εσωτερικών κινήτρων, αλλά και η μαεστρία στη δημιουργία ατμόσφαιρας είναι όντως αξιοσημείωτες και καθηλωτικές. Άλλο ένα σημείο άξιο προσοχής: συνήθως στις απλουστευμένες (και απλουστευτικές) λογοτεχνικές κατασκευές όπου κυριαρχεί το δίπολο καλού/ κακού, οι ήρωες είναι «χάρτινοι» τουτέστιν δισδιάστατοι, κάτι που δεν συμβαίνει στο λογοτεχνικό σύμπαν του ντ’ Ωρεβιγύ. Μολονότι οι γυναίκες στέκουν στον αντίποδα του θετικού, δεν σημαίνει ότι δεν διαθέτουν βάθος, δεν έχουν επενδυθεί στιλιστικά με τον ιδιαίτερο τρόπο του συγγραφέα. Σ’ αυτό εδράζεται η καλλιτεχνική ποιότητα του έργου, καθώς οι δύο πόλοι εναρμονίζονται, με συνέπεια η ύπαρξη του ενός να προϋποθέτει την παρουσία του άλλου. Οπότε, καταλήγουμε εκ νέου στη λογική του στέρεου οικοδομήματος που οφείλει να είναι το λογοτεχνικό έργο. Οι Διαβολικές γυναίκες, εν προκειμένω, είναι το θεμέλιό του κι όχι απλά κάτι περιφερειακό και αντικαταστάσιμο.
Για να το θέσω πρακτικά, ο φιλομοναρχισμός του και η γυναικεία διαβολικότητα είναι συμβάσεις (όπως στο θρίλερ το υπερφυσικό) τις οποίες εγώ τουλάχιστον είμαι διατεθειμένος να συγχωρήσω, έχοντας πειστεί ότι το αποτέλεσμα ανταποκρίνεται στις αισθητικές μου προσδοκίες. Και επειδή από απόψεις, θέσεις, ιδεολογίες έχουμε χορτάσει στην καθημερινότητά μας, ενώ από αισθητικής απόψεως «βαλλόμεθα πανταχόθεν», στο έργο τέχνης διατίθεμαι να παραβλέψω τις όποιες αντιρρήσεις μου, εφόσον ο αναγνώστης εντός μου κρίνει ότι το αποτέλεσμα τον δικαιώνει ως τέτοιο. Και στην περίπτωση του ντ’ Ωρεβιγύ αισθάνομαι δικαιωμένος ως αναγνώστης, όσο κι εκείνος ως συγγραφέας.
https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2023/01/...
Τι κι αν στην εισαγωγή του επιχειρεί να μας πείσει περί του αντιθέτου; Ότι δηλαδή οι περίτεχνα διακοσμημένες ιστορίες του έχουν στόχο τους να καταδείξουν την παρουσία του κακού, του Σατανά, ο οποίος περιφέρεται αναμεταξύ μας διαφθείροντας τον άνθρωπο, τουτέστιν τον άντρα. Ο ντ’ Ωρεβιγύ δείχνει να προσελκύεται έντονα από τη σκοτεινή πλευρά του θηλυκού στοιχείου τοποθετώντας το στο επίκεντρο των ιστοριών του. Πρόκειται για ιστορίες εκδίκησης, μυστηρίου, παθών, αλλά όχι υπερφυσικού στοιχείου. Όσα περιγράφονται αποτελούν διηγήσεις και μάλιστα σε «ρεαλιστικό» πλαίσιο με τα ονόματα μόνο να απουσιάζουν.
Διότι εδώ κρύβεται το μυστικό, καθότι, προφανώς, ο διαφθορέας είναι πάντα το θήλυ. Στις έξι νουβέλες που απαρτίζουν αυτό το βιβλίο υπάρχει αυτό κοινό: όλες οι ηρωίδες -αν και όχι πάντα πρωταγωνίστριες- καίτοι ίσως υποφέρουν τα πάνδεινα, υφίστανται ταπεινώσεις, βάσανα και διωγμούς, κατορθώνουν τελικά να συμπαρασύρουν στην πτώση τους άντρες με τους οποίος τυχαίνει να σχετίζονται. Όχι πως οι άντρες είναι αθώοι, τουναντίον, αλλά σίγουρα τα κρίματά τους δεν αγγίζουν, δεν φτάνουν τη μεγαλειώδη Πτώση των θηλυκών. Εκείνοι είναι ελαττωματικά όντα, εκείνες είναι Διαβολικά. Εκεί που οι πρώτοι, έρμαια των παθών τους, θα υπογράψουν συχνά συμβόλαιο με τον Διάβολο, οι δεύτερες είναι ο ίδιος ο Μεφιστοφελής. Ακόμα και η αυτοκαταστροφή τους, η οποία επιτελείται βαρύγδουπα και ηχηρά, δεν τις αποκαθαίρει, καθώς το κίνητρό τους είναι η εκδίκηση ενός άντρα, οπότε και πάλι παραμένουν ηθικά αμφίσημες και εν τέλει βέβηλες. Ο άντρας αμαρτάνει, η γυναίκα πίπτει ανέλπιδα και οριστικά.
