André Pieyre de Mandiargues (1909–1991)
Author of The Margin
About the Author
Works by André Pieyre de Mandiargues
L'Âge de craie/Dans les années sordides/Astyanax/Le Point où j'en suis (French Edition) (2017) 4 copies
Le Musée noir: [contes] 3 copies
La motocicleta 3 copies
Le musée noir. Soleil des loups 2 copies
La marge 2 copies
De vrouw tussen de doodskisten 2 copies
Troisim̈e belvďře 1 copy
Sparira Tutto 1 copy
Sabine 1 copy
Mascarets (French Edition) 1 copy
Clorinda 1 copy
Troisième belvédére 1 copy
Les corps illumines 1 copy
汚れた歳月 1 copy
La marge 1 copy
Kobre u Parizu 1 copy
A legkülső körön 1 copy
motocicleta, La 1 copy
La motocicletta 1 copy
The Red Loaf 1 copy
Sugaï 1 copy
Bona: l'amour er la peinture 1 copy
La motocicleta 1 copy
Les monstres de Bomarzo 1 copy
Dans les années sordides 1 copy
André Pieyre de Mandiargues. L'Age de craie, suivi de Dans les années sordides et de Hedera (1967) 1 copy
Marbre : récit 1 copy
Associated Works
現代詩手帖 1992年 10月号 特集：ジュリアン・グラック 散文詩の秘法 — Contributor — 1 copy
現代詩手帖 1973年 08月号 総頁特集=シュルレアリスムの現在 — Contributor — 1 copy
ユリイカ 1972年 09月号 (第4巻第10号) 特集=総展望フランス現代詩 — Contributor — 1 copy
ユリイカ 1976年 6月臨時増刊号 (第8巻第7号) 総特集=シュルレアリスム — Contributor — 1 copy
海 1977年5月特別号 現代詩1977年 — Contributor — 1 copy
凶区 19 1967.12 — Contributor — 1 copy
凶区 8 1965.6 — Contributor — 1 copy
現代フランス幻想小説 — Contributor — 1 copy
フランス怪談集 — Contributor — 1 copy
夜想 1 〈マンディアルグ×ボナ〉 — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Pieyre de Mandiargues, André
- Legal name
- Pieyre de Mandiargues, André Paul Édouard
- Birthdate
- 1909-03-20
- Date of death
- 1991-12-13
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- poet
essayist
novelist - Awards and honors
- Prix des Critiques (1951)
Grand Prix de Poésie de l'Académie française (1979) - Short biography
- Poète, essayiste et romancier, André Pieyre de Mandiargues entreprit dès 1934 l’écriture de ses premiers textes poétiques qui ne furent publiés en recueil qu’en 1961 sous le titre L’Âge de craie. Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale au cours de laquelle il publia son premier livre, Dans les années sordides (1943), il se lia avec André Breton et fréquenta les surréalistes, mais son imaginaire, empreint d’onirisme et d’érotisme, son écriture, à la fois précieuse et singulière, échappèrent néanmoins à leur influence. Également proche du milieu de la NRF de Jean Paulhan et Marcel Arland, André Pieyre de Mandiargues entretint des correspondances très suivies avec nombre d’écrivains. Dans ses nouvelles ou romans parmi lesquels Soleil des loups (1951), La Motocyclette (1963) ou La Marge (1967, prix Goncourt), l’auteur déploie un univers insolite, envahi de fantasmes où se mêlent des obsessions liées au désir et à la mort. Il écrivit également quelques pièces de théâtre, mais surtout de nombreuses études sur des peintres (Léonor Fini, De Pisis, Chirico, etc.), dont la plupart, avec des essais sur la littérature ou d’autres "choses vues", ont été rassemblées dans les trois Belvédère (1958, 1962, 1971).
- Nationality
- France
- Birthplace
- Paris, France
- Places of residence
- Paris, France
- Place of death
- Paris, France
- Associated Place (for map)
- Paris, France
Members
Reviews
On arriving in Barcelona a French traveling salesman Sigismond Pons receives a letter from home--opening it he sees the words--'threw herself off the tower...died instantly'. He puts the letter away and takes it back to his hotel room placing it underneath a bottle of wine. For the next 3 days he roams Barcelona's red light district (something he had planned to do anyway) picking up the same prostitute (Juanita) and going into the same seedy hotel and having sex with her. On the last night show more he goes back once and for all and reads the letter through learning that not only has his wife killed herself but she did so after finding his young son drowned in a pond. On the last day Sigismond then drives out of the city--parks his car and shoots himself. Certainly does not fall into the category of a happy novel--The Margin did win the Prix Goncourt. Sigismond's ramblings through these mean streets is certainly hallucinatory--as he goes about his quest almost mechanically right up to the point he puts the gun to his head. About the only thing that seems to always bring him back to reality are all the signs of Franco's fascist Spain that he's constantly running into and the almost suppressed outrage of Sigismond and some of the more down and out citizens of that city to these pictures and slogans. Anyway I have to say I liked this book quite a bit though it might not be everybody's cup of tea. Pieyre de Mandiargues writing is elegant, very literary and even at times quite witty and like it or not it isn't boring and moves along nicely. show less
I read Clorinda in an anthology that introduced the story enticingly, which set me seeking rabbit-holes that I peeked in, then returned to after reading the story. Ultimately, the story itself was the less enjoyable part for me.
