Originally published in 1831, S. Henry Berthoud’s Misanthropic Tales breaks new literary ground, the French author setting out to do the opposite of the prevailing convention of wrapping up a story with a “happy ending.” For as literary scholar Brian Stableford notes in his Introduction, Berthold wrote what came to be known as Contres cruels, tales that “deliberately violate the ordinary reader’s hope and expectation that a story will end “well.”” Other French authors writing Contres cruels later in the 19th century, especially during the heyday of fin-de-siècle, include Villiers de L'Isle Adam, Léon Bloy, Marcel Schwob, Octave Mirbeau, Catulle Mendès, Jean Lorrain and Jean Richepin.
For fans of French Contres cruels, the 34 short stories comprising Misanthropic Tales amount to a literary feast. Thank you Snuggly Books! For those new to this French storytelling style, here's a quick tour of a batch of Berthoud, among my favorites from the collection:
THE MADMAN
"Two strangers of distinction, arrived in Ferrera, a few days before, visited the hospital - or rather the prison - of Sant'Anna, in which unfortunates deprived of reason are locked up." So the author begins his tale with a touch of irony in recognizing what the establishment might call a hospital is, in actuality, a dark, dank prison.
The two French aristocrats are most appreciative of their guide, a gentleman they judge possessing a highly developed sagacity in speaking of the inmates and their particular mental derangement. They move through the gloomy hallways, shaking their heads at the unending misery all round.
When one cell door screeches open, they behold a man covered in rags but with noble features and an imposing bearing. He speaks, "I appear to you to be insane and you are confusing me with the debased beings into whose company I have been cast. Alas, I don't know myself how I've been able to conserve my reason in the midst of the infamous torments that are heaped upon me. Plunged from the bosom of a brilliant court into a noxious cell, torn from sweet illusions of glory, amity and love to groan for several years alone - alone or among the insensate and persecutors, to curse the fatal gift of genius and glory attached to my name . . . oh, who could support such an existence." Their guide can only roll his eyes at the depth of such delusions. The Frenchmen nod knowingly in agreement.
Moments later they all watch as the city's Cardinal and hospital prior race down the hallway toward them. The reversal of fate awaiting the rag covered inmate (actually a distinguished artist of genius) and their seemingly sagacious guide (in fact, the maddest madman in the city) prompts the French noblemen to rethink their capacity to know anything.
THE NOSE
Absurd, bizarre, monstrous, outlandish, fanciful, fantastic are among the qualities one could easily ascribe to tales within this collection. We can also add deformities of various stripes, deformed relationships and, of course, physical deformities. Speaking of which, there's no better example of a physical deformity, or should we say grotesquerie, than in The Nose.
The narrator comes upon a gentleman surrounded by peasants and guttersnipes laughing, jeering and hurling bits of garbage at him. The narrator pushes his way through the circle and leads the unfortunate gent away.
Once removed from the crowd, the narrators asks why all the insults? The gent replies he is long accustomed to such treatment. And the explanation is made instantly clear when he draws away his hands from his face. The narrator is aghast:
"For myself, I stood there, immobilized by amazement. Never, from any human face had a nose protruded to compare with the stranger's nose. Imagine this: it almost covered his cheeks, only leaving visible the two corners of his mouth, and descended - I speak in all conscience - as far as his chin."
The narrator bids the proboscis - excuse me, the gent - to join him on his carriage ride to Paris. Once in route, the gent with the horrendous honker relates his tale of woe, including his failed romance once the young lady had a gander at his shocking schnoz.
Henry Berthoud and the other French authors of these Contres cruels took delight in sharing with readers what life was like, really like, without any of those rosy, optimistic sentiments. In keeping with this literary aesthetic, with a nose like the nose in The Nose, I'm afraid there is no happily ever after ending - not even close.
MORE AND MORE MADNESS
Several other tales feature the theme of madness mixed in with another key ingredient: in The Day After the Wedding, madness and dream turned nightmare; in Nocturnal Terror, madness and terror aroused by a ghost story; with Alice, madness and heartfelt love. And with The Painter Ghigi, the narrator is filled with remorse after admitting responsibility for two murders. His remorse is compounded by another murder he commits in hot-blooded passion and yet again even more remorse when he is horrified by a familiar face being carted off to the gallows. Lastly, we have Prestige, where one of the characters conceals a monstrous inner self lurking in the murky shadows of his own personality, a tale written fifty years prior to Robert Luis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and My Hyde.
Are you up for these French Contres cruels? I certainly hope so. And if you enjoy S. Henry Berthoud's tales there is more good news - the other authors I mentioned above have their own tales with a surprising French twist now available in English translation.
French author S. Henry Berthoud, 1804-1891
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