Ήδη ακούω απ’ τα θεωρεία τις αγανακτισμένες κραυγές των αγαπητών αναγνωστριών, αντιρρήσεις σχετικά με τον ρόλο των γυναικών, ταυτόχρονα με την απορία γιατί να διαβάσει κάποιος/ α αυτό το βιβλίο. Η άμεση απάντηση είναι: «Για την απόλαυση που προσφέρει η τέχνη του λόγου». Και στο επιχείρημα ότι είναι αδύνατον κάποια να απολαύσει ένα κείμενο που παρουσιάζει τις γυναίκες ως διαβολικά όντα, θα πω τα εξής: Αφενός, δεν διαβάζουμε λογοτεχνία γιατί συμφωνούμε πάντα και σε όλα με την οπτική του συγγραφέα και αφετέρου είναι κάτι άλλο που μας προσελκύει σ’ αυτή και συγκεκριμένα το αφηγηματικό ύφος του συγγραφέα. Εάν αυτό είναι ικανοποιητικό μπορούμε να συγχωρήσουμε τις όποιες διαφορές μας και να απολαύσουμε το συγγραφικό του ταλέντο. Εάν πάλι δεν είναι, τότε θα κυριαρχήσουν οι ιδεολογικές/ κοινωνικές μας αντιρρήσεις και το βιβλίο θα περάσει παραχρήμα στ’ αζήτητα, σε κάποιο σκονισμένο ράφι.
Εν ολίγοις, το συγγραφικό ταλέντο θα καθορίσει και την ισχύ των επιχειρημάτων μας και όχι το αντίστροφο. Εφόσον ισχύσει το αντίθετο, απλά δεν υπάρχει αρκετό ταλέντο. Και σ’ αυτή την περίπτωση το ταλέντο του ντ’ Ωρεβιγύ είναι υπερχειλίζον. Ο συγγραφέας κυριολεκτικά κεντάει, αναπτύσσοντας το θέμα του με «κατατηξίτεχνο» τρόπο, παρασύροντάς μας στους μαιάνδρους της ιστορίας του. Η έμφαση στις ψυχολογικές περιγραφές, στην ανάδειξη των εσωτερικών κινήτρων, αλλά και η μαεστρία στη δημιουργία ατμόσφαιρας είναι όντως αξιοσημείωτες και καθηλωτικές. Άλλο ένα σημείο άξιο προσοχής: συνήθως στις απλουστευμένες (και απλουστευτικές) λογοτεχνικές κατασκευές όπου κυριαρχεί το δίπολο καλού/ κακού, οι ήρωες είναι «χάρτινοι» τουτέστιν δισδιάστατοι, κάτι που δεν συμβαίνει στο λογοτεχνικό σύμπαν του ντ’ Ωρεβιγύ. Μολονότι οι γυναίκες στέκουν στον αντίποδα του θετικού, δεν σημαίνει ότι δεν διαθέτουν βάθος, δεν έχουν επενδυθεί στιλιστικά με τον ιδιαίτερο τρόπο του συγγραφέα. Σ’ αυτό εδράζεται η καλλιτεχνική ποιότητα του έργου, καθώς οι δύο πόλοι εναρμονίζονται, με συνέπεια η ύπαρξη του ενός να προϋποθέτει την παρουσία του άλλου. Οπότε, καταλήγουμε εκ νέου στη λογική του στέρεου οικοδομήματος που οφείλει να είναι το λογοτεχνικό έργο. Οι Διαβολικές γυναίκες, εν προκειμένω, είναι το θεμέλιό του κι όχι απλά κάτι περιφερειακό και αντικαταστάσιμο.
Για να το θέσω πρακτικά, ο φιλομοναρχισμός του και η γυναικεία διαβολικότητα είναι συμβάσεις (όπως στο θρίλερ το υπερφυσικό) τις οποίες εγώ τουλάχιστον είμαι διατεθειμένος να συγχωρήσω, έχοντας πειστεί ότι το αποτέλεσμα ανταποκρίνεται στις αισθητικές μου προσδοκίες. Και επειδή από απόψεις, θέσεις, ιδεολογίες έχουμε χορτάσει στην καθημερινότητά μας, ενώ από αισθητικής απόψεως «βαλλόμεθα πανταχόθεν», στο έργο τέχνης διατίθεμαι να παραβλέψω τις όποιες αντιρρήσεις μου, εφόσον ο αναγνώστης εντός μου κρίνει ότι το αποτέλεσμα τον δικαιώνει ως τέτοιο. Και στην περίπτωση του ντ’ Ωρεβιγύ αισθάνομαι δικαιωμένος ως αναγνώστης, όσο κι εκείνος ως συγγραφέας.
https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2023/01/...
