Restif de la Bretonne (1734–1806)

review of
Restif de la Bretonne's Discovery of the Austral Continent by a Flying Man
(adapted by Brian Stableford)
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 21-29, 2018

For my complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/619726-flying-wingnut

The review below is truncated.

This is the 2nd bk I've read by de la Bretonne. The 1st one is called My Father's Life & my review of it is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/613870-what-the-fuck?chapter=1 . That review is for adults only. My attn was drawn to de la Bretonne b/c he wrote a bk called The Anti-Justine, pornography with a different philosophy than the pornography of the Marquis de Sade that it's opposed to. I became more interested in de la Bretonne when I learned that he'd written 187 bks of a variety of natures — including this one, French science fiction that predated Jules Verne.

Since I love SF I was excited to read this. Having been written in 1781, how wd it compare to the SF of the 20th century that I've read the most of? I can't really say that I exactly recommend this bk. For the most part, I found it quite boring. &, yet, at the same time, there was much for me to appreciate about it: in many respects de la Bretonne was a visionary.

I'm most reminded of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726). I'm also reminded of H. G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896). De la Bretonne's hero, Victorin, develops mechanical wings that enable him to fly. He wants to marry a woman who is in a socially more privileged class than he is. He 'solves' this social gap problem by kidnapping her & many others & starting his own community where he is the ruler in a place that the kidnapped people can't escape from. This includes kidnapping a priest to marry him to the kidnapped woman. They have children, as do the other kidnapped people, & the whole crew is moved by winged flight to a remote island where they start their empire. Exploration of other islands ensues & each island has its own dominant species that's halfway between a familiar non-human creature & a human. Everything is used as an excuse for philosophizing & for drawing up the edicts of Victorin & his successors. The plot is basically the skeleton on wch de la Bretonne hangs his musings.

The back cover introduces the author:

"Nicolas-Edmé Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806) produced over 180 books, totaling some 57,000 pages, many of them printed by his own hand, on almost every conceivable subject. Praised in Germany, he was mostly forgotten in France until being rediscovered by the Suurealists in the early 20th century. Two of his most important seminal works are being presented here for the first time in English in a four-volume edition."

&, in fact, I ran across a mention of de la Bretonne in Surrealist Philippe Soupault's Last Nights of Paris (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2164776064 ). The relevant excerpt from my review is here:

""He described to us with many details the check room for small children, who were deposited under a number by nursery girls. This custom, he affirmed with a disarming certainty, is very ancient. And he cited cases of substitution of children infinitely more numerous than one would suppose. Now and then he underlined what he said with an observation borrowed from Restif de la Bretonne, who was plainly his model." - pp 106-107

"The implication being here that the children were vulnerable to sexual use."

Brian Stableford's Introduction is very informative:

"In 1742 the family moved on to the land that Edmé Rétif had recently bought, which included a field called La Bretonne; it was sold again later, but that did not prevent Nicolas from adding it to his signature, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, in order to give it an aristocratic implication, further enhanced by changing Rétif to the more upmarket Restif, although he sometimes reverted to the earlier spelling." - p 6

"Having served his apprenticeship and learned the trade, he went to Paris in 1754 and became a typesetter at the Imprimerie Royale du Louvre for a year before moving on to various other employers, constantly shifting in the context of a long battle fought by the government against the activities of illicit printers of subversive posters, pamphlets and books." - p 7

"As a printer, Restif was very familiar with the peculiar pattern of French publishing in the 18th century, whereby publications printed legally had to be licensed by the royal censors: a law honored far more in the breach than the observance, as 18th century Paris was awash with illict publications of all kinds, especially the scurrilous, the scandalous, the anti-clerical and the politically subversive. Some such books were printed in Belgium, Holland and elsewhere, and then imported to Paris, but most were simply printed clandestinely on the spot, with fake title pages claiming to have been printed elsewhere; they were often anonymous or pseudonymous." - pp 11-12

The history of illegal printing fascinates me — there were the underground publications in resistance to nazi-occupied Europe, the samizdat publications of Soviet Eastern Europe, & Mike Diana's "Boiled Angel" comic bk wch was declared obscene in Florida in the early 1990s - leading to Diana's being forbidden to draw while on 3 years probation.

