Marcel SchwobReviews

Schwob nos narra el episodio medieval de una forma onírica tal que casi parece un relato de fantasmas. Todo tiene un aire irreal pero a la vez anticipa la tragedia. Muy bueno (Y una traducción excelente)

Schwob nos narra el episodio medieval de una forma onírica tal que casi parece un relato de fantasmas. Todo tiene un aire irreal pero a la vez anticipa la tragedia. Muy bueno (Y una traducción excelente)

Schwob nos narra el episodio medieval de una forma onírica tal que casi parece un relato de fantasmas. Todo tiene un aire irreal pero a la vez anticipa la tragedia. Muy bueno (Y una traducción excelente)

Schwob nos narra el episodio medieval de una forma onírica tal que casi parece un relato de fantasmas. Todo tiene un aire irreal pero a la vez anticipa la tragedia. Muy bueno (Y una traducción excelente)

The immortal testament to the young girl who tells you that when you let her go, if you lose her, she will come again; and if you lose her again, she will come again; and if you keep losing her, as you must, she'll keep coming back, as she must; so you remain connected (in the manner of a kinetoscope) and you can't stay together but you can gently play together; and even when something called TB has seemingly taken her where she can never come back; she can come back; and does.

Beautifully completed by the Translator's Afterword (thanks to Kit Schluter).

This short but impressive and important work makes Marcel Schwob a sort of fin de siecle decadent successor to Dante and Colonna, constructing a significant mystical text in memory of the lost Beatrice-Polia-Monelle. Wakefield Press, the publisher of the 2012 English translation, says that it was adopted as the "unofficial bible of the French symbolist movement." The book is divided into three sections, each in a different style.

"The Voice of Monelle" is the first part, consisting of spiritual imperatives. It reads almost like Kahlil Gibran on an absinthe bender. It is excellent stuff for anyone who wants another installment of Aleister Crowley's "Liber Cheth," although Schwob was of course writing seventeen years before Crowley's reception of that "secret of the Holy Graal."

"The Sisters of Monelle" are a collection of narrative vignettes, closer in form to Schwob's previously-published work in The King in the Golden Mask. But these all feature lost or wayward girls for protagonists. Each story is named for a moral or psychological quality, such as "The Perverse," "The Disappointed," "The Faithful," and "The Numb," suggesting that they are allegories in which each story's girl represents a different plight of the unenlightened soul.

"Monelle" per se is the third part, consisting of six short chapters in the voice of an unnamed narrator, and this section is presumably the one that draws most directly on Schwob's personal memory of the girl Louise whom he had lost to tuberculosis in 1893. Even so, it is surreal and repeatedly floats across an ambiguous threshold of mortality.

Translator Kit Schluter's afterword contains both a general biography of Schwob and a more particular study of his relationship with Louise, including a facsimile of the sole surviving correspondence from her to the writer, and an account of the composition of Monelle and her book.

This is perhaps the hardest book I've ever had to review. If you just read the stories, they are entertaining enough--violent, tragic, strange, and so on. But since they are about real people, it is hard to judge what the author's intent was. This is especially true since most of them are obscure or ancient and my education never taught me about them, so I can't appreciate the alterations Schwob is introducing into their lives. I ended up looking at Wikipedia for many of these to see what the real story was. Schwob's versions tend to make things more definitive than they were. According to the introduction to a more modern version that I read a bit of, Schwob tends to focus on secondary players--such as the actor Ben Jonson killed rather than Jonson himself, or on Joan of Arc's false confessor. Still, the overall purpose eludes me.

The Wakefield Press edition of The King in the Golden Mask is the first complete English translation of this 1892 collection of short stories in French by Marcel Schwob. Translator Kit Schluter provides an afterword which positions the book in Schwob's oeuvre and traces the author's impressive subsequent influence on aesthetic movements and literary writers around the world. Each story is dedicated to one of Schwob's contemporaries, a range of figures including Anatole France and Oscar Wilde.

The twenty-one stories are all vivid and well-suited to our short 21st-century attention spans. They generally begin in media res and often conclude without much plot resolution, so that they tend to fall towards the vignette within the spectrum of forms. Settings are mostly historical, and the language is often opaquely archaic, an effect that Schluter has been at some effort to sustain. Principal characters range among "lepers, embalming women, eunuchs, murderers, demoniacs, and pirates" and others (3). As Schwob avers in his foreword, the mask is a recurrent (if not ubiquitous) trope among the stories, and he intimates a sort of Derridean trace unifying the superficially fragmented book.

Favorites for me included the eschatological "Terrestrial Fire," the medieval documentation of "The Sabbat at Mofflaines," and the science-fictional "Talking Machine."

Lots of great adjectives in this book, like "grogblossomed." Everyone dies. Also made me realize my #1 fantasy might be being mummified??

Always fascinating and frequently macabre and chilling - we pull back the curtain and enter the world of French symbolist and decadent author Marcel Schwob (1867-1905).