December 3, 2008
Quite a good read. Perhaps a bit stiff for some, but these varied tales of male and female relations must have been shocking at the time and a few still manage to disturb.
D'Aurevilly writes almost exclusively of the defeated, wealthy class of French monarchists, left to languish as society and history passes them by. Most are set either in D'Aurevilly's sometimes-hometown of Valognes or, of course, Paris. Interestingly, they are all told as stories within a story, so the intruiged and shocked reactions of the listeners are included in the tale, perhaps as social commentary or, perhaps, for the reader to judge their personal reaction against.
The stories are as follows (no spoilers involved).
"The Crimson Curtain" - a late-night stopover in a small town incites a lauded military man/notorious rake to tell a tale of his youth and to explain his horror of a particular window and its crimson curtain. It is a story of boredom, the bland couple who gave him barracks as a youth and their young daughter with whom he begins a torrid but necessarily silent affair under the nose of her parents. The story has an almost Poe-like quality as it creates a rarefied mood of passion, silence and obsession.
"The Greatest Love Of Don Juan" - another notorious rake is treated to a celebration by all his female conquests wherein he is questioned as to his greatest love. He tells a bittersweet tale of a past lover and her daughter. To tell you the truth, I found this one entertaining but the ending kind of opaque. Any other readers like to enlighten me (with a spoiler warning, of course). I mean, I *think* I know what the ending implied but I'd like confirmation.
"Happiness In Crime" - a retired doctor tells a tale of his past involving an unthinkable affair between a local nobleman and an expert female fencer, and the monstrous crime they perpetrated.
"Beneath The Cards Of A Game Of Whist" - The appearance of a fascinating foreigner reinvigorates the social lives of a languishing upper class but is there something scandalous going on under the endless whirl of card games?
"At A Dinner Of Atheists" - a gathering of sybaritic blasphemers demand to know why one of their number was seen entering a church and his story reveals a tale of cuckoldry that ends in shocking sexual violence.
"A Women's Revenge" - a young dandy follows a prostitute home only to realize he recognizes her as a missing noblewoman. She regales him with the story of a passionless marriage, a brazen affair, a shocking murder and her ultimate, extended revenge.
If any of those sound interesting, seek ye out this book!
D'Aurevilly writes almost exclusively of the defeated, wealthy class of French monarchists, left to languish as society and history passes them by. Most are set either in D'Aurevilly's sometimes-hometown of Valognes or, of course, Paris. Interestingly, they are all told as stories within a story, so the intruiged and shocked reactions of the listeners are included in the tale, perhaps as social commentary or, perhaps, for the reader to judge their personal reaction against.
The stories are as follows (no spoilers involved).
"The Crimson Curtain" - a late-night stopover in a small town incites a lauded military man/notorious rake to tell a tale of his youth and to explain his horror of a particular window and its crimson curtain. It is a story of boredom, the bland couple who gave him barracks as a youth and their young daughter with whom he begins a torrid but necessarily silent affair under the nose of her parents. The story has an almost Poe-like quality as it creates a rarefied mood of passion, silence and obsession.
"The Greatest Love Of Don Juan" - another notorious rake is treated to a celebration by all his female conquests wherein he is questioned as to his greatest love. He tells a bittersweet tale of a past lover and her daughter. To tell you the truth, I found this one entertaining but the ending kind of opaque. Any other readers like to enlighten me (with a spoiler warning, of course). I mean, I *think* I know what the ending implied but I'd like confirmation.
"Happiness In Crime" - a retired doctor tells a tale of his past involving an unthinkable affair between a local nobleman and an expert female fencer, and the monstrous crime they perpetrated.
"Beneath The Cards Of A Game Of Whist" - The appearance of a fascinating foreigner reinvigorates the social lives of a languishing upper class but is there something scandalous going on under the endless whirl of card games?
"At A Dinner Of Atheists" - a gathering of sybaritic blasphemers demand to know why one of their number was seen entering a church and his story reveals a tale of cuckoldry that ends in shocking sexual violence.
"A Women's Revenge" - a young dandy follows a prostitute home only to realize he recognizes her as a missing noblewoman. She regales him with the story of a passionless marriage, a brazen affair, a shocking murder and her ultimate, extended revenge.
If any of those sound interesting, seek ye out this book!
May 8, 2020
A collection of tales about women in nineteenth century France who aren't saints, and who therefore must be...les diaboliques!
This felt like the prose version of a series of Baudelaire poems. Longer, more complex in tone, but the same sensibility. I really liked them and can't give an objective review. I was expecting the stories to be sexist, but they were more sardonic than anything else.
If Baudelaire is your jam, give these a try.
This felt like the prose version of a series of Baudelaire poems. Longer, more complex in tone, but the same sensibility. I really liked them and can't give an objective review. I was expecting the stories to be sexist, but they were more sardonic than anything else.