"the final count, according to the most conscientiously detailed modern study, Pierre Testud's Rétif de La Bretonne et la création littéraire (1977), was a hundred and eighty-seven volumes, comprising forty-four titles, and totalling some fifty-seven thousand pages."

[..]

"it has to be borne in mind not only that Restif was presumably writing with goose-quills, but also that he insisted on typesetting all his own works." - p 8

Typesetting 187 volumes is nothing to sneeze at (unless you're allergic to such things). I think it's safe to say that de la Bretonne was a highly motivated man.

"Restif's first considerable success was the quasi-autobiographical Le Paysan perverti [The Corrupted Peasant] (1775), which detailed the educative and corrupting effects of life in Paris on an emigrant from a humble principal background" - p 10

Now, cf that to a similar tale about his father in My Father's Life:

"Edmond did not return to lawyer Rétif's at Noyers at the end of that half year. His parents wanted him to see the capital, and so he left for Paris on November 11th, 1712, where he came to be a clerk to a magistrate in the law courts called Molé.

"This was an entirely new experience for Edmond, but it did not change him. Although he had a lively temperament, the respect which he had for his mother extended to the whole of the opposite sex, and this preserved him from libertinism. What is more, he was a hard-working fellow, and the best antitdote to vices of all kinds is to keep oneself fully occupied." - p 24

Restif respectfully depicts his father as not succumbing to the temptations that the son apparently did.

Stableford certainly seems to be extrmely knowledgable about both Restif & the work being introduced & its historical mileu: "He might well, however, have come across Gabriel Foigny's La Terre australe connue [The Austral Land Discovered] (1676, reprinted several times, including an edition in 1732), in which he would certainly have been interested, in that it deals with the discovery in an austral land of a population of hermaphrodites who, by virtue of the absence of sexual inequality, have been able to establish a perfectly egalitairan communistic society based on reason and mathematics." (p 13) La Terre australe connue almost seems like what-I-miight-have-to-read-one-of-these-days-if-it's-translated-into-English-&-if-I-didn't-already-have-too-many-other-things-to-read.

"Both of the last-named texts make use, as La Découverte australe does, of the unknown Terra Australis, initially hypotheisized in antiquity, and repopularized in the 16th century by geographers who thought the world map unbalanced, and in need of a southern continent to "equilibrate" it, much as the Americas had provided a continent to fill a western hemisphere previously suspected to be oceanic. Those who believed in Terra Australis and placed it speculatively in their maps included Gerardus Mercator in 1538." - p 14

Remember him?:

"Gerardus Mercator (/mərˈkeɪtər/; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century German-Flemish cartographer, geographer and cosmographer. He was renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing (rhumb lines) as straight lines—an innovation that is still employed in nautical charts.

"Mercator was one of the founders of the Netherlandish school of cartography and is widely considered as the most notable representative of the school in its golden age (approximately 1570s–1670s). In his own day he was the world's most famous geographer but, in addition, he had interests in theology, philosophy, history, mathematics and geomagnetism as well as being an accomplished engraver, calligrapher and maker of globes and scientific instruments." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerardus_Mercator

"Restif's description of the mechanism of Victorin's wings is, moreover, a masterly combination of the detailed and the vague, fully adapted to an era of technical innovation. In that context, the ingenious Victorin seems a worthy successor of the machine-maker and automaton-builder Jacques de Vaucanson, who was still alive and living in Paris in 1781." - p 17

The interested reader is directed to a movie of a performance by Kirby Malone as part of Apt 81, the 3rd International Neoist Apartment Festival, a mere 200 years later: https://youtu.be/Lg6os32NYN8 .

