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Loading... La garçonne (1922)by Victor Margueritte
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Monique is an emancipated French woman who leaves home to escape a marriage of convenience to a man whom her parents have forced on her. She then succumbs to all sorts of carnal temptations including a lesbian love affair with a singer. The scandal provoked by Victor Margueritte's La Gar onne (1922), here translated as The Bacheloress, led to its author having his l gion d'honneur revoked, which only propelled this novel about a brazenly independent "new woman" to best-seller status. What was shocking then was not so much the reckless behavior of its heroine, who is depicted as the victim of psychological torment, but the portrait of the corrupt post-WWI society in which she lives. Authentic as Monique is, the types of love she encounters, set against the hostile and contemptuous portrayal of her peers, only amplifies her struggle. La Gar onne was translated in the U.S. in 1923 as The Bachelor Girl in a bowdlerized edition, since the passages describing various sexual acts that had caused offence in Paris could not be reproduced in America, so the present edition is the first unexpurgated English-language edition. The story was filmed four times, in 1923, 1936 (with Marie Bell and Edith Piaf), 1957 and again in 1988. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.92Literature English English fiction Modern Period 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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La Garconne /The Bachelor Girl (English trans.by Alfred Knopf), is an engrossing story of Monique Lerbier. Set in the 1920s, it is the earliest lesbian fiction of the post-war(1917-1921) French literature. The original French manuscript includes 28-pages of colored stencil drawings by Kees Van Dongen; depicting the radical transformation of a gallant and independent fashionista. I treasured the portrayal of Monique by the classic French actress Marie Bell in the 1936 film adaptation.
There are numerous fictional feminine characters I admire, but Monique is simply my true love.
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