If Baudelaire is your jam, give these a try.
September 20, 2015
I have a feeling that I wouldn't have liked the man in person (the whole aristocratic / monarchist / holier than thou thing) BUT, he sure could write. I'm not giving it five stars because I felt like it dragged a bit a few times (could have removed a page or two).
"Like everything else that provokes malice and envy, birth exercises over the very people who most bitterly reject its claims a physical ascendancy, which is perhaps the best proof of its rights. In time of Revolution this ascendancy is fiercely combated; it still makes itself felt by virtue of the very reaction it provokes. In more peaceable times it acts with a steady and persistent, though unacknowledged, force.
“Well, 182 … was one of these periods of tranquillity. … Liberalism, which was growing steadily under the shadow of the Constitutional Charter, as were its champions and watch-dogs in their borrowed kennel, had not as yet crushed the life out of that sentiment of loyalty which the return of the Princes from exile had raised to fever-heat in every heart. Say what you will, it was a proud moment for France, convalescent and once more monarchical; the knife of successive Revolutions had cut her bosom to the quick, but full of hope and energy, she still dreamt she could live on thus mutilated, not as yet feeling in her veins the mysterious germs of the cancer that had long been gnawing at her vitals and must one day kill her."
----
"Their atheism was not the atheism of the eighteenth century, from which, however, it had sprung. The atheism of the eighteenth century made some pretensions to truth and thought. It reasoned, was sophistical, declamatory, and, above all, impertinent. But it did not possess the insolence of the weather-beaten veterans of the Empire, and the regicide apostates of ’93. We who have come after these men, have also our atheism; absolute, concentrated, wise, icy, and hating with an implacable hate, and having for all religious matters the hate of the insect for the beam it bores into. But neither of these forms of atheism could give an idea of the inveterate atheism of the men of the beginning of the century, who being brought up like dogs by their fathers, the Voltairians, had plunged their hands up to the shoulders in all the horrors of politics and war, and the manifold corruptions which spring from them."
"Like everything else that provokes malice and envy, birth exercises over the very people who most bitterly reject its claims a physical ascendancy, which is perhaps the best proof of its rights. In time of Revolution this ascendancy is fiercely combated; it still makes itself felt by virtue of the very reaction it provokes. In more peaceable times it acts with a steady and persistent, though unacknowledged, force.
“Well, 182 … was one of these periods of tranquillity. … Liberalism, which was growing steadily under the shadow of the Constitutional Charter, as were its champions and watch-dogs in their borrowed kennel, had not as yet crushed the life out of that sentiment of loyalty which the return of the Princes from exile had raised to fever-heat in every heart. Say what you will, it was a proud moment for France, convalescent and once more monarchical; the knife of successive Revolutions had cut her bosom to the quick, but full of hope and energy, she still dreamt she could live on thus mutilated, not as yet feeling in her veins the mysterious germs of the cancer that had long been gnawing at her vitals and must one day kill her."
----
"Their atheism was not the atheism of the eighteenth century, from which, however, it had sprung. The atheism of the eighteenth century made some pretensions to truth and thought. It reasoned, was sophistical, declamatory, and, above all, impertinent. But it did not possess the insolence of the weather-beaten veterans of the Empire, and the regicide apostates of ’93. We who have come after these men, have also our atheism; absolute, concentrated, wise, icy, and hating with an implacable hate, and having for all religious matters the hate of the insect for the beam it bores into. But neither of these forms of atheism could give an idea of the inveterate atheism of the men of the beginning of the century, who being brought up like dogs by their fathers, the Voltairians, had plunged their hands up to the shoulders in all the horrors of politics and war, and the manifold corruptions which spring from them."
August 30, 2014
Cette collection de six contes publiée en 1874 est le plus réussi des ouvrages de Jules Barbery d'Aurevilly. Chaque nouvelle raconte l'histoire d'une femme diabolique qui commet une crime. Il faut dire que les femmes sont belles, séduisantes et bien habillées. Elles vient toutes des milieux aisées.
Les Diaboliques va plaire a tous ceux qui aime le style decadent de la France de la fin du siècle. Ce n'est pas un genre qui m'emballe beaucoup mais les exemples dans ce receuil sont tous très bien faits.
Les Diaboliques va plaire a tous ceux qui aime le style decadent de la France de la fin du siècle. Ce n'est pas un genre qui m'emballe beaucoup mais les exemples dans ce receuil sont tous très bien faits.
July 23, 2016
Un godibilissimo minore
Le diaboliche lette dopo aver divorato alcuni libri di Balzac permettono ancor meglio di capire la grandezza di quest'ultimo. Non che Barbey d'Aurevilly non sia un buon scrittore, tutt'altro, ma la differenza di complessità, di capacità di analisi tra i due è abissale.