Stableford makes this claim: "La Découverte australe is undoubtedly the most significant work of science-based speculative fiction before the 1789 Revolution, and it remained so for some time thereafter." (p 17) I'm not knowledgable enuf about the subject to refute or agree w/ that assertion but I'm impressed enuf by Stableford to accept his opinion. What, perhaps, sits a little uneasily w/ me is whether or not to accept this work as "science-based speculative fiction" since it seems just as much, if not more so, a work of power-trip fantasizing w/ a tinge of sexuality.

I've compared Discovery of the Austral Continent by a Flying Man to Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau (wch, of course, came 105 yrs later) b/c he has among its main characters/emblems creatures that're half-human/half-animal-other-than-human. Stableford discusses a supplement to the original edition not reproduced here in wch "it tries hard to offer justifications for taking seriously the plausibility of La Découverte australe's representation of various kinds of mythical humans, including some not featured in the main narrative—tailed humans, monopods, albinos and marine humans" (p 19). A tailed human is also featured prominently in Restif's pornographic The Anti-Justine:

""Fysistère was one of those hirsute men who have descended from a mingling of our species with that of the strange men with tails who dwell in the isthmus of Panama and upon the island of Borneo. He had the vigour of ten ordinary men, that is to say he might have beaten ten if they'd fought with the same weapons and on an equal footing, and he needed all for himself as many women as ten men would require.["]" - p 122, The Anti-Justine (1793), Wet Angel Books, Forbidden Erotic Classics edition (2012)

Stableford continues to elucidate what's to be gotten from the supplements not provided in this edition. I'm thankful for his elucidation but I wd've been even more thankful if the supplements had been provided. That may not've been economically practical. I'd never heard of Restif until I was 63 or thereabouts so it's possible that in English translation he's not well-known or much cared about. As such, Stableford's welcome scholarship may be a wedge in that disinterest.

"The research invested in "Cosmogénies" and "Dissertation sur les hommes-brutes" is varied and intensive, and illustrates an aspect of Restif's tendency to obsession rather different from the one displayed in his relentless production of fiction, more akin to the earnest insistence of his plans for utopian reform" - p 21

Stableford then praises Restif's "Les Posthumes, first penned in 1787-89, although not actually published until 1802: the strangest work of fiction ever penned by anyone, and the most far reaching imaginative endeavor ever attempted." (p 21) That's quite a claim!! Honestly, I don't believe it — but I'm willing to read it. Regardless of whether Stableford's enthusiasm is insufficiently informed by a broad knowledge of unusual fiction, Les Posthumes must really be something special.

Stbaleford concludes w/ a justification of the exclusion of the supplementary material:

"Although it could certainly be argued that it would have been more scrupulous to reprint the entire contents of the first edition, including the elaborate prefatory material as well as the supplements, it did not seem to me that the additional material especially the long essays—which would have made the text much longer—really belongs in the same volume as the novel; the supplements do not add anything substantial to the enjoyment of the work as an example of classic speculative fiction" - p22

I appreciate Stableford's contribution to presenting this work to the public but I prefer to be able to witness the complete work. Perhaps it's less important as a work of speculative fiction than it is as a visionary philosophical fable.

The reader gets to the novel itself where the narrator self-describes in a self-deprecating way. I found myself forgetting that the narrator existed b/c he ultimately played so little or no role in the story put forth.

