La tour d'amour

by Rachilde

La tour d'amour, un des plus célèbres romans de Rachilde, met en scène le huis clos oppressant de deux hommes isolés dans le phare d'Ar-Men. Comme des prisonniers, Mathurin Barnabas et le jeune Jean Maleux luttent contre les vagues déchaînées et entretiennent les feux pour guider les navires au large d'Ouessant. Tout autour, la mer gronde. Un jour, alors que des marins viennent de s'échouer sur les côtes, Maleux découvre la morbide passion que nourrit Barnabas... Conte caustique, romantique et tourmenté, La tour d'amour nous précipite dans un cauchemar qui fait se rencontrer la cruauté de la mer et celle des hommes. Terrible et puissant, le livre brûle d'une beauté noire et crée le scandale dès 1899. Chef-d'oeuvre de la littérature fin-de-siècle, il marie symbolisme et naturalisme, tout en révélant la face obscure de la Belle Époque.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, France, Classics, Literature, 19th Century, French Literature

192 pages, Pocket Book

First published January 1, 1899

About the author

Rachilde was the nom de plume of Marguerite Vallette-Eymery, a French author who was born February 11, 1860 in Périgueux, Périgord, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France during the Second French Empire and died in April 4, 1953.
She is considered to be a pioneer of anti-realistic drama and a participant in the Decadent movement.
Rachilde was married to Alfred Vallette.

Reviews

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you stay put for a long time, you start to like the place of your suffering. It's more natural than going off to seek happiness.

Maritime fiction is always a blast. The sea is a multifaceted character—beguiling and unforgiving. Lighthouse keepers tend to go mad and start hallucinating and/or indulging in unspeakable acts as the salty air slowly eats away at their minds. Shipwrecks spilling out bloated dead bodies are commonplace. Sailors are bad news all around, especially for women. Alienation, loneliness, depravity—it's all great fun until everyone dies and their flesh sloughs off to become fish food. Hooray for the sea! (And if you like this, be sure to watch The Lighthouse with Willem Dafoe.)

[Yahaira]

I can't believe the anglosphere has had to wait 125 years for this.

One of my favorite films is The Lighthouse by Robert Eggers and this filled that Dafoe/Pattinson hole left in my heart. You want weird? You want gross? You want to read someone slowly losing their mind? Do you just need more lighthouse content after finishing the Southern Reach series? Rachilde has got you! If you crave symbolism and the possible female revenge on the patriarchy, go for it. Maybe you just really like water!

Jean Maleux just got the job as assistant keeper of the Ar-men lighthouse after the previous assistant died in an ‘accident’. He's pretty excited thinking he has it made, but after meeting Mathurin Barnabas, the dirty and grunting keeper, he's starting to rethink things. The less you know the better! For Jean, maybe he needed some more details. Like did the lighthouse turn Mathurin into what he sees now? How's a guy supposed to meet a wife around these parts?

God I had fun with this one. Even with the underlying horror (there are some visuals that will stay with me), there were these funny moments that made me literally lol or these lines that just cut right to the human experience. It's very dark. It's very moist.

I'll never look at mussels the same way again.

[Jack Tripper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not overly familiar with the French decadent and symbolist movements of the late 19th century, but if this is a typical example of both I’ll certainly be reading more. Or at least more Rachilde.

It takes place almost entirely within a lighthouse off the Brittany coast. Our narrator, young sailor Jean Maleux, is newly stationed as an assistant to the old and potentially batshit crazy keeper Barnabas (the previous assistant suffered an unfortunate “accident”), and the reader is rarely on steady ground due to the possible unreliability of Jean’s own mental state.

There’s a ghostly gothic atmosphere as well as a slow-creeping sense of dread and encroaching insanity overlaying everything, reminiscent of (as others have mentioned) the Robert Eggers film The Lighthouse. It’s beautifully written, with a psychological depth I wasn’t expecting, but I never had a firm grasp on the layout and general workings of the lighthouse, which made it difficult to picture what exactly was happening at certain points. That’s really the only negative for me.

Some might find it too slow — and it definitely is a slow burn — but the general vibe of weirdness, isolation, deterioration, and possible impending doom was enough to carry me through. It’s also quite funny, as our narrator is rather full of himself (in an endearing way*) which made even the sections where not much is happening other than his flights of fancy pretty entertaining.

*endearing to read about, at least. He’d probably be insufferable in real life.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got this one from the Indie Pub Salon when I ordered a blind box of weird small press fiction from them. And wow—this one delivered. Weird in all the right ways.

The story follows a young sailor assigned to a remote lighthouse as the assistant keeper. His predecessor suffered an "accident" no one wants to explain, and the primary keeper he now lives with is a cranky, eccentric old man with some... unsettling preferences.

