L'Abbé Jules

by Octave Mirbeau

De son enfance retorse jusqu'au poste de secrétaire d'un vieil évêque qu'il mène à sa guise, en passant par le séminaire où il terrifie ses frustes condisciples échappés des travaux des champs, l'abbé Jules aura fait parler de lui. Jamais en bien.

Y a-t-il un coeur sous cette soutane ? On hésite... Provocateur, mystificateur, blasphémateur, l'abbé est aussi capable de contrition, mais d'une telle franchise, d'une telle violence qu'on la redoute autant que le reste. « T'z'imbéé ... ciles ! » éructe-t-il pour peu qu'on le contrarie, grotesque et fulminant, solitaire et pathétique.

Derrière la charge féroce - contre la Fille aînée de l'Église façon fin XIXe, contre une hypocrite bourgeoisie provincale - , si hénaurme qu'elle déclenche le rire autant qu'elle peut laisser de sombres impressions, une compassion vraie éclaire le roman d'Octave Mirbeau, compassion qui prend toute sa force de sembler involontaire. L'abbé Jules, grand corps gauche doté de trop d'énergie, érotomane et ascète, en est le grand bénéficiaire. Et son génial « T'z'imbéé .. . ciles ! » finit par rendre un son des plus fraternels.

Genres: Fiction, French Literature, Literary Fiction, France

255 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1888

About the author

Octave Mirbeau was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde. His work has been translated into thirty languages.

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent character study of a neurotic Catholic priest. Abbé Jules is a tragic figure that seems to have been destined for suffering, "I sense that there are things in me which are suffocating me and cannot come out" (pg. 136).

By the end of the novel you'll be decrying his bourgeois family and church establishment as well, calling them "imbeciles" as the main character is so fond of saying.

"I had organs and they made me think in Greek, Latin, and French that it was shameful to use them. They twisted my intelligence as they did my body and in the place of the natural, instinctive man, full of life, they substituted an artificial puppet, a mechanical doll of civilisation, with an ideal breathed into it ... the ideal from which are born Bankers, priests, cheats, debauches, assassins and the unhappy" (pg. 182).

"I told you God is an illusion. Well, I don't know. I don't know anything, for the consequence of our education and the result of our studies is to teach us to know nothing and doubt everything. There may be a God, there may be several. I don't know" (pg. 182).

[Missberet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second book in the " Empire of the Senses" trilogy.
Catholic Oppression and the duties of a priest cultivate a fragile mind, Abbe Jule's mind born to play harmful tricks, almost killing his own sister overdosing her with medication. These evil tricks of his effect his brother and Mother. Abbe Jule's genius is recognizable and his poor Mother weeps over him as he decides he wants to be a priest. His has a horrid mind filled with horrible things he wants desperately to control,but cannot keep the plague away. Reaping torrents of obscenitys in torment, struggling with the apologies he rages in forgiveness to the elderly Bishop, to which he is a secretary, but soon muddles the whole of Paris( where whom the country gentry look down upon as if it were a sespool) He is sent to a small village that he soon collapses. He pays a visit to Pere Pamphile, an infamous beggar who begs his life away trying to re- build Reno Abbey from the 13th century. He finds a bit of respect for this old beggar, ultimately burying him properly. " Imbeciles" is now how he feels about people and society, though finds glory in nature and a fading belief in God. He returns home, rejects his brother, who , along with his wife use their young boy to try to inherit Jule's money.....

[Felipe Vilella Sánchez Viamonte]

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[Francesca Penchant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book has moments of brilliance—especially the end, from Jules’s arrival at his nephew’s home to his death, to the stunning fire.