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Abbe Jules
Author(s): Octave Mirbeau (Author), Adrian Murdoch (Editor), Nicoletta Simborowski (Translator)
- Publisher: Dedalus Ltd
- Publication Date: 15 April 1996
- Language: English
- Print length: 288 pages
- ISBN-10: 1873982372
- ISBN-13: 9781873982372
Book Description
Part two of Octave Mirbeau’s autobiographical trilogy, ABBE JULES tells of a priest’s lifelong struggle with his passions. With the realism of Zola and the decadent vision of D’Aurevilly, and reflecting the impressionism of Monet, Pissaro and Van Gogh, Mirbeau’s novel presents us with a small boy’s vision of provincial France, where family, education and religion conspire to produce a petit bourgeois tortured by repressed desire, violent fantasies, and forbidden lusts.
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
Abbe Jules, first published in 1888, is the second part of Octave Mirbeau’s autobiographical trilogy and tells the story of a priest’s lifelong struggle with his passions. Narrated from the viewpoint of a small boy, it depicts the stifling atmosphere of petit bourgeois, provincial France, where family, education and religion conspire to produce individuals tortured by repressed desire, violent fantasies and forbidden lusts. Innocence is corrupted, pity and pain are inextricably linked in a novel which shows the influence of Naturalism, in its brutally realistic descriptions which echo Zola and Flaubert, side by side with passages of extraordinary lyricism and sensuality, as Mirbeau exercises the impressionist skills of Monet, Pisaro and Van Gogh.
About the Author
Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917) was a radical journalist who is best known today for his decadent classic, Torture Garden and his satire of Parisian society in the wake of the Dreyfus affair, The Diary of a Chambermaid. His first novel Le Calvaire was a succes de scandale followed a year later by Abbe Jules. Together with Sebastien Roch these novels form a very powerful indictment of French society as seen from an anarchist’s perspective and are Mirbeau’s revenge on society for his upbringing.
Nicoletta Simborowski read Modern Languages at Oxford and then worked in publishing and as a teacher at Westminster School in London. She combines a career as a lecturer in Italian at Christ Church, Oxford with freelance interpreting and translating for television and video. Her translations for Dedalus are: The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello, and Abbe Jules and Sebastien Roch by Octave Mirbeau.