It’s a quiet, creeping tale that expertly blurs the line between confidence and confusion, chosen solitude and festering intolerance, boredom and full-blown madness. The descent is subtle, unnerving, and strangely mesmerizing.

It’s not the waves or the wind that get to you—it’s the weirdness between them...

[Gigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird, gross, creepy novel written to the rafters in no-brakes beautiful Decadent prose, in all its dark splendor and artifice. I hadn’t heard of Rachilde, and came across this by chance at the bookstore new releases table, drawn by the Wakefield of it all. Now I want to read everything she wrote. The biggest compliment I can pay the novel is that there are endless descriptions of the sea and they always are compelling and fresh, while feeling necessary and rooted in the story. The character description of the old man is truly strange, and that hat will likely chase me through my nightmares, its “spaniel ears” beating slowly.
I read this out and about over the past week and always put on an eight hour white noise track entitled Lighthouse Thunderstorm and Ocean Waves. Would recommend the pairing.

[Andrew Schultheis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tower of Love is a curious thing
Make a one man weep
Make another man sing

[Moka Aumilieudeslivres · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ceux qui vivent bien au chaud, dans leur cambuse de la terre ferme, ne se doutent pas de ce que c'est qu'une soirée passée en mer, sur un navire qui ne bouge pas, dans lequel on n'a donc pas l'espoir d'aborder quelque part et où on ne cesse jamais d'entendre le vent.
Cette nuit-là, il faisait un tel sabbat, le vent, qu'on avait envie de mourir. Cris de chouettes, cris de femmes, cris de sorcières, cris du diable, tout s'en mêlait. À chaque instant ça changeait de note, et ce qui pleurait au loin venait, la minute après, rire et cracher sur notre porte."

[Zon · Rating 5 out of 5]

tu ouvres ce livre et tu as l’impression d’être enfermé dans un phare breton sous la tempête depuis 10 ans et puis tu deviens fou et cette lecture est une expérience exceptionnelle

[Anya · Rating 2 out of 5]

pas ouf, long pour rien

[Desert Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOW. I did not expect to understand 19th century writing so well. It might be the translation, but this book quite literally transported me to the lighthouse in the middle of an ocean. If you liked the film The Lighthouse, then you’d love this. I honestly wish it were LONGER. That was my one qualm. The pace of the book did not match with the timing of the book, but I’m sure I would be saying the opposite if it weee a 1,000 page book.

[Ksenia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth waiting 100 years for! I have seen reviews mention that this is a book for the lovers of Annihilation and Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse (add Ottessa Moshfegh's McGlue to perfect the mix) -- and it is entirely correct. It is hard to imagine that The Tower of Love was written in 1899, because of how contemporary it feels - and even harder that it was published before the Freudian theory has taken root in the collective consciousness, because of how...well...blueprint Freudian it is. Excellent demonstration of how fragile a sense of civilized, moral self is when faced with an impregnable and all-encompassing force of nature, and how easy it is for an unmoored mind to descend into instinctual savagery. An excellent exploration of femininity and masculinity under the patriarchal structures as well.

I loved the sense of sinister/innocent conspiracy between the Lighthouse and the Sea, two actual protagonists of the novel, that felt almost supernatural in its damp indifference. There is also an amazing feeling of vertigo in the writing itself, never a solid surface for your or for Jean's mind to rest upon: the heaving, turbulent sea, constant rain, tilts and tricks of perspective within the structure of the lighthouse, fractured light, fractured sanity, unraveling of the psyche, driven by isolation and substance-infused fugue. Incredibly atmospheric too, you can feel and smell The Tower of Love in all its lush repugnant glory.

"I do have the distinct feeling, though, that I am dizziness personified, and that having finally got the knack of running without moving, straight to my own ruin, I am the very center of all catastrophes."

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars!

I was initially drawn to The Tower of Love because of how similar the plot sounded to that of Robert Egger's The Lighthouse, and if you are a fellow fan of that film I highly recommend you track down a copy of this book for yourself. The Tower of Love portrays both the dark, unsavory recesses of human desires and man's stark helplessness in the face of unbridled nature. I found myself caught off guard a few times as descriptions of mundane activities were interrupted by subtle unnerving details, of which the lingering sinister implications felt so palpable.
Rachelle's prose is impressionistic, verging on the poetic which made reading certain passages feel akin to walking through a fever dream. The novel's short length belies its depth; it is story rich for interpretation. I finished the book, from front to back, yet The Tower of Love remains a mystery to me; there's still too many dark corners left behind.


"...Oh Ar-Men! Oh house of love, sweet house, dreadful jail, cradle of everything shameful, cellar-filled with the troubling wine of solitary drunkenness, sweet house of aid to those shipwrecked in treacherous seas, truth of human light mingled with the stars' falsehoods, sweet tower of love..."

