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Le Calvaire
Le Calvaire
Le Calvaire
Ebook268 pages4 hours

Le Calvaire

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Le Calvaire is a thinly veiled autobiographical novel, which recounts the tortured and traumatic coming-of-age of the narrator Jean Mintie.It paints a nightmarish picture of late nineteenth-century French society. Mintie's progress through life is a descent into Hell, a plumbing of the lower depths, the martyrdom of a godless man in a godless age.
The publication of Le Calvaire in 1886 marked a brilliant beginning for the Angry Young Man of the Age, who went on to flay the Establishment in Torture Garden and The Diary of a Chambermaid.

'There is no doubt that Mirbeau is an important writer and Dedalus should be applauded for their enterprise in bringing his work to us.'
Peter Fawcett in The Times Literary Supplement
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 26, 2013
ISBN9781909232525
Le Calvaire
Author

Octave Mirbeau

Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917) war ein französischer Journalist, Kunstkritiker, Romanautor und eine der bedeutendsten Persönlichkeiten der französischen Belle Epoque.Als anarchistischer Schriftsteller lehnte er Naturalismus und Symbolismus ab. Seine Komödie Geschäft ist Geschäft gehörte nach 1903 zu den meistgespielten Stücken an deutschen Theatern. Zitat von Leo Tolstoi: Octave Mirbeau ist der grösste französische Schriftsteller unserer Zeit und derjenige, der in Frankreich den Geist des Jahrhunderts am besten repräsentiert.

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Rating: 3.499997142857143 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Mirbeau is a name often associated with decadence, particularity for his 1899 work, The Torture Garden. This is his first novel published thirteen years prior, and decadent overtones are evident here, no doubt. Aristocrats driven mad by spiritual turmoil, the sufferings of love, and the torments of the artist. In their execution though, these motifs come across as rather juvenile. The protagonist pines over an overbearing and annoying woman who exploits him and prostitutes herself to anyone with a dime, yet his love for her is undying, as we are told by his endless wails and whines. He also possesses a stuffy, moralistic attitude, condemning anything he finds unchaste. Even de Gourmont's interpretations of Catholic guilt have a sort of delightful wickedness to them.As a volume in the decadent cannon, this one seems the most artificial of any that I have read so far. The writing is decent enough, with a few remarkable passages sprinkled throughout, but the story and its bothersome characters seem forced. Maybe his later work finds its mark, and this can be excused as a youthful attempt that is well-intentioned, though flawed.

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Le Calvaire - Octave Mirbeau

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