I due si assomigliano: scrivono nella prima metà dell'800 il primo, poco più avanti il secondo; entrambi aborriscono i valori borghesi resi egemoni dalla rivoluzione, che identificano nel dominio del denaro e nella volgarità, e ritengono che l'aristocrazia debba farsi portatrice del riscatto della società dalla barbarie in cui è caduta. Entrambi, poi, hanno la coscienza che l'aristocrazia dei loro tempi non è in grado di sobbarcarsi tale compito, rosa come è da vizio e bramosia di potere. Un tratto distintivo dell'autore de Le diaboliche è il fervente cattolicesimo, che affiora nei racconti e, come detto nell'introduzione, rende complessa la personalità di questo dandy attratto dalla perversione.
Ma mentre in Balzac queste convinzioni sono alla base del disegno di un'opera titanica, che rimane il più ambizioso tentativo della letteratura di descrivere un'epoca, in Barbey d'Aurevilly esse generano delle storie ben confezionate ma che non vanno molto al di là del loro appeal letterario.
Questo almeno è l'impressione che ho avuto leggendo Le diaboliche: si tratta di sei racconti, ambientati a Parigi o nella provincia francese, che hanno come protagoniste figure femminili che sconvolgono i destini di chi gli sta accanto, per scelta o per fatalità. I temi e le ambientazioni potrebbero essere tipicamente balzacchiani, ma manca totalmente la capacità di rendere le situazioni e i personaggi universali, paradigmi di un'epoca.
Forse però comparare Barbey d'Aurevilly a Balzac è pretendere troppo: godiamoci quindi i sei bei racconti, tra i quali spiccano a mio parere La felicità nel delitto e A un pranzo tra atei.
Una nota finale per l'edizione: questo Tascabile Economico Newton da L. 2000 nel 1993, ben tradotto e con una bella introduzione di Elena Giolitti, che ha retto senza sfaldarsi le mie letture serali, dimostra come si possano fare ottimi libri ad un costo molto contenuto.
Le diaboliche lette dopo aver divorato alcuni libri di Balzac permettono ancor meglio di capire la grandezza di quest'ultimo. Non che Barbey d'Aurevilly non sia un buon scrittore, tutt'altro, ma la differenza di complessità, di capacità di analisi tra i due è abissale.
I due si assomigliano: scrivono nella prima metà dell'800 il primo, poco più avanti il secondo; entrambi aborriscono i valori borghesi resi egemoni dalla rivoluzione, che identificano nel dominio del denaro e nella volgarità, e ritengono che l'aristocrazia debba farsi portatrice del riscatto della società dalla barbarie in cui è caduta. Entrambi, poi, hanno la coscienza che l'aristocrazia dei loro tempi non è in grado di sobbarcarsi tale compito, rosa come è da vizio e bramosia di potere. Un tratto distintivo dell'autore de Le diaboliche è il fervente cattolicesimo, che affiora nei racconti e, come detto nell'introduzione, rende complessa la personalità di questo dandy attratto dalla perversione.
Ma mentre in Balzac queste convinzioni sono alla base del disegno di un'opera titanica, che rimane il più ambizioso tentativo della letteratura di descrivere un'epoca, in Barbey d'Aurevilly esse generano delle storie ben confezionate ma che non vanno molto al di là del loro appeal letterario.
Questo almeno è l'impressione che ho avuto leggendo Le diaboliche: si tratta di sei racconti, ambientati a Parigi o nella provincia francese, che hanno come protagoniste figure femminili che sconvolgono i destini di chi gli sta accanto, per scelta o per fatalità. I temi e le ambientazioni potrebbero essere tipicamente balzacchiani, ma manca totalmente la capacità di rendere le situazioni e i personaggi universali, paradigmi di un'epoca.
Forse però comparare Barbey d'Aurevilly a Balzac è pretendere troppo: godiamoci quindi i sei bei racconti, tra i quali spiccano a mio parere La felicità nel delitto e A un pranzo tra atei.
Una nota finale per l'edizione: questo Tascabile Economico Newton da L. 2000 nel 1993, ben tradotto e con una bella introduzione di Elena Giolitti, che ha retto senza sfaldarsi le mie letture serali, dimostra come si possano fare ottimi libri ad un costo molto contenuto.
December 9, 2012
There's a lot of black romanticism in here, going all the way to bloody horror in the last story, but Barbey d'Aurevilly's style is not interested in creating tension, but more in describing states. That's the dandy background, probably. While those stories have one supernatural foot in the earlier romantic literature, the dandyism foot is standing in the mid-19th century society. And then, yes, he's a three-footed beast, there's the bluntness and horror casting a shadow on the modern times to come. Is he the link between E.T.A. Hoffmann and Stefan Zweig with a seasoning of Marquis de Sade?
