Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897)

Daudet is referred to, more than once, in Flaubert’s Parrot. Daudet was a friend and compatriot of Turgenev, Flaubert, Edmond de Goncourt, Zola and other writers and poets. He died at the age of 57 (1897) of tertiary syphilis (which he contracted at 17). The disease manifested itself as tabes dorsalis: literally, wasting of the back with progressive loss of motor control and considerable pain. He was diagnosed in 1885 and lived for another 15 years with increasing pain and debility. For show more long periods he could only function with massive doses of morphine.

For Barnes, part of the attraction of Daudet’s book (really a series of notes over ten years, with some gaps of years when he did not write) is the larger question of “How is it best to write about illness, and dying, and death?” Daudet did write about it by making the notes that he hoped to turn into a book about Pain, but that never came to pass. In his writing, Daudet, “had the cold eye and the warm, suffering heart. He also had a sense of the ordinary. What happens around illness may be dramatic, even heroic, but illness itself is ordinary, day-to-day boring. “

Daudet’s other reaction, on a personal level, was to follow the advice of Larkin: “Courage…means not scaring others”. There are many reports of Daudet rallying if only for a few minutes so as not to alarm family. As he once said: “Suffering is nothing. It’s all a matter of preventing those you love from suffering.” In his notes Daudet says: “Pride in not imposing on others the bad moods and the somber injustices of my sufferings.” As Barnes notes, Daudet’s advice was that, “Illness should be treated as an unwelcome guest, to whom no special attention is accorded; daily life should continue as normally as possible.” Positions that Barnes finds, “difficult, correct (and now unfashionable) ...”

Daudet forced himself to write, even a little, even when in considerable discomfort: “My anguish is great, and I weep as I write…The power of actually being there: I have learnt to my cost, since I have become someone unable to walk, someone no longer visible….Nothing but terror and despair at first; then, gradually, the mind, like the body, adjusts to this appalling condition.”

Interesting observations: “The clever way death cuts us down, but makes it look like just a thinning-out. Generations never fall with one blow—that would be too sad and too obvious. Death prefers to do it piecemeal. The meadow is attacked from several sides at the same time. One of us goes one day; another some time afterwards; you have to stand back and look around you to take in what’s missing, to grasp the vast slaughter of your generation.”

Is it indeed even possible to really describe the experience: “How much I suffered last night, in my heel and in my ribs. Sheer torture…there are no words to express it, only howls of pain could do so
Are words actually any use to describe what pain (or passion, for that matter) really feels like? Words only come when everything is over, when things have calmed down. They refer only to memory, and are either powerless of untruthful. No general theory about pain. Each patient discovers his own, and the nature of pain varies, like a singer’s voice, according to the acoustics of the hall.”

On another tangent, it is interesting to see how Daudet reflected the inconsistency of human character. He was, according to Barnes, “viewed as a sunny humorist and clear stylist”; he was highly successful and rich; Charles Dickens called him, “my little brother in France” and Henry James referred to him as, “a great little novelist”. He was, as outlined above and in his notes, stalwart in the face of terrible pain and cared for the well-being of loved ones above his own comfort; he appears to have been a staunch friend to many. And he was a strong anti-Semite. He encouraged the publication of a two volume work, La France juive, which “did much to intensify French anti-semitism in the years before the Dreyfus case.” Barnes notes that the book sold, “shamefully well” with multiple editions including one issued in 1943 as the French were supplying their quota of Jews to the German death camps. His son, Leon, became a leading rightist figure in France and supporter of the Vichy regime.

Not surprising, in its way. In nothing to be frightened of, Barnes notes, with respect to writers: “They might indeed be sensitive, perceptive, wise, generalizing and particularizing—but only at their desks and in their books. When they venture out into the world, they regularly behave as if they had left all their comprehension of human behaviour stuck in their typescripts. “ Examples of this abound throughout history. Barnes asks his brother if philosophers are any better: “Not a whit wiser for being philosophers. Worse, in their semi-public lives, far less wise than many other species of academics.”

It is, quite simply the human condition. show less

A short and very amusing little novel (88p). Our hero, Tartarin, is a Quixote-like character, his imagination fired by adventure stories and his accumulation of weapons. But while he finds life in provincial southern France dull - at local hunting trips the men are reduced to throwing their caps in the air and shooting at them due to a paucity of wildlife - Tartarin also has a luxury-loving Sancho Panza side to his character, and consequently has never had a real adventure.
"Quixote-Tartarin show more firing up on the stories of Gustave Aimard and shouting "Up and at 'em!" and Sancho-Tartarin thinking only of the rheumatics ahead and murmuring "I mean to stay at home."
But after an encounter with a lion in a local menagerie, the rumour goes about that Tartarin is off to hunt lions in Algeria, and reluctantly he has to make the journey...
His adventures in Africa are highly entertaining and comical featuring a Moorish lady-of-the-night, a camel, a not-to-be-trusted Montenegrin prince ... and even a lion.
Great translation renders the original in convincing Victorian English. show less

10/10

This undoubtedly reflects a nostalgia rating -- but for all of that it has stood the test of time rather well.

I was put back on this magical mystery tour by a chance remark of Fionnuala's in her 2019 year-in-review comments: that a tartarin is both a braggart, and a finely woven cloth. Both connected in my mind with the indefatigable Tartarin de Tarascon, who, braggart though he was, took us all on a (finely-woven) magic carpet ride, in the year when we were 10 or 11.