"There remains "me." That "me" is an eccentric, too singular to describe in a few words. Imagine a small man, who holds himself so awkwardly that he seems counterfeit, of sad and dreamy expression, his head sunk between his shoulders, his vague and indeterminate gait representing a living specimen of a Guianan Acephale; who alone, as in society, conversed with his own thoughts, to the point of bursting into laughter, crying out and weeping without the company being able to suspect the reason; timid and brutal to excess; loving pleasure and disdaining out of pride the objects that procure it; preaching tolerance and not being able to suffer the slightest contradiction, etc." - p 24

I found this interesting. I'm reminded of something I wrote called "Your Horoscope" ( http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/W1980sHoroscope.html ). In that, I took all the horoscopes, probably from a newspaper, definitely from somewhere where the sign descriptions were very short, & combined them into one — the point being to show that everyone had all of these characteristics at some point or another —regardless of whether they were contradictory. In the above quote, the description ends w/ "preaching tolerance and not being able to suffer the slightest contradiction" — thusly demonstrating a contradictory or hypocritical nature — &, yet, not necessarily hypocritical b/c he's open about it.

""I call myself Friend Nicolas. I've been a shepherd, a vine-grower, a gardener, a laborer, a student, an apprentice monk, an artisan in a city, married, cuckolded, libertine, sage, stupid, intelligent, ignorant and philosophical; finally I'm an author. I've written numerous works; most of which were bad["]" - p 25

Since the narrator is just an alter-ego for the author, the author presents himself as complex & not w/o flaws.

The 1st of the flying men, Victorin, establishes an empire populated initially by people he kidnaps & flies off w/. Before the main tale is plunged into, the reader is given a glimpse of the more advanced stage of this 'recruiting' process:

"["]Which of your great men, for example, would consent to allow himself to be taken to the Austral lands?["]

""That question," I said, "isn't very difficult. The greatest men are Monsieur de Voltaire, Monsieur Rousseau and Monsieur de Buffon; there is also Monsieur Franklin here, an envoy of the United States of America, who might suit your purpose" - p 28

"I shall say very briefly that the abduction in question was carried out with perfect ease; only J.-J. Rousseau's friends were informed of it, and me. I shall keep silent as long as I live, and this story will only appear after my death. Thus, Posterity will know that the cenotaph in Ermenonville is empty."*

*"Rousseau died—or, according to N******, pretended to die—in 1778." - p 29

Despite my finding this bk generally boring, I also find it consistently rich. The narrator has people who die in France being actually transported to Victorin's empire & their deaths faked. When I was 19, I was picked up hitch-hiking by a guy in a stolen car who had a theory that Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, & Janis Joplin hadn't actually died but had faked their deaths so that they cd live in some utopia in peace. It amuses me that Restif was putting about such myths 200 yrs earlier. This introduction from the end of the tale then segues into the tale's early days when the mechanical wings were 1st being developed:

"After that trial, Victorin and Jean Vezinier only talked about their wings, and what they could do when they could fly long distances. Victorin only breathed for Christine, and wanted to go find an island or an inaccessible mountain in order to take her there and live with her, but Jean Vezinier had many other ideas. He wanted to avenge himself on his enemies, and kill them from high in the air. He wanted to carry off the daughters of the town, who had disdained him as a husband because of his idleness, and enjoy them at his whim, in order to return them to their parents dishonored." - p 32

"As the Flying Man had to be able to make use of both hands, the mechanism that gave movement to the wings was activated by two straps that passed under the sole of each foot in such a way that, in order to fly, it was necessary to make the ordinary action of walking—a movement that could, in consequence, be accelerated and slowed down at will. The two feet each gave a complete movement to both wings; they dilated them and caused them to beat simultaneously, but by virtue of the effect of a little mechanism, the right foot operated the extension of the closed parasol, and the left foot brought it back while opening it." - p 37

"Finally, the beautiful Christine went back to her room, and Victorin, no longer having any hope of seeing the sovereign of his thoughts, directed his flight toward the nearest city, which was seven leagues away. He arrived there in less than an hour, and lifted a young woman away from libertines who had attacked her.* He deposited her in her home through the window that she indicated to him, although half-fainted in fear, believed him to be the Devil, and then an Angel—which made a great deal of noise the next day.

