Champavert Cuentos inmorales

by Pétrus Borel

Petrus Borel, el Licántropo, pertenece a la saga de los "malditos" de la literatura universal. Enemigo de la burguesía, es temido por la sociedad francesa del siglo XIX. Su obra es escasa, pero tan intensa, que mereció los elogios de las generaciones de escritores franceses posteriores, como los surrealistas. Precursor, visionario, loco... sólo leyendo su obra nos podemos aproximar a la definición de este autor único cuya divisa era Yo soy quien soy.

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Horror, France, Gothic, Literature

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1833

About the author

Pétrus Borel was a French poet and writer of the Romantic movement and a translator.
Born Joseph-Pierre Borel dHauterive at Lyon, the 12 of 14 children of an ironmonger, including his brother André Borel d'Hauterive. He studied architecture in Paris but abandoned it for literature. Nicknamed le Lycanthrope ("wolfman"), and the center of the circle of Bohemians in Paris, he was noted for extravagant and eccentric writing, foreshadowing Surrealism. He was not commercially successful though, and eventually was found a minor civil service post by his friends, including Theophile Gautier.
He died at Mostaganem in Algeria.
He was the subject of a biography by Enid Starkie, Petrus Borel: The Lycanthrope (1954).

Pétrus Borel dit « le lycanthrope » est un poète, traducteur et écrivain français, frère d'André Borel d'Hauterive.
Il est le douzième des quatorze enfants d'André Borel, quincaillier, et de Magdeleine Victoire Garnaud. He started to study architecture, but abandoned these studies to concentrate on literature.
Il est le centre du Petit-Cénacle (cercle des bohémiens à Paris) et il est connu pour son écriture extravagante et excentrique.
Il n'a pas beaucoup de succès et finalement il accepte un poste dans le service publique en Algérie, où il meure en 1859.
Il a fait l'objet d'une biographie d'Enid Starkie, Petrus Borel : The Lycanthrope (1954).

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Petrus Borel (1809 - 1859) - French author with the spirit of a wolf

At the time the fiery romantic literary artist Petrus Borel penned this collection of seven short stories he was a lycanthrope, that is, a human on the outside, a wolf on the inside. And as a man-wolf he was an extreme outsider to society and culture, to convention and rules, to comfort and routine, an outsider telling his tales as he viewed humans and human society through his wolfish eyes.

And what he saw wasn’t pretty: any beauty and purity life offers up is defiled by twisted, debased bipeds who thrive on vanity, greed, bigotry, lecherousness and pure evil. Is it any wonder what we encounter in these pages are Immoral Tales, tales where Borel’s characters act in ways miles removed from any sense of decency and a standard of right and wrong? And is it any wonder the reading public who encountered his tales of depravity and brutality triumphing from the first word of the first sentence to the last word of the last sentence despised his writing?

So what was man-wolf Petrus Borel’s message? How did he compare to other 18th and 19th century authors writing as social outsiders? Did he see our retreat from society and human interactions leading us to spiritual inwardness as did the Danish existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard; to aesthetic freedom and ascetic renunciation as did German pessimistic philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer; to a state of nature and goodness prior to society as did political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau? No, not at all. For Petrus Borel, society and human life is so poisoned, so diseased, so contaminated to its very core, there is only one way out: oblivion.

With this worldview of the man-wolf Petrus Borel, we turn to a few of the tales:

Monsieur De L’Argentiere, the Prosecutor
Two aristocratic men speak as friends as they partake of a meal together. We read, “They were leaning voraciously over the table, like two wolves disputing a carcass, but their dull interlocutions, muffled by the sonority of the hall, were like the grunting of pigs. One of them was less than a wolf; he was a Public Prosecutor. The other was more than a pig; he was a Perfect.”

As we follow the story we see just what friendship means here. The Pubic Prosecutor acts with such trickery, such lecherousness, such sheer evil, that friendship, innocence and love are trampled, while all along employing reason and logic in his role as Public Prosecutor. Friendship was one of the keys to a good life in the ancient Greek and Roman world, championed by such great philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero and Seneca. Petrus Borel shows us what friendship has been reduced to in 19th century Paris.