Clorinda
“Life for you is obviously a thing of the past; the days you now drag out are numbered.”
An omniscient narrator addresses the story to “you”, a man who clearly disgusts him. The man drinks away his memories, and slumbers among mementoes, including show more “on a strip of moss, a tiny iron helmet inlaid with red gold, no larger than a thimble”.
Thereafter, life can never live up to the encounter (if that’s what it was) that is then retold.
Removing armour from the tiny beauty is “like taking shrimp-meat out of its shell”.
She tries to run away. He ties her down.
“You knew… that she was begging you to free her. This made you wish to see her naked.”
He deserves his misery.
A 3* story for me.
Image: A woman on horseback in the woods, “The Blank Signature” by René Magritte (Source)
Background and sideground
de Mandiargues published this short story in 1960. He was a French writer who was previously associated with the Parisian Surrealists, and knowing that adds extra ways to interpret his story. You can read about him here.
This story is dedicated to Torquato Tasso, who wrote Jerusalem Delivered in 1581 - an epic poem I’d never heard of. In it, Tancredi, a Christian knight of the First Crusade, falls in love with a Saracen (Muslim) warrior, Clorinda. She does not return his love. Drama ensues. You can read more about the poem and its plot here.
It also features a sorceress called Armida who is sometimes conflated with Clorinda, but thought to be based on Homer’s Circe. You can read about Arminda here, and Circe here.
Tasso himself was widely celebrated, but suffered profound mental illness too. You can read about him here.
Manguel (translator and anthologist) links the story to Pygmalion, known to many of us via George Bernard Shaw’s play and the musical, “My Fair Lady”, but that was a modern spin on The Metamorphoses of Ovid, in which Pygmalion is a sculptor who falls in love with one of his statues (dubbed Galatea in some later versions). You can read more about the poem and its plot here.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass and Gulliver’s Travels and Tom Thumb echo here too. And of course, Echo comes from Greek mythology. What a web and so on to Arachne!
For different reasons, I thought of JL Borges The Circular Ruins from The Garden of the Forking paths. See my review HERE.
And that brought Pinocchio to mind, and many others.
I enjoyed all those diversions and reminiscences enough to bump up the overall experience to 4*.
Image: Clorinda attacking Tancredi, by Paolo Domenico Finoglia (Source)
Short story club
I read this in Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 4 September 2023.
(I can’t find a legit online link to the story.)
You can join the group here. show less
Clorinda
“Life for you is obviously a thing of the past; the days you now drag out are numbered.”
An omniscient narrator addresses the story to “you”, a man who clearly disgusts him. The man drinks away his memories, and slumbers among mementoes, including show more “on a strip of moss, a tiny iron helmet inlaid with red gold, no larger than a thimble”.
Thereafter, life can never live up to the encounter (if that’s what it was) that is then retold.
Removing armour from the tiny beauty is “like taking shrimp-meat out of its shell”.
She tries to run away. He ties her down.
“You knew… that she was begging you to free her. This made you wish to see her naked.”
He deserves his misery.
A 3* story for me.
Image: A woman on horseback in the woods, “The Blank Signature” by René Magritte (Source)
Background and sideground
de Mandiargues published this short story in 1960. He was a French writer who was previously associated with the Parisian Surrealists, and knowing that adds extra ways to interpret his story. You can read about him here.
This story is dedicated to Torquato Tasso, who wrote Jerusalem Delivered in 1581 - an epic poem I’d never heard of. In it, Tancredi, a Christian knight of the First Crusade, falls in love with a Saracen (Muslim) warrior, Clorinda. She does not return his love. Drama ensues. You can read more about the poem and its plot here.
It also features a sorceress called Armida who is sometimes conflated with Clorinda, but thought to be based on Homer’s Circe. You can read about Arminda here, and Circe here.
Tasso himself was widely celebrated, but suffered profound mental illness too. You can read about him here.
Manguel (translator and anthologist) links the story to Pygmalion, known to many of us via George Bernard Shaw’s play and the musical, “My Fair Lady”, but that was a modern spin on The Metamorphoses of Ovid, in which Pygmalion is a sculptor who falls in love with one of his statues (dubbed Galatea in some later versions). You can read more about the poem and its plot here.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass and Gulliver’s Travels and Tom Thumb echo here too. And of course, Echo comes from Greek mythology. What a web and so on to Arachne!
For different reasons, I thought of JL Borges The Circular Ruins from The Garden of the Forking paths. See my review HERE.
And that brought Pinocchio to mind, and many others.
I enjoyed all those diversions and reminiscences enough to bump up the overall experience to 4*.
Image: Clorinda attacking Tancredi, by Paolo Domenico Finoglia (Source)
Short story club
I read this in Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 4 September 2023.
(I can’t find a legit online link to the story.)
You can join the group here. show less
The book is almost entirely descriptions of the bars, streets, whores, his wife, his father, etc. - the action and plot paragraphs would have filled no more than 5 pages. By the end of the book I was skimming, something I really hate to do, because I couldn't stand any more boring descriptions yet I did want to find out what was in the letter.
Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhiobition at the C.N.A.C. [Centre national d'art contemporain], 16 november 1973 - 7 january 1974
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 109
- Also by
- 25
- Members
- 583
- Popularity
- #43,004
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 12
- ISBNs
- 113
- Languages
- 9
- Favorited
- 2