*"The casual rescue of damsels in distress was later to become a standard part of the repertoire of "the noctural spectator:—the protagonist of Restif's quasi-autobiographical series of anedotes Les Nuits de Paris, and, at a much later date, a standard element of the stereotyped role of the comic book superhero." - p 40… (more)

THIS REVIEW IS FOR ADULTS ONLY

review of
Rétif de la Bretonne's My Father's Life
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - January 25-27, 2018

I just discovered Restif de la Bretonne (the name is written both w/ & w/o the "s" - apparently, the "Réstif" version is the older French - both versions mean "restive") last yr in the paperback room of my favorite bkstore. I was interested b/c I saw a bk of his titled The Anti-Justine. I've read a substantial amt of the work of the Marquis de Sade & while I don't agree w/ the philosophy at all I've found the extreme obsessiveness of it somewhat fascinating. I've read de Sade's Justine wch may've been one of his more popular bks & is 'Sadism Lite' in contrast to his The 120 Days of Sodom, wch I've also read. SO, I picked up The Anti-Justine out of interest in what philosophy de la Bretonne wd oppose to that of de Sade.

De Sade's philosophy seems to revolve around the notion that nature is amoral & that, therefore, the most natural human behavior is also amoral. However, the behavior that de Sade espouses is far from the neutrality of amorality, it is, instead, completely immoral in the sense of having the pleasure of the Sadists be derived from a very non-neutral suffering of their victims. The infliction of this suffering is unrestrained by any conscience.

GIVEN THE NATURE OF THE SEXUALITY DISCUSSED IN THIS REVIEW I DIRECT THE ADULT READER TO THE FULL REVIEW HERE: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/613870-what-the-fuck?chapter=1… (more)

Sort of like a non-satirical Gullivers Travels. There is satire eventually but mostly its just odd bits of philosophy and utopian society stuff.

It starts off as a kind of adventure romance as the protagonist helps build a set of wings to impress/kidnap his would-be girlfriend. And let me just say kidnapping is NOT the answer to every problem... i felt it necessary to point that out because however much kidnapping you could think would be in a book this has more :lol .

Then we get the start of this utiopian society building. The Third quarter deals with the discovery of various animal people. Now you might think this would be satire, that each type of animal would be an allegory for some aspect of human nature... but no, this is actually to help demonstrate the authors rather bizarre version of evolution. Also there's some good notes on this by the translator at the end of the novel.

Finally we get some satire as a place the exact opposite of France is found right down to them speaking backwards french, and of course its a really perfect place.

The morality in this is so twisted from a modern perspective but in certain areas really quite advanced for the time. Its a bit boring in places and is closer to philosophy than a plot driven narrative but certainly some elements of interest. The authors views on race, religion and sex (the act) being quite interesting. His views on women however being extremely primative.

BlackCoatPress edition: Typographical errors detected 109.… (more)

A random but entertaining account of the French Revolution found on eBay! Based on the autobiographical works of eighteenth century novelist Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne (whose kinky passion for women's feet, particularly when shod in pretty slippers, coined the term 'retifism'), American author Alex Karmel penned what he imagined to be Retif's promised account of the French Revolution. Working from additional chapters in 'Monsieur Nicolas' and other works by Retif, My Revolution is part biography, part history of the events from 1789-1794, relying solely on first-hand accounts from Retif's writings and other memoirs from the time to avoid modern prejudices. Karmel calls the book 'a sort of collage', where he has 'supplied the composition and cement but borrowed many of the materials'.

Despite the rather bizarre narrator, or the author's take on his words - Retif has strong views on women and their dress, particularly footwear, which boils over into obsession: 'If you examine the individuals who try to confuse the two sexes you will always find vicious creatures' - I enjoyed this familiar promenade through the streets of Revolutionary Paris. I have read a few books on the topic, mostly fiction (Orczy primarily) but also historical sources, and Retif, though Republican, and Karmel, American, strike a fair balance between love and enthusiasm for the cause and stoicism in the final months of the Terror: 'Paris remains calm. Paris remains Paris'.… (more)