Don Andrea Vesalius, The Anatomist
A howling, frenzied mob stands at the gate of a palace, objecting to the wedding of a young girl to an old doctor who they see as nothing less than a torturer, a necromancer and a murderer. A handsome capped cavalier, the young girl’s lover, leads the crowd in their attack on the palace. The attack brings on the king’s mounted guard. The crowd is dispersed, the cavalier wounded. Since, as it turns out, the old doctor is too elderly and impotent to have relations with his young wife and bride, over the next four years she has separate rendezvous with three other lovers, including the capped cavalier, lovers who vanish when she awakes the following morning.

And what happened to these three lovers? In the course of discovering the truth, we follow the doctor as he leads his young wife to his laboratory. We, along with his young wife, encounter the grittiest of scenes. The author writes, “The workbenches were laden with partly-dissected cadavers; there were shred of flesh and amputated limbs underfoot, and muscles and cartilage were crushed by the professor’s sandals. A skeleton was hanging on the door, which, when it was agitated, rattled like those wooden candles that candle-makers hang up as their sign, when they are stirred by the wind.” We find out just how far the old doctor will go to become a world-famous anatomist.

Champavert, The Lycanthrope
This tale begins with a letter written by Champavert, wherein we read, “I’ve often reminded you of that night, when, after having wandered for a long time in the forest, appreciating all things at their price, distilling, analyzing and dissecting life, passions, society, laws, the past and the future, breaking the deceptive optical glass and the artificial lamp illuminating it, we were sickened with disgust before so many lies and miseries.”

Oblivion, according to wolf Champavert, is the only way out, but fortunately for lovers of great literature, on the way to oblivion Petrus Borel wrote these tales with richly poetic language and powerful emotions, tales that are (as stated boldly on the book’s back cover) one of the greatest collections ever published. We are also fortunate Brian Stableford tackled the challenge to translate this collection into English and provided a nine page introduction.

[Orçun Güzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Petrus Borel’in öykülerinin çevrilmesi benim için önemli bir olaydı ve büyük bir hevesle başladım. Borel, dekadanların “contes cruels (zalim öyküler)” geleneğinin tohumlarını atan, insan kötülüğü ve umutsuzluğu üstüne düşünen, Fransız romantizminin karanlık tarafında olan bir yazar. Öyküleri öfke ve melankoliyle dolu; evet bazı yerler biraz acemice ve fazla melodramatik, ama tüm toplumu özellikle de üst sınıfları topa tutan üslubunu sevdim. Ayrıca kendi yazdığı önsözde, kendi kimliğiyle oynadığı harika bir oyun var.

Gel gelelim, çeviri hataları okuma zevkimi zehir etti. 1833 yılından kalma metni üniversite öğrencisine çevirtmek pek iyi bir fikir değil. Tüm öykülerin okunmaz olduğunu söylemiyorum, felsefi pasajlarda, dipnotların zenginliğinde kötü değil, ama arada öyle yanlışlar çıktı ki, ağzım açık kaldı. Örneğin “Sözlerinle biraz daha sünnetli olmaya çalış” diye bir cümle var. Öykünün İngilizce çevirisini buldum ve çevirmenin, temkin/ihtiyat anlamına gelen circonspection ile sünnet anlamına gelen circoncision kelimelerini birbirine karıştırdığını keşfettim. (İngilizce’de circumspection ve circumcision karşılığı olan Fransızca kelimeler.) Bir başka örnek: Kral III. Henry’nin “sevimli olanları” kadınlara tercih ettiğine dair bir cümle var; sonraki birkaç cümlede de, ne olduğunu bir türlü anlamadığımız gizemli bir “sevimlilik” bahsi devam ediyor. Oysa İngilizce çeviride açıkça oğlanları kadınlara tercih ettiği şeklinde geçiyor. Hizmetçiye “metresinle görüşmek istiyorum” diyor, oysa hanımınla görüşmek istiyorum diye çevrilmeliydi. Köylüden “peder” ön adıyla bahsediyor, sanıyorsunuz adam köyün papazı; oysa Goriot Baba’daki gibi yaşlılık belirten “baba” lakabı olmalıydı. Bunun dışında cümle düşüklükleri de epey var. Bunlar çevirmenin özensizliğini ve acemiliğini gösterdiği kadar, yayınevinin zahmet edip doğru dürüst bir son okuma yapmadığını da gösteriyor. Oysa çok önemli kurmaca yapıtlarıyla bizi tanıştıran bir yayıneviydi Dedalus; son çevirilerinin hepsi böyleyse, yayınevine yazık olmuş…

(3 yıldız, çeviriden dolayı. Öykülere 4 yıldız.)