August 27, 2016
Pues a mi si me gustó, es bastante interesante, y aunque el autor dice que son ejemplos para lo que no debe hacerse, me parece disfruta mucho escribiendo, y esa sensación de placer se contagia al leerlo) hay historias que me recuerdan mucho eso de "Amistades peligrosas" tanto en estilo como en fondo, lo recomiendo.
October 25, 2023
Classico francese dell'ottocento, di un autore che non avevo mai sentito nominare. È rimasto sul comodino per qualche anno perché m'ispirava zero.
Ovvio che, come molte altre volte, mi sbagliavo.
I racconti hanno tutti una lunghissima introduzione, il narratore che si accoccola nei dettagli senza fretta e ogni nuovo personaggio viene introdotto con descrizione e corposo background. Insomma ci vuol pazienza.
Ma poi il colpo di scena arriva, puntuale, solitamente verso la fine.
La traduzione di Fredianelli è azzeccatissima. Mantiene la pomposità delle atmosfere aristocratiche francesi ma la prosa è svecchiata e godibile pur restando solenne ed evocativa.
Questa raccolta è estremamente provocatoria, con vette tipo ostie date ai maiali e una coppia che si schiaffeggia col cuore imbalsamato del loro figlioletto morto. Roba pesante ancora oggi... ghigno pensando a quanto saranno stati giudicati scandalosi all'epoca..
Ah, Mio cuggino campione di karate dice che Barbey ha ispirato Poe ed Henry James.
Poi eh se ti va leggilo sennò l'è anca stesso. Diciamo che non ho avuto spontanee erezioni da prosa fetish plumcake, ma tieni presente che 'sta roba ha quasi 200 anni.
Ovvio che, come molte altre volte, mi sbagliavo.
I racconti hanno tutti una lunghissima introduzione, il narratore che si accoccola nei dettagli senza fretta e ogni nuovo personaggio viene introdotto con descrizione e corposo background. Insomma ci vuol pazienza.
Ma poi il colpo di scena arriva, puntuale, solitamente verso la fine.
La traduzione di Fredianelli è azzeccatissima. Mantiene la pomposità delle atmosfere aristocratiche francesi ma la prosa è svecchiata e godibile pur restando solenne ed evocativa.
Questa raccolta è estremamente provocatoria, con vette tipo ostie date ai maiali e una coppia che si schiaffeggia col cuore imbalsamato del loro figlioletto morto. Roba pesante ancora oggi... ghigno pensando a quanto saranno stati giudicati scandalosi all'epoca..
Ah, Mio cuggino campione di karate dice che Barbey ha ispirato Poe ed Henry James.
Poi eh se ti va leggilo sennò l'è anca stesso. Diciamo che non ho avuto spontanee erezioni da prosa fetish plumcake, ma tieni presente che 'sta roba ha quasi 200 anni.
November 5, 2023
<3 une poésie sublime, des histoires fascinantes, une diversité des représentations féminines !
j'ai adoré le rideau cramoisi, le bonheur dans le crime, à un diner d'athées et la vengeance d'une femme. la meilleure nouvelle, je crois, la plus satisfaisante, la plus lyrique, la plus complète, c'est à un diner d'athées.
j'ai adoré le rideau cramoisi, le bonheur dans le crime, à un diner d'athées et la vengeance d'une femme. la meilleure nouvelle, je crois, la plus satisfaisante, la plus lyrique, la plus complète, c'est à un diner d'athées.
April 10, 2018
Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that if you saw Hell through a small window, it would be far more horrific than if you were able to see the place in its entirety.
Thematically, all six short stories all contain a she-devil, a he-dandy, and a strong moral message delivered amidst shockingly gruesome circumstances. Barbey saw such stories as being in keeping with his Catholic faith. Indeed, according to him, Catholicism was unshockable and ultimately accepting of audacious art from which it could draw lessons. (Towards the end of his life, he passed this opinion to his protégé Léon Bloy.)
No matter how much Barbey maintains the open-mindedness of Catholicism, he allows himself no cheap thrill, but rather constructs a sophisticated, white-gloved presentation of hell’s disciples. He insulates the readers from each abhorrent moral crime, so that they may mull over the disgusting consequences at their leisure. (If you sense a dandy approach here, you’re not mistaken.)
Insulation is achieved by distancing.
First, the plots of the stories are pushed into the past. Barbey relies heavily on historical facts and accurate depictions of society, dress, culture, and conventions to set the scene. Across this backdrop, he then draws frame within narratorial frame—each bringing with it the niggling question of veracity—until the ultimately nested narrator reveals the punchline. The story doesn’t end there, but instead goes on massaging the point by displaying the dismay of those present in the top frame or by deducing the moral. Only then is the insulation complete.
If you accept the frames as an artificial tactic, the situation is almost whimsical, a paper theatre on the stage of a paper theatre on the stage of another.
If you accept the frames as immersion then they’re iconic of Barbey’s message: we’re led through the grand portcullis of the castle, through the great inner gate, through the large hall door, through the side door leading down, through the narrow dungeon entrance, where we’re allowed to peer through a slit—at Sin itself.