In his Imaginary Lives we encounter twenty-two portraits that are part fact, part myth, part author’s poetic fancy, where the individuals portrayed are taken from such fields as ancient history, philosophy, art, literature and even the worlds of crime and geomancy, such personages as Septima the enchantress, Petronius the romancer, Fra Dolcino the heretic, Pocahontas the princess, William Phips the treasure hunter and Captain Kidd the pirate. Here are some quotes and my comments on three lives from the collection:

Cyril Tourneur the tragic poet: “Cyril Tourneur was born out of the union of an unknown god with a prostitute. Proof enough of his divine origin has been found in the heroic atheism to which he succumbed. From his mother he inherited the instinct for revolt and luxury, the fear of death, the thrill of passion and the hate of kings. His father bequeathed him his desire for a crown, his pride of power and his joy of creating. To him both parents handed down their taste for nocturnal things, for a red glare in the night, and for blood.” So we read in Marcel Schwob’s first lines supercharged with mythos.

On a slightly more mundane level, Cyril Tourneur was an English dramatist born in 1575, author most notably of The Atheist’s Tragedy, a play of revenge employing rich macabre imagery. But who wants to be constricted within the confines of so called historical facts? Certainly not a fin de siècle symbolist and decadent like Marcel Schwob.

Each of the imagined lives is no more than several pages, but such lush, vivid language. Here is another excerpt from Cyril Tourneur: “For mistress he took a prostitute from Bankside, a girl who had haunted the waterfront streets. He called her Rosamonde. His love for her was unique. On her blonde, innocent face the rouge spots burned like flickering flames, and she was very young. Rosamonde bore Cyril Tourneur a daughter whom he loved. Having been looked at by a prince, Rosamonde died tragically, drinking emerald-colored poison from a transparent cup. Vengeance merged with pride in Cyril’s soul. Night came."

One last quote in hopes of further whetting a potential reader's appetite to feast on this finely crafted prose collection: “When Cyril Tourneur had thus satisfied his hatred for kings he was assailed by his hatred of the gods. The divine spark within him urged him on to original creation. He dreamed of founding an entire generation out of his own blood – a race of gods on earth.”

In Lucretius the poet we encounter the great Roman Epicurean who mixes reason and passion, particularly flames of love for a tall, languid African beauty. Lucretius reads his papyrus scrolls and contemplates the movements of the atoms throughout the universe. He also drinks deeply of a potion prepared by his African and because he is driven mad by the potion, he knows love in ways he never contemplated previously. And with such mad, intoxicating love comes, of course, a knowledge of another key facet of the universe - death.

Paolo Uccello the painter - Schwob’s tale of an artist who paints birds and beasts and who firmly believes through his powers of observation and an unflinching obsession with transforming all lines into a single ideal perspective, he will strike alchemical gold on canvas.

Indeed, Schwob’s Uccello hopes to discover the secret heart of creating, creating, that is, as if through the eye of God. For many laborious years Uccello the painter toiled over his supreme painting, showing it to not a single soul until one day when he was an old man of eighty, he uncovered his masterpiece for Donatello. The miracle was accomplished! But who had eyes to see?

(This is a review, including the above quotes, of the 1924 translation by Lorimer Hammond.)




“There is no science for the teguments of a leaf, for the filaments of a cell structure, the winding of a vein, the passion of a habit, or for the twists and quirks of character.”
― Marcel Schwob, Imaginary Lives

A moving, beautifully written, though very depressing book. Highly recommended. Look forward to reading the other translations by Schluter.

The afterword by the translator was useful and insightful.

A wondrous little book that begins with a bold philosophical outlook; then the narrative turns beautifully fairy-tale, before ending with darkling recollections of regret and sorrow.
It's all about Monelle, and the author's (perhaps fantasized) memories of her character and mysterious existence.
Enchanting and haunting in equal measure.

An enigmatic novella.
Part One offers Monelle's philosophy of life. The tone brought to mind Nietzsche's Zarathustra. There is stark wisdom here that demands to be re-read.
Part Two contains snapshots of how Monelle might have been away from the dark city streets. Some of these narratives read like fairy tales. The girl at the heart of each short story seems sad yet adventurous, desiring escape.
Part Three delves into the mind of the despairing author as he attempts to make sense of his beloved's death.
An enticing book of evocative prose. Dark, lucid, memorable.

Always fascinating and frequently macabre and chilling - welcome to the world of key French symbolist/decadent Marcel Schwob (1867-1905). In his ‘Imaginary Lives’ we encounter 22 portraits part fact, part myth, part author’s poetic fancy, where the individuals portrayed are taken from such fields as ancient history, philosophy, art, literature and even the worlds of crime and geomancy, such personages as Septima: Enchantress, Petronius: Romancer, Fra Dolcino: Heretic, Pocahontas: Princess, William Phips: Treasure Hunter, Captain Kidd: Pirate. Here are some quotes and my comments on 3 of the lives:

Cyril Tourneur: Tragic Poet: “Cyril Tourneur was born out of the union of an unknown god with a prostitute. Proof enough of his divine origin has been found in the heroic atheism to which he succumbed. From his mother he inherited the instinct for revolt and luxury, the fear of death, the thrill of passion and the hate of kings. His father bequeathed him his desire for a crown, his pride of power and his joy of creating. To him both parents handed down their taste for nocturnal things, for a red glare in the night, and for blood.” So we read in Marcel Schwob’s first lines supercharged with mythos.