[Pétrus Borel · Rating 5 out of 5]

je pense que j ai un probleme d ordre parasocial avec petrus borel (persuadee d etre lui)

[Ivano Porpora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sono racconti immorali perché racconti dell'abominio, dell'abiezione; racconti nei quali, a una fortuna linguistica, s'assomma una ricerca del male che s'insinua nella vita.
Omicidio, suicidio, stupro, e poi ancora povertà, spleen, indolenza; le offese al genere umano nelle quali l'autore scava, con riso sardonico.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early ancestors of the conte cruel, presented by the exemplary Brian Stableford. These grim stories of an unjust world remind me of DeSade with only a fraction of the sex. Interesting mostly from a historic perspective, the downbeat nature of the narratives works against their value as entertainment. Awful things happen to undeserving people only goes so far as a theme. Stableford's footnotes are outstanding and illuminate contemporary references that would be lost on most readers. These stories are the beginning of the Grand Guignol, 50s horror comics, and a whole branch of modern horror films, so the book is worthwhile for anyone who wants a look at the bloody roots of gleefully nihilistic amusement.

[Ángel Agudo · Rating 2 out of 5]

«—El doctor ha escogido bien su día de bodas: un sábado, el día del sabat, cómo corresponde a un buen brujo— dijo una vieja desdentada acurrucada en el alféizar de una ventana.
—Así es, amiga mía. Y, ¡por todos los santos!, si todos sus clientes difuntos se presentarán aquí y se dieran la mano, el corro daría la vuelta a todo Madrid.»

«El suelo estaba lleno de escombros y el fuego de la chimenea comenzaba a extenderse por la habitación. Su perverso corazón palpitaba de alegría: no quería que, después de su muerte, se repartieran sonrientes lo que había sido suyo; no quería que otro después de él pudiera amar a un objeto que él había amado, que otro pudiera pasear al sol sus despojos. Si hubiera tenido algo de oro lo habría arrojado al río o lo habría escondido. Asi de profundo era su odio a los hombres y su horror a toda herencia.»

-Three Fingered Jack, el obi: 2/5
-Don Andrea Vesalius, anatomista: 4/5
-El señor de l'Argentière, fiscal:1/5
-Jaquez Barraou, carpintero: 3/5
-Dina, la bella judía: 1/5
-Passereau, el estudiante: 2/5
-Champavert, el licántropo: 3/5

Para tener el subtítulo de cuentos inmorales y una portada en la que aparece en letras mayúsculas: "SUICIDIOS, VIOLACIONES, ESTUPROS (una forma al parecer recatada de decir pederastia), INFANTICIDIOS, EXHUMACIONES, ASESINATOS, ROBOS", me ha sorprendido que esta antología no haya sido para tanto.

El libro no destaca ni por su depravación ni por su escritura. Yo me esperaba aquí una de las creaciones literarias más aberrantes que pudiera imaginar, pero al final se ha quedado en una antología regulera con unos cuentos oscuros que a lo único a lo que aspiran es a ser entretenidos, y algunos lo consiguen y otros no.

[Gulliver's Bad Trip · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few scattered and not necessarily chronological remarks upon my reading:

One of the first stories takes, amongst many others, the point of view of a deceived and repressed woman that starts to go insane after involuntary becoming pregnant whilst submited by a prostituted, marginalized condition. The movie Repulsion by Polanski comes to mind here. On the other hand, there are many books that deals with this selfsame dostoyevskian (?) issue, even if the later would only get to write those sort of things decades later at the second half of the 19th century, but not so much from this female perspective. Maybe some of the first Huysmans novels. Definitely, Canetti and his Therese, from the Auto-de-Fé novel, who virtually became a family member for me, for example.

Borel's life and this book existed around the time between the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy in France and, thus, before the 1848 Revolutions throughout Europe. Also, with the story that seemingly and excitedly depicts the adventurous life in some caribbean colonies, it was clearly written after taking into consideration oftenly ignored events such as the successful Haitian Revolution contrasting with all the other generalized, failed attempts or lack of such slave revolts, thereof.

After this historical retrospective, it could be said that Champavert predates Marcel Schwob's Imaginary Lives which, in turn, was the direct and admitted inspiration for Jorge Luis Borges' A Universal History of Infamy. Bolaño's book which depicts a false encyclopedia containing, amongst many more aberrations, a entry on a black haitian Nazi could be taken into consideration here.
More recently, the endeavours of those collective writer's personas named Luther Blisset and Wu Ming also deals with instigating historical affairs, even if they didn't necessarily read those above mentioned.

