Félix Fénéon (1861–1944)

Wonderful fun. Gallows humor, extremely dry. Arid. Feneon published these faits-divers in the newspaper Le Matin in 1906. 1,066 of the original 1,220 (Sante omits 154 of them for being too obscure ... though reading the ones that remain, I'd love to see the ones that were rejected ... what counts as "obscurity" with these?) mordant, often violent bits of French life are reprinted in this slim NYRB volume. Two nits: there's nothing regarding the images reproduced throughout (some are pages of show more newsprint but most seem to be woodcuts by -- I guess, given the initials 'FV' on them -- Felix Vallotton) and the repeating header on the right-hand pages reads "Novels in The Three Lines" ... where was your copy-editor, NYRB Classics? show less

A beautifully illustrated book with charming, mordant three-line epitaphs that taste of the dry wit of Edward Gorey. The illustrations are collage-style, much like Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python illustrations, with photos, ink, markers and possibly crayon. Unlike Gorey, these scenarios are not fictional. They were brief news items written in a French newspaper in 1906 by Felix Fénéon, a member of the literati and an anarchist.

Some of the dark tidbits made me giggle. Some were rather sad. show more They all captured an intriguing tone of turn-of-the-century France. Overall, it’s an evocative collection, but can they really be considered three line “novels?” True, Hemmingway wrote a six word “novel” that he claimed was his best work.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Pretty sharp, that. But in this case, I was left wanting a bit more after tearing through this $24.95 hardback in about half an hour. Enjoyed, yes. But probably better to borrow from the library. show less

Marvelous, weird, grim, blackly funny. Originally published in the French newspaper Le Matin in 1906 as "Faits-divers," (literally, "diverse facts"), Feneon constructed these precursors to flash [non]fiction based on newswire and other provincial newspaper reports. Murder. Suicide. Rape. Domestic abuse - marital, adulterous, child sexual. Road accidents. Festival queens. Rabid dogs. Local politics. Disputes over crucifixes in classrooms. And who knew the French carried so many guns?! Each show more drama compressed into three lines of type, which managed to include the requisites of who, where, how, and why, and frequently a single word of dry comment. Read them as though they were haiku, in no particular order (only very rarely does a single event get more than one, though there are multiple thefts of telegraph cables mentioned).

Among my favorites: "In the vicinity of Noisy-sur-Ecole, M. Louis Delillieau, seventy, dropped dead of sunstroke. Quickly his dog Fido ate his head." and "Two mayors in the Somme were determined to restore to classroom walls the image of divine torture. The prefect suspended those mayors."

Feneon was an eccentric, writing and editing prolifically, the founder of important arts journals. But when offered the opportunity to publish a book, he announced "I aspire only to silence." The over a thousand "faits-divers" were printed anonymously, but his wife and his mistress carefully clipped and saved them. Luc Sante has captured their dry brevity with wit in translation, but I often found myself wanting to see them in the original French (what would the French idiom be for "fished out of the [name your choice of river here]," anyway? Sante's introduction is useful for understanding some of the allusions and social background of these tiny, lurid glimpses into French society of 1906. Fun for francophiles - and illustrated by several of Felix Vallotton's appropriately black and menacing woodcuts. show less

A collection of roughly 1000 little faits-divers (brief column-filling news stories) which Félix Fénéon contributed to a Parisian newspaper in 1906. Each of them took up a maximum of three lines of news print, hence the book's title. When Fénéon was on top form, these glimpses of life's tragedies and unusual occurrences can be mordantly funny and occasionally even beautiful. For the most part, though, this litany of strikes, suicides, child abuse, domestic violence, road accidents, show more train crashes, and religious disputes, takes on a kind of banal same-ishness. A more judicious selection would probably have worked better. show less