Funeral Rites
by Jean Genet
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Genet's sensual and brutal portrait of World War II unfolds between the poles of his grief for his lover Jean, killed in the Resistance during the liberation of Paris, and his perverse attraction to the collaborator Riton. Elegaic, macabre, chimerical, Funeral Rites is a dark meditation on the mirror images of love and hate, sex and death.Tags
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Member Reviews
Genet has a unique way of mixing very dark images together, blending the brutal with the ethereal. Only Genet can talk about eating the flesh of his dead lover in one sentence and then about having sex with the Nazi murderer in the next. Genet admits, "...the characters in my books all resemble each other," and this is an understatement in this book particularly. However, the translation is a major problem and what the publishers deemed sanitized enough for audiences of 60 years ago is pretty tame by today's standards. If the so called “dirty parts” were left out, one is left wondering what else [perhaps substantive] may have also been left out. I cannot say this is an easy read or one that I would recommend to most, but it is show more essential. show less
In Funeral Rites, Genet again employs feverish chimeric visions as a canvas for metaphor, this time using war and questions of patriotism as a mode of exploration for his love of Jean Decarnin, a man shot dead by a German collaborator during the Liberation of Paris. Genet writes of the murderous collaborator, Riton, "[...] he realized that he loved his country. Just as it was on the day Jean died that I knew I loved him, so it was on losing France that he knew he loved her." This confused internal tension in Riton's character between love and hate permeates the novel, as he continuously yearns, but alternately fears or perhaps even detests, the virile German soldier Erik.
With his familiar and robust illustrations of eroticism and show more death, Genet traverses a city besieged by war as he has slums and prisons. Genet explores the characters of this work in order to explore his own loss, and does so with his usual poetic voice and visceral prose style. Unlike some of his other novels, this work seems to lack but a few degrees of intimacy. It almost feels that in the characters of Riton and Erik, amongst others, Genet crafts the smallest distance that prevents the reader from penetrating Genet's emotion as deeply. If this is so, perhaps this is for good reason. We may not be permitted to touch the very center of this loss? show less
With his familiar and robust illustrations of eroticism and show more death, Genet traverses a city besieged by war as he has slums and prisons. Genet explores the characters of this work in order to explore his own loss, and does so with his usual poetic voice and visceral prose style. Unlike some of his other novels, this work seems to lack but a few degrees of intimacy. It almost feels that in the characters of Riton and Erik, amongst others, Genet crafts the smallest distance that prevents the reader from penetrating Genet's emotion as deeply. If this is so, perhaps this is for good reason. We may not be permitted to touch the very center of this loss? show less
As I so often write here, it's been a long time since I read this. Nonetheless, it's a no-brainer that Genet is, for me, a very important writer. There was a time when I lived in an apartment w/ only 8 key bks. "Funeral Rites", or something else by Genet, was one of them. The clear thinking & blatant perversion as a political act are right up my conceptual alley even if Genet & I are very different personalities otherwise. I'm happy to say that I still haven't read "Querelle" yet so there's at least one Genet bk left for me to savor.
"Si le chien me lance une pierre, je la rapporte dans ma gueule."
French
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Author Information
143+ Works 10,189 Members
Jean Genet was born in Paris, France on December 19, 1910. He was an illegitimate child abandoned by his mother, raised by Public Assistance, and sent to live with foster parents at the age of seven. At the age of 10 he was accused of stealing. He spent five years at the Mettray Reformatory and as a young adult spent time in various European show more prisons for vagrancy, homosexuality, theft, and smuggling. He began writing in 1942, while in prison. His works include Our Lady of the Flowers, Miracle of the Rose, and The Thief's Journal. In 1948, he was convicted of burglary for the 10th time and condemned to automatic life imprisonment. However, by 1947, his works had gained attention from such writers as Jean-Paul Sartre, André Gide, and Jean Cocteau. After the sentence, they petitioned for his release and a pardon was granted. In the late 1940s, Genet began to write for the theatre, but several of his plays were too controversial to be performed in France. His plays included The Maids, Deathwatch, The Blacks, and The Balcony. He died on April 15, 1986. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Funeral Rites
- Original title
- Pompes funèbres
- Original publication date
- 1948; 1953 (rev.) (rev.)
- People/Characters
- Jean D.; Riton; Erik; M. Genet; Paulo
- Dedication
- to Jean Decarnin
- First words
- The newspapers that appeared at the time of the liberation of Paris, in August 1944, give a fair idea of what those days of childish heroism, when the body was steaming with bravura and boldness, were really like:
"PARIS A... (show all)LIVE!" "PARISIANS ALL IN THE STREETS!" "THE AMERICAN ARMY IS ON THE MARCH IN PARIS." "STREET FIGHTING CONTINUES." "THE BOCHES HAVE SURRENDERED." "TO THE BARRICADES!" "DEATH TO THE TRAITORS!" - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)She stood up and quietly, piously, laid the daisy on that grave. Then she undressed and slept until morning.
- Blurbers
- Cocteau, Jean; Sontag, Susan
- Original language
- French
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- Members
- 589
- Popularity
- 49,589
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.71)
- Languages
- 12 — Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 24
- ASINs
- 22
