The Last Day of a Condemned Man (1829)

O livro que tanto emocionou Dostoiévski. O autor russo se impressionou como Victor Hugo pode descrever sensações pelas quais não tinha passado – e pelas quais o próprio Dostoiévski passaria. Irônico, se pensarmos que depois que os seus leitores teriam a mesma surpresa, e o tomariam pelo narrador das Memórias da Casa dos Mortos (embora o livro seja autobiográfico, a introdução deixa claro que o narrador não é Dostoiévski , mas um homem preso por assassinar a esposa, crime que atribuíram ao autor por causa disso), por Raskolnikov, Stavróguin, Ivan Karamazov, etc.
Muito bem escrito e muito interessante. ( )

The Last Day of a Condemned Man offers a disturbingly intimate exploration of the thoughts of a prisoner awaiting imminent execution in nineteenth century France. Written as a first-person diary, this portrayal of psychological anguish is poignant in the extreme which, although uncomfortable reading, nevertheless provides valuable insight. It is a truly wonderful work of literature, and the author's 1832 preface is just as magnificent in its own right, setting forth Hugo's personal views at length and in a more explicit manner; and how little the arguments have changed! Whatever one's personal views on capital punishment, this work is sure to provoke a somewhat more contemplative attitude toward the subject; for this reason alone I hope as many people as possible sit down for just a few hours and read this unassuming little book.

Early pleading against capital punishment. An anonymous captive remembers his life, depicts his time in prison, before being put to death. At first, he prefers to die a thousand deaths instead of being chained for life to the Galleys. In his last minutes, ascending the scaffold, he would better like surviving even in chains and torture.

Hugo’s polemic against the death penalty is crafted as more of an emotional reaction than a political rant (though that appears in the preface). At first the condemned man believes that “death is infinitely to be preferred” to a life of hard labor; however, as his diary continues, we journey through his thoughts as execution day looms. Most disturbing is the festival atmosphere surrounding executions. When a woman remarks on the higher interest level in seeing a death row inmate versus a chain gang, out narrator posits “it is less diffuse, a concentrated and more aromatic liqueur.”

It is also filled with Hugo’s beautiful prose: “For La Grève has already had enough. La Grève is mending her ways. The blood-swigging old crone behaved well in July. She now wants to live a better life, and to remain worthy of her recent good deed. Having lent her body to all the executions of the last three hundred years, she has now gone all coy. She is ashamed of her former calling. She wants to lose her bad name. she disowns the executioner. She is washing down her cobblestones.” ( )

Oh this is very excellent!
I can only translate the blurb on the back of this book because it's perfect.

"Victor Hugo was 26 years old when he wrote, in two and a half months, The Last Day of a Condemned Man.
We willl not know who the condemned man is, nor will we know what crime he committed. Because the purpose of the author is not to enter a debate but to exhibit the horror and the absurdity of the situation in which any man finds himself whose neck we are about to slice in a few hours.
This book - with strangely modern accents - has a great power of suggestion that the reader ends by identifying with the narrator with whom he shares anxiety and vain hopes. Till the last lines of the book, Victor Hugo's genius has us participating in a grueiling wait: that of the screeching noise that the blade will make following the rails of the guillotine."

Part of the genius of the book is how the book begins: two explications. The first, that this book was discovered as a pile of crumpled yellow sheets of paper. The second, that a philospher imagined it all. Victor Hugo lets the reader decide for himself.

We are then presented with "A comedy about a tragedy", a short one act play with characters discussing this new book about a condemned man that has just come out. The characters reactions?
"It's a terrible book."
"At each chapter there is an ogre that eats a child."
"It takes place in Iceland."
"They have no right to make a reader suffer physically."
"It is certain that books are often a subversive poison to social order."

Then comes the actual narrative of the condemned man. Oh how he makes us feel pity and emotionally involved with his situation. We seek his innocence! (Never mind the fact that he briefly states that he has spilled blood.) When he cleverly gets a guard to almost switch clothes with him how we want to laugh in the guard's face.

And then, while the crowd parades around the guillotine waiting for the final chop, a man cries "who needs a spot?" to which our condemned man reflects "who wants mine?".

We ride with the condemned man to the guillotine, we have our hands tied behind our back, our hair chopped, our collar removed and then, reprising our role as the reader we stop to think: if the condemned man is the narrator how can he be relating this to us all? And that is Victor Hugo's final genius.

FOUR O'CLOCK. ( )