Other than the show more fact that 39 children (yes, class sizes were that big, back then, and more) probably didn't understand half of the nuances and jokes that were delivered, we were all completely mesmerized by the adventure, the journey and the delivery. You couldn't hear a pin drop, in that classroom, for a half hour every afternoon, as M. Dufault became Tartarin for us.

I would suggest that never had we heard, in our little hamlet, stories that were so rich, wherein the words and descriptions were swimming with such meaning and taste one could almost eat them with a spoon.

Enfin, devant le guéridon, un homme était assis, de quarante à quarante-cinq ans, petit, gros, trapu, rougeaud, en bras de chemise, avec des caleçons de flanelle, une forte barbe courte et des yeux flamboyants, d'une main il tenait un livre, de l'autre il brandissait une énorme pipe à couvercle de fer, et, tout en lisant je ne sais quel formidable récit de chasseurs de chevelures, il faisait, en avançant sa lèvre inférieure, une moue terrible, qui donnait à sa brave figure de petit rentier tarasconnais ce même caractère de férocité bonasse qui régnait dans toute la maison. Cet homme, c'était Tartarin, Tartarin de Tarascon, l'intrépide, le grand, l'incomparable Tartarin de Tarascon.

This was the first of many stories that M. Dufault would read to us, through the full of one scholastic year: alternating between French and English novels, we explored the furthest horizons of the imagination. More than most, Daudet remained in our hearts and engendered in us a desire to immerse ourselves in books -- to explore every corner of where these magical pages would take us.

More than half of that class of schoolmates became teachers: professors, instructors, lecturers, in various levels of schools, from elementary to university. They didn't all specialize in literature, of course, but they certainly brought their flare for the dramatic into their students' lives.

Daudet's rich imaginings, his deliberate exaggeration of the mundane and trivial; his colourful, exotic, incandescent descriptions of bird, beast and man, all gave us the breath to pursue our dreams.

Daudet was a much troubled soul; and no doubt, some of his literature would not gain an audience in today's more culturally sensitive world. (Thank goodness humankind does have the capacity to evolve in a positive way, from time to time.) But for all of that, I don't care, because I can distinguish between what was and what is; and I can distinguish between the spirit of adventure, and the cold heart facts of a cruel society.

He will always remain both Quichotte and Pansa for me -- the best of both worlds -- as I suspect he has remained for the other 38 that listened with me, in those old school days. Merci, M. Dufault, wherever you are. show less

Kicsit csodálkozom, hogy ezt a könyvet ilyen kevesen olvassák, holott Daudet ugye a XIX. század második felének fontos (és egykor itthon is népszerű) írója, tulajdonképpen a balzaci, dumas-i hagyomány szerves folytatója. Balzacnál talán kevésbé jól komponálja a drámai jeleneteket, viszont regényen belül egyenletesebb teljesítményt nyújt, Dumas-hoz mérten pedig vontatottabb, ugyanakkor jobban képes fókuszálni saját célkitűzéseire. Amely célkitűzés pedig show more nem más, mint a korszak párizsi valóságának, elsősorban a felső tízezernek a leképezése.

A Numa Roumestan politikusregény, címszereplője délvidéki lótifutiból emelkedik a miniszteri bársonyig – ilyen értelemben pedig ez a könyv simán beilleszthető a „magasra emelkedtél, de mekkorát zuhansz?”-típusú irodalomba, amiből akad egy-kettő rajta kívül a francia (és egyéb) prózában. A jó Numa szuperképességei, melyekkel a célt elérni szándékozik, a következőek: káprázatos beszélőke, simulékonyság, gondolatolvasás (mindig kitalálja, hallgatója mit is akar hallani), felszínesség (a túlságos elmélyültség csak megzavarná abban, hogy gombnyomásra lelkesedni tudjon azért, amiért pillanatnyilag lelkesedni praktikus), szelektív memória (bármit megígér, de azonnal el is felejti), és végül – de nem utolsósorban – beházasodás egy kellően párizsi, kellően magas rangú, de a kelleténél kicsit erkölcsösebb családba. Ezekkel felvértezve pedig hősünk egyszerűen legyőzhetetlen – legalábbis addig, amíg le nem győzi valaki.

Viszont ami a kötetet sajátossá teszi, az nem egy egyéni akarat küzdelme az őt körülvevő világgal, mert ilyet minden bokorban találni. Hanem hogy Daudet e küzdelem örvén déli és északi, latin és gall mentalitás konfliktusát írja meg. Numa ugyanis hangsúlyosan minden ízében délvidéki, habitusa olyan világosan különíti el a párizsiaktól, hogy az már szinte fertelem. Mert ami azt illeti, Daudet nem finomkodik az ábrázolással – az ő délvidékije típus, nem egyén, mégpedig olyan típus, ami leginkább valamiféle bantunak tűnik, aki beszél ugyan franciául (törve), de úgy alapvetően nem sok másban hasonlít a Daudet által elképzelt „normál” franciákhoz. Megjegyzem, az írót láthatóan lenyűgözi zenéjük, öltözködésük, sajátos kultúrájuk, de az is világos, hogy csak addig becsüli ezen elemeket, amíg élőhelyükön vizsgálhatja őket – amint beteszik a lábukat a fővárosba, máris minden, ami szép bennük, valahogy kínossá, komikussá, sőt: kártékonnyá válik.

Azonban ezzel a disszonanciával – vagy nevezzük becézőn egzotikumnak – együtt olvasásra érdemes, mi több, élvezeti értékkel bíró darab, érdemes leporolni, ha belefutunk mondjuk a padláson, az elfelejtett könyvek dobozában. Ha nem is éri el Maupassant vagy Zola szintjét, ott lohol a nyomukban. show less