A sinister journey for a glimpse of the forbidden.
With good reason: any less sinister the journey, any larger the slit, and we might not be as affected by what we see. We might even be tempted.
(Seen from afar, all at once, Dante’s Hell is an ice cream cone.)
May 21, 2013
I liked this book quite a lot. The stories may not be as diabolique as they might at first seem, but one can feel how shocking and scandalous they would be during their time. It's an easy read for people like me who are more into the stories of people than the stories themselves. D'Aurevilly puts great emphasis on the characters, along with their history, feelings and experiences. The stories are all from a third persons point of view: some from the author's, some from another "narrator".
**Includes spoilers from here on**
The first story (The Red Curtain) is about a curious house, more specifically, a curious red curtain, behind from which a red vivid light dimly shines at night. The author is in a carriage along with an acquaintance. And curiously, this man has an exciting story to tell about this house, in front of which, the carriage coincidentally breaks down and stops.
The second story is about the "Don Juan" of another time and another place. This lady killer man reveals the greatest romantic experiance he has ever lived to the curious ladies that surround him.
The third story is about a couple, so in love, that unlike other people would, they can overcome a great guilt in order to continue their romance.
The fourth story ( The Mystery behind a Whist Party) takes us through unravelling mysteries and unexpected stories of people who are simply engaged in a whist party. A most dramatic end..
The fifth story is about a soldier who has found, through love, that faith of other people is not something to laugh about, but rather, something to understand in time.
The last story is about the revenge of a woman, whose love affair was ended forever by her husband. She plans a revenge that will last for eternity for the cruel and proud husband she now hates.
**Includes spoilers from here on**
The first story (The Red Curtain) is about a curious house, more specifically, a curious red curtain, behind from which a red vivid light dimly shines at night. The author is in a carriage along with an acquaintance. And curiously, this man has an exciting story to tell about this house, in front of which, the carriage coincidentally breaks down and stops.
The second story is about the "Don Juan" of another time and another place. This lady killer man reveals the greatest romantic experiance he has ever lived to the curious ladies that surround him.
The third story is about a couple, so in love, that unlike other people would, they can overcome a great guilt in order to continue their romance.
The fourth story ( The Mystery behind a Whist Party) takes us through unravelling mysteries and unexpected stories of people who are simply engaged in a whist party. A most dramatic end..
The fifth story is about a soldier who has found, through love, that faith of other people is not something to laugh about, but rather, something to understand in time.
The last story is about the revenge of a woman, whose love affair was ended forever by her husband. She plans a revenge that will last for eternity for the cruel and proud husband she now hates.
June 4, 2017
This is another of those works, notable for its now dated, obsolescent notorious-ness, but one that stands on its own merits. Les Dia (not to be mistaken for Les Diarrheaux, Eng. "The Diarrhea-tistes" by Comte En Briches) was, in its time, considered to be a work of great obscenity (it's not) and is now mistakenly considered some spine-tingling work of gothic fright (it's not). Maybe they're getting it confused with LeFanu?
Interestingly, the collection can be considered offensive by our modern sensibilities since all the "diabolical ones" are women. What it might be easy to forget (though I can't see how) is that these, all stories of weird love, involve men, too, and the occasional daughter, and it might be better to point up how shittily both sexes can be. But Les Dia makes it clear that women are somehow tools of Satan, or fillable with satanic urges and lusts. What goes unsaid and might be the point is that it is the pointed, acute, stifling world of men that make it so. So maybe men are Satan.
Arguments like this are stupid; I'm backing away now
The collection is enjoyable, and there are little frightful things, not supernatural at all, but horrifying in their frank immediacy (dead babies) or in their delineation of the terrifying limits people can go to for revenge (poison; noble lady prostituting herself as a cheap whore to get revenge on her jealous husband). Actually, the latter parenthetical smugness, "A Woman's Revenge" makes the whole volume worth reading.
Les Dia influenced Proust, too!
Interestingly, the collection can be considered offensive by our modern sensibilities since all the "diabolical ones" are women. What it might be easy to forget (though I can't see how) is that these, all stories of weird love, involve men, too, and the occasional daughter, and it might be better to point up how shittily both sexes can be. But Les Dia makes it clear that women are somehow tools of Satan, or fillable with satanic urges and lusts. What goes unsaid and might be the point is that it is the pointed, acute, stifling world of men that make it so. So maybe men are Satan.
Arguments like this are stupid; I'm backing away now
The collection is enjoyable, and there are little frightful things, not supernatural at all, but horrifying in their frank immediacy (dead babies) or in their delineation of the terrifying limits people can go to for revenge (poison; noble lady prostituting herself as a cheap whore to get revenge on her jealous husband). Actually, the latter parenthetical smugness, "A Woman's Revenge" makes the whole volume worth reading.
Les Dia influenced Proust, too!