Now, for the more belated and less engaging themes that already became portrayed and critized enough, there's the remembering of the medieval roots of anti-semitism in Europe. Something which was firstly and explicitly opposed there in Nietzsche's The Dawn of Day/ Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality and the later's polemics with Richard Wagner.

There is the satirizing of the pseudosciences of that time like Phrenology, showing disillusion towards the secular and modern world with its fakings of sciences and knowledge that worsened the already gaudy falsifications of metaphysics and scholasticism. That unknown Borges friend, Juan Rodolfo Wilcock, and his books endeavour this in the context of the 20th century.

Finally, it is notewhorty that Borel is simultaneous with Schopeanhauer's Pessimism or prefigurates what would be later called Decadentism (be it the artistic aesthetic or the life-style). Rimbaud, from his parisian poetical celebrity up until his professional career as a arms dealer in Africa could also be included in those premeditations of his. Talking about premeditations, the most poignant part is the last short story homonymous to the book's title. Suicide is put into question there in a similar way that a novel by an obscure sci-fi american writer called Barry Malzberg does (Harry Harrison and Thomas Disch are others who dealt with the same theme but not with this same resolute, contrary conclusion). In Guernica Night, a future is imagined when suicide have become common place but still euthanasia didn't became legalized to avoid a epidemy of excessive deaths. The author, nevertheless, proceeds to imply that the banalization of death to the point of its minimal inducement, barely veiled by a pretense of social concern (through the famous and typically american 'support' or 'self-help' groups) and the outright general disdain for life, really, is induced by a world of plain indifference. I found Borel to compellingly imply the same thing regarding his post-revolutionary society and its morbid reactionary apathy.

[Rémi Merckel · Rating 4 out of 5]

À titre d'appréciation personnelle, je devrais mettre 5 étoiles, mais n'importe qui ouvrant le recueil pourra constater l'inconstance dans la qualité des nouvelles, et les imperfections qui les jalonnent.
Certaines, pour un lecteur d'aujourd'hui, semblent simplement kitsch et macabres, tandis que d'autres atteignent une apogée dans l'immoral et l'humour noir qui feront se décrocher bien des mâchoires.
Bref, un ensemble d'historiettes glauques à souhait, aux dialogues théâtraux, où l'auteur mêle différents archétypes de personnages afin de pousser leurs vices à l'extrême, pour notre plus grande jubilation.
Mention spéciale aux poèmes extraits de ses Rapsodies, qui figurent dans le recueil. Borel fait des alexandrins de fou furieux.

[Nicolás · Rating 4 out of 5]

Busqué Champavert durante años, hasta que finalmente puse mis manos en una traducción al castellano hace un par de semanas. Los cuentos son agudos y crueles. Su traducción habrá sido una tarea titánica. El estilo frenético de Borel entretiene y contiene matices de belleza lírica. En los terruños de la moral y el morbo, Borel juega con el lector y su propia percepción de la relevancia narrativa, ahí el principal valor... el juego. Aterroriza notar que lo inmoral en 1833, pareciera no serlo tanto ya.

El formato parecido a las vidas imaginarias y a historia universal de la infamia, nos lleva a pensar si esta obra bien pulida no ha servido de inspiración para aquellas.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Champavert, c’est Grimm et Perrault, c’est une anthologie de contes dignes du romantisme et de l’auteur qui revendiquait le surnom « le lycanthrope ».

C’est cru, c’est horrifiant, c’est beau. Si vous n’avez pas lu Pétrus Borel, n’hésitez pas. Il n’a pas beaucoup écrit, mais cette collection--remplie de mort, de virements tragiques, et de personnages qui nous surprennent par leur psychologie complexe et leurs décisions surprenantes—vaut absolument une place dans votre pile à lire. Et quand vous aurez fini, il vous restera son roman, « Madame Putiphar ».

À lire, absolument, même si la dernière histoire déçoit un peu avec sa trame sans queue ni tête.

[Ben Isely · Rating 4 out of 5]

This unusual collection, stylistically dubbed “roman frénétique,” is French Romanticism dialed up to its own lonely, paranoid pitch. Among Borel’s many obsessions (and he is obsessed) are dolor, umbrellas, virtue, and oblivion, as well as the evils perpetrated specifically by men.