[nita · Rating 4 out of 5]

freaky in the way only the french can be

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"O mar subia, trepava e parava sempre nos primeiros degraus, para recair estafado e cinco segundos depois se levantar mais furioso. Fazia à nossa frente esse trabalho de inimigo, sem termos defesa; nem um parapeito à entrada, nem uma grade férrea que lhe partisse os dentes. Trepava e vinha morder ali como se estivesse em sua casa, mas um paredão invisível, a estiagem calculada pelos senhores engenheiros, dominava-lhe a cólera. Nunca chegava mais longe; e quando lhe facilitava o caminho, era para troçar mais dele."

"… O farol de Ar-Men! Oh, casa de amor, casa meiga, pavoroso cárcere, berço de todas as vergonhas, casa onde sobe o perturbante vinho das bebedeiras solitárias, meiga casa socorrista de náufragos dos mares pérfidos, verdade da luz humanamente misturada com as mentiras das estrelas, suave farol de amor… A nossa união consumou-se como a chegada de uma dor necessária, a dor de vivermos para nós próprios.
Já não pensamos no pecado.
Já não sonhamos com o prazer.
A vida aguenta-nos na sua onda e, finalmente quebrados, atira-nos para a obscura margem do sono.
Quem quebrou o homem solitário, tão farto de isolamento?
A vida, a implacável vida.
Quem embalou o homem solitário, para lhe dar no repouso um instante de consolo?
A morte, a implacável morte!"

"Era gente do Marceu, um couraçado prestes a fazer-se ao mar. E em sua honra cantámos tristes lamúrias. Teria o mar culpa disto?
(…)
Mesmo que viva cem anos, hei-de lembrar-me sempre desta ruela…
Era uma rua de tal forma estreita, de tal forma escura, que em pleno dia não nos deixaria reconhecer o nosso pai. Ao alto, muito ao alto, parecia que os telhados das casas se juntavam. Marulhava um riacho, talvez chegado dos tanque sonde se consertam cascos dos navios . era mais do que certo, pelo cheiro – buraco onde caem mais gatos mortos do que cascas de batata.
E também havia portas que se abriam e fechavam engolindo o engate de passeantes nocturnos. Menos luxuosas, embora, algumas eram de raparigas que exploravam, sem autorização estatal, os pobres marinheiros.
Não saberei dizer por que me vi de repente atacado por um medo inexplicável. Apertei com força a a faca, apertei a faca decidido à batalha.
Ali, perante aqueles rios vermelhos de tecido, nenhuma carícia de boas putas me tinha acalmado nem desembriagado; no fundo dos ouvidos tinha-me ficado, como um ruído de guerra, toda aquela algazarra de alegres companheiros, os marujos do Marceau. No entanto, rapar de armas para batalhar contra quê e contra quem?...
Muito longe, muito alto, mais alto do que as casas unidas nas trevas, rodava um farol eléctrico de raios brancos que açoitavam o céu com chicotadas lívidas, que ofuscavam sem dar luz ao caminho.
O mais espantoso era eu imaginar-me em pleno mar. Ia para a torre do Ar-Men, dirigia-me para o Farol de Amor e atravessava a pé o oceano sem ter de desembarcar no Saint-Cristophe. Ouvi passos atrás de mim.
Um golpe de rato, os passos de alguém que quer passar despercebido.
- O velho! – pensei.
Mas não havia razão nenhuma para pensar no velho poque era, afinal, uma mulher. Pousou a mão na minha manga.
- Ó homenzinho! – disse ela.
Senti que estava a ser invadido por uma cólera louca.
- Homenzinho eu, o Jean Maleux? Valho por três a fazer o serviço e já lutei com o mar… Não me chame homenzinho… Venho de longe!
Talvez tão embriagada como eu, ou julgando pela voz que eu era um dos seus conhecidos, atirou-se de repente para os meus braços, agarrou-se – como um polvo – aos meus ombros e beijou-me a boca com um longo beijo sugador, abominável, com cheiro a almíscar.
- Não vais beijar mais nenhum! Rameira, vou-te acabar com o riso!
Espetei-lhe a faca na barriga.
Caiu. E eu continuei o meu caminho sem olhar sequer para trás, com um passo mais decidido, mais digno, inebriado por um grande orgulho.
- Olha! Vê lá bem! Mar, é o mar!"

"Continuávamos, o velho e eu, a ser dois ursos na jaula, a falar o quanto bastava para as necessidades do serviço, a esconder as nossas manias secretas; ele a declinar aos poucos em direcção ao fim, porque já nem o alfabeto estudava, eu braviamente dominado por infernais hábitos.
Comíamos, bebíamos, todas as manhãs dávamos corda a nós prórpios como relógios, excelentes maquinismos desde a aurora até ao crepúsculo, e a escangalharem-se todas as noites, mal o farol atirasse os seus jactos de fogo.
Cumpríamos o dever de iluminar o mundo... como cegos.
O dever é uma mania, a mais terrível das manias porque temos confiança nela. Julgamos que vai salvar-nos."