April 23, 2020
Une demi douzaine d'histoires sur des femmes énigmatiques, sensuelles, et ambiguës à souhait; elle sont diabolisées par ce conteur rusé de Barbey d'Aurevilly, qui titille son audience en dévoilant lentement les petites perversités de toute et chacune. Cela se veut délicieusement décadent (et ça l'est, souvent) mais qu'est-ce qu'il est bavard! Et voilà qu'il digresse, encore, et voici qu'il s'éternise sur des détails en tournant autour du pot... c'est son but, je sais, et sa technique est calculée pour prolonger le plaisir du lecteur, mais l’impatiente qui je suis pense plutôt: "accouche, enfin"! Mais mise à part cette critique sur la forme, j'ai réellement apprécié le recueil dans le fond, et je rumine encore les motivations insolites de ces belles personnages féminines.
April 19, 2012
La meilleure entrée en matière pour l'oeuvre du génialissime Barbey d'Aurevilly, un écrin d'une pâte classique qui renferme l'étrange, le fantastique, l'impensable, l'inavoué. Une alliance de feu et de glace qui n'est pas sans rappeler, sous un certain rapport, Léo Perutz. "le bonheur dans le crime" a transporté la jeune escrimeuse que je fus autrefois.
June 29, 2020
A lire : une écriture élégante et raffinée, une narration qui ménage un suspense haletant et surtout des histoires profondément originales.
August 24, 2023
macabre, triste, gore et drôle comme j aime les lectures du XIXe c est un sans faute
December 15, 2023
Aquí tenemos un autor majestuoso, potente, de regusto acre y sobre todo exquisito. Es exquisito no porque fuera dandi y de la nobleza (que también), sino porque su alma es exquisita, de enorme piedad y con miras a lo sublime.
Hay un par de páginas que son las más hermosas que yo haya leído de la literatura francesa: en concreto en el relato En un banquete de ateos.
Barbey es un moralista, pero no el que un lector burgués y materialista esperaría, claro. Sino un desafiante católico, que reta en duelo a su siglo y quizá también al nuestro.
Quizá lo que más molestara en su momento de esta obra es que recordara (cuando habla de la Inquisición) que los peores pecados no se materializan ni los persigue la policía. Porque el Diablo, que es un ser angélico, no mata cuerpos ni violenta doncellas, pero se condena por su impiedad y soberbia.
Hay un par de páginas que son las más hermosas que yo haya leído de la literatura francesa: en concreto en el relato En un banquete de ateos.
Barbey es un moralista, pero no el que un lector burgués y materialista esperaría, claro. Sino un desafiante católico, que reta en duelo a su siglo y quizá también al nuestro.
Quizá lo que más molestara en su momento de esta obra es que recordara (cuando habla de la Inquisición) que los peores pecados no se materializan ni los persigue la policía. Porque el Diablo, que es un ser angélico, no mata cuerpos ni violenta doncellas, pero se condena por su impiedad y soberbia.
August 17, 2022
Elitist raconteurs who exude nostalgia for a bygone age regale us with tales of murder, misogyny, and all-round nastiness. For something almost 150 years old there's still a capacity to shock in some of these stories, even if there's an occasional twinge of impatience with some of the (still very entertaining) circumlocution.
(the edition I read was the translation included in The Decadent Reader: Fiction, Fantasy, and Perversion from Fin-de-Siècle France, as translated by Peter Brooks)
(the edition I read was the translation included in The Decadent Reader: Fiction, Fantasy, and Perversion from Fin-de-Siècle France, as translated by Peter Brooks)
September 24, 2022
i like all the intricate storytelling here - narrators nested inside the tales told by other narrators and so forth. also, despite being a reactionary who seems to think that women are lascivious sexual demons, he frequently ends up also portraying the women as cool and worthy of admiration because their unrestrained sexuality puts them at odds with bourgeois society. good job fin de siecle france
November 8, 2011
It is indeed funny, how this book combines the genuine horror of a young officer whose hand has been touched by a hand of a young woman under the dinner table in the first novella (Le rideau cramoisi) with the graphic mutilation and torture scenes, or with eighty nuns raped by two escadrons and thrown into a well while still alive in the last novellas.
Style sample (makes me wanna turn it into an intertitle in a silent film): "Notre amour avait eu la simultanéité de deux coups de pistolet tirés en même temps, et qui tuent…"
The first four stories really make you wonder why you should be reading this torrent of words, generously seasoned with names of mythological and historical figures, at times obscure or imaginary. But the last two make it up and are not for the faint of heart.
Style sample (makes me wanna turn it into an intertitle in a silent film): "Notre amour avait eu la simultanéité de deux coups de pistolet tirés en même temps, et qui tuent…"
The first four stories really make you wonder why you should be reading this torrent of words, generously seasoned with names of mythological and historical figures, at times obscure or imaginary. But the last two make it up and are not for the faint of heart.
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