More than one tale employs a frame narrative (and sometimes a frame within a frame) which is interesting considering Borel is already writing under a supposed alias of Champavert; this produces layers of depth and noise not unlike a band with 3 or 4 guitarists all playing over each other.

[Sem · Rating 2 out of 5]

According to the book description, this is "one of the greatest collections of short stories ever published." Even when I was a teenager with a burning desire to read it - thank you, Mario Praz - and little experience of short stories it's hard to imagine that I'd have thought so. As a cynical, beady-eyed elder I found it tedious and overwrought. So many dead women packed into such a short book.

[Kimberly Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories, none of which has a happy ending. They all deal, primarily, with the romantic relationships between men and women. They're pretty well done, though I thought a couple of them dragged a bit.

[vladigathe · Rating 4 out of 5]

sa en dit long sur la # societer....... sa fé réfléchir 🚬🚬🚬🚬

[Tristan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1833, long before the author’s true death in 1859, this collection of provocative stories opens with what appears to be a fictional and anonymous retrospective of the author’s life and works on the occurrence of the author’s suicide (some sources state this was written by Charles Nodier, who ironically died before the author). Unless this public domain ebook transcribes a subsequent edition, a fictional obituary is a startling way to start.

The first story is a condemnation of French society’s injustice towards a victim of poverty, rape, and postpartum depression. Although written luridly to shock its audience, it is actually a progressive call for change rather than gratuitous Grand Guignol. The chapter titles are inexplicably in random languages.

The second story is a violent tale of marital jealousy leading to the bloody deaths of both the wronged husband and his rival. Having built up the men’s sociability, culture, passion, and faith, the author dismisses their dramatic fate with a passerby’s racist contempt for two Cuban slaves. Is the author goading a racist public or pandering to it? As the story is set in Cuba, the chapter titles are in Spanish.

The third story is proper Grand Guignol, the tale of a decrepit anatomist who marries a young beauty to attract lovers who become his living dissections, and the confirmation of the bloodthirsty rumours swirling around him. This is beautifully written, a truly poetic evocation of a slaughterhouse of horrors. Very well done. Set in Spain, the chapter titles are in Latin to add to the gothic atmosphere.

The fourth story is set in Jamaica with chapter titles in English. It relates a mishmash of action scenes, linked by one character who may be the narrator in one part and not so in the other. It’s all rather disjointed, like several ideas blended together. However, the narration of the fight scenes is thrilling. Again, this is beautifully written albeit in disjointed scenes.

The fifth story has obscure titles in Provençal. It is a beautifully written tragic love story between a Christian nobleman and a Jewish maiden. On the one hand it is a beautiful call for tolerance and on the other a reflection of the appalling antisemitism of 17th century France. Which of the two was intended to shock the author’s audience, I wonder, as with the second story? The inter-faith marriage or the violent fate of the lovers? The erudite vocabulary had even a fluent French speaker scurrying for a dictionary at times ... what a treat!

The sixth story is very bizarre, and it has a twist that seems more Tales of the Unexpected than 19th century France. A very immoral tale of misogyny, ennui, suicidal tendencies, murder, and cruel revenge. There is a lengthy argument with the local executioner over using the guillotine as assisted suicide, and the author proposes a public service, namely a mechanised assisted suicide machine on an industrial scale. The story also features a deadly duel by way of a game of dominoes in a cafe too ... very strange. Surreal and not a pleasant read.

The last story retains its power to shock even today. Shorter than the others, a purportedly autobiographical rant over ennui and suicide (which chimed strongly with the feelings I endured at the depths of my own depression), this tale concludes by revealing the cause of the narrator’s depression, a secret infanticide, then stages in the most dismissive way the narrator’s murder of his lover and then his own suicide. This is intensely nihilistic.

I understand from various sources that Petrus Borel had no commercial success but had the respect of his peers. That seems fitting as he was essentially ahead of his time, writing pulp horror that would have been popular a hundred years later.

I can’t say this collection is entertaining, but it is compelling. It is also exquisitely written if a little incoherent at times. Delirious is perhaps a better word. I can certainly understand why these tales were scandalous at the time of writing. Yes, it’s a very good read, but an uncomfortable one.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

9/10 En su día fue de mis libros de cabecera. Parecía escrito por el Lobo Estepario de Hesse.