On a slightly more mundane level, Cyril Tourneur was an English dramatist born in 1575, author most notably of ‘The Atheist’s Tragedy’ a play of revenge employing rich macabre imagery. But who wants to be constricted within the confines of so called historical facts? Certainly not a fin de siècle symbolist and decadent like Marcel Schwob.

Each of the imagined lives is no more than several pages, but such lush, vivid language. Here is another excerpt from Cyril Tourneur: “For mistress he took a prostitute from Bankside, a girl who had haunted the waterfront streets. He called her Rosamonde. His love for her was unique. On her blonde, innocent face the rouge spots burned like flickering flames, and she was very young. Rosamonde bore Cyril Tourneur a daughter whom he loved. Having been looked at by a prince, Rosamonde died tragically, drinking emerald-colored poison from a transparent cup.
Vengeance merged with pride in Cyril’s soul. Night came . . . “

One last quote in hopes of further whetting a potential reader's appetite to feast on this finely crafted prose collection: “When Cyril Tourneur had thus satisfied his hatred for kings he was assailed by his hatred of the gods. The divine spark within him urged him on to original creation. He dreamed of founding an entire generation out of his own blood – a race of gods on earth.”

In Lucretius: Poet we encounter the great Roman Epicurean who mixes reason and passion, particularly flames of love for a tall, languid African beauty. Lucretius reads his papyrus scrolls and contemplates the movements of the atoms throughout the universe. He also drinks deeply of a potion prepared by his African and because he is driven mad by the potion, he knows love in ways he never contemplated previously. And with such mad, intoxicating love comes, of course, a knowledge of another key facet of the universe -- death.

Paolo Uccello: Painter --- Schwob’s tale of an artist who paints birds and beasts and who firmly believes through his powers of observation and an unflinching obsession with transforming all lines into a single ideal perspective, he will strike alchemical gold on canvas. Indeed, Schwob’s Uccello hopes to discover the secret heart of creating, creating, that is, as if through the eye of God. For many laborious years Uccello the painter toiled over his supreme painting, showing it to not a single soul until one day when he was an old man of 80, he uncovered his masterpiece for Donatello. The miracle was accomplished! But who had eyes to see?

(This is a review, including the above quotes, of the 1924 translation by Lorimer Hammond.)

Exquisite and beautiful.

A mudança de perspectiva dos narradores desse livro combina maravilhosamente com ficção histórica.

see http://www.sfsite.com/05b/rm128.htm
a possible influence on Robert W. Chambers, author of "The King in Yellow"

El biografismo de Schwob es otra rama de la ficción histórica, tal vez la rama minimalista, con menos pretensión de épica. Su método de trabajo, como en otros, es la suposición y la adivinación, artes oscuras y, para algunas tribus, culinarias. En lo esencial, desde otra perspectiva, no diferiría del método de cualquier biografía. Los hechos públicos de cualquier persona conservan lo esencial de las acciones y de los objetos naturales, por poner, un ser humano, por adivinar, un asesinato. La referencia de esos hechos suele ser menos acostumbrada que la valoración. Decir que, por elegir un personaje, San Martín "libertó" Chile, no es datar un acontecimiento, es valorarlo. Schwob, suponiendo, no se alejaría realmente de la tradición biográfica histórica y axiológica, o valorativa, que inventa o supone (para ser menos artificialistas).

History for arts sake? Frida Kahlo read this while convalescing from the accident that shaped the rest of her life. I read a biography of Kahlo while convalescing from my life and thus discovered Schwob.

In 10-page biographies, Schwob depicts "the unique existences of ... priests, criminals, or nobodies." Each is treated with an artistic verve that belies the notion that "minute records of great men or epochs or events of the past are not especially needed." Why say what's been said before? And yet, each of these tales is spun such that one may take them as a warning: beware that for which you ask! In describing one of his subjects, the painter Paolo Uccello, Schwob wrote, he "was not concerned with the reality of things but their multiplicity and the infinity of their lines." So, too Swchob, who chose for us,

Empedocles, Supposed God
Erostat, Incendiary
Crates, Cynic
Septima, Enchantress
Lucretius, Poet
Clodia, Impure Woman
Petronius, Romancer
Sufrah, Geomancer
Fra Dolcino, Heretic
Cecco Angiolieri, Poet of Hate
Paolo Uccello, Painter
Nicholas Loyseleur, Judge
Katherine the Lacemaker, Girl of the Streets
Alain the Gentle, Soldier
Gabriel Spencer, Actor
Pocahontas, Princess
Cyril Tourneur, Tragic Poet
William Phips, Treasure Hunter
Captain Kidd, Pirate
Walter Kennedy, Unlettered Pirate
Major Stede-Bonnet, Pirate by Fancy
Burke and Hare, Assassins

Among them you're sure to find a kindred spirit--or hopefully not.