[Mathias Chouvier · Rating 5 out of 5]

La review après le club de lecture !

[Olicorta · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Les marins sont bien plus marrants que tous les forains réunis.

[Bob Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enorm sfeervol werk uit 1899 dat het verhaal vertelt van een jonge zeeman, die start als assistent van een oude rot als vuurtorenwachter. Symbolisch en claustrofobisch. Zeer van genoten!

[Juan Nalerio · Rating 5 out of 5]

El mítico faro de Ar-Men está situado a siete millas naúticas de la isla de Sein en la costa atlántica de la bretaña francesa. Levantado sobre una aislada roca entre 1867 y 1881 recibe día a día la furia incontrolable del mar y del viento. Es allí donde Rachilde, seudónimo de Marguerite Vallette-Eymery, sitúa esta inquietante, oscura y salvaje historia.

En esta torre solitaria trabajan y viven el viejo y gruñon Mathurin Barnabas, jefe farero embrutecido por décadas de aislamiento y el joven Jean Maleux que se incorpora para ayudar al primero con entusiasmo y cierta inocencia. El viejo es el personaje más ambiguo y complejo, una suerte de fuerza de la naturaleza encerrado no sólo en el faro, sino en su mente. Maleux, el narrador de la novela, sueña con progresar, imagina que logrará ahorrar dinero para casarse y mejorar su posición social, lo que es una vana ilusión.

Rachilde narra con un estilo único, de ahí la excelencia de la novela, situaciones de oscura belleza y violencia espeluznante. Su prosa es casi poesía y sufrimos cada vez que las olas revuelven la base de Ar-Men aullando y babeando con intención de demolerlo.

El mar es lo femenino, que luego de los naufragios trae la muerte hacia el faro que representa lo masculino, lo fálico, en un juego interminable entre el poder y el deseo, la resistencia y la sumisión, y que paulatinamente borraran el límite entre lo humano y lo bestial de ambos protagonistas.

Dame más Rachilde.

[Kaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Duty is an obsession, the most terrible obsession, because you have faith in it. You think it’ll save you.’

This is Rachilde’s autopsy of masculinity, dissecting with surgical precision the layers of desire men bury themselves below in their quest for self-actualisation. The isolation and domineering force of an older cantankerous male figure all add to a refraction and reïnforcement of such desire within the younger, impressionable, and lonely protagonist—himself never fully innocent. But, by inserting himself into a secluded masculine space, crumbles under the weight of his desperation for acceptance. There is a frailness grown callous under pressure as naïveté leads to self-victimisation and the rejection of the ambiguous feminine that lives outside the platonic ideals of the heart. Patriarchy, therefore, is a self-fulfilling prophecy, a perpetuated mitosis of monstrosity. And looking upon the rise of alt-right politics within Gen Z men who ricochet within extremist online echo chambers, Rachilde’s indictment remains prescient: alpha, beta, sigma—Greek words that all roughly translate to ‘loser’.

[Niniane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un récit sombre, oppressant, parfaitement maîtrisé de bout en bout.

Le style de Rachilde est absolument superbe. Que ce soient les descriptions du phare, de la mer, de la lune...C'est sombre et halluciné. La richesse dans le vocabulaire et les procédés stylistiques est incroyable.

Elle a parfaitement réussi à convoquer un huis-clos malsain dans l'atmosphère de ce phare où les gardiens perdent peu à peu leur humanité.

(Et je vous rassure, vu le sujet, il n'y a rien d'explicite, ni complaisance, ni sexualisation des femmes mortes. On est dans de l'horreur suggérée, purement et simplement.)

[Sandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good late fall, Halloween read--madness, horror, a lonely lighthouse. My favorite part was that the old lighthouse keeper was so convincingly off, but in original ways--singing, wearing hair attached to his head, reading an alphabet book, dropping comments about drowned women. Rachilde's pacing is terrible (or good?) as several months will go by mid-paragraph without warning. But towards the end, the symbolism gets weirder and mesmerizing. It's terrible and fascinating.

[Madison D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up to start off spooky season and boy did it deliver. This is a perfect example of gothic horror with themes of decay, body horror, grotesque imagery, obsession, madness, and monsters all made worse by the eery setting of an isolated lighthouse - what more could you want from a spooky read?

[Alvaro Perez-Quintero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twisted vibes.

An atmospheric, claustrophobic, book. About sexual repression, isolation and a bit of madness. Nothing happens and everything happens. My kind of book.

She should sue Robert Eggers.

Music For this Book:
The Lighthouse (Original Score) - Mark Korven

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[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was blown away by this one: as an example of weird fiction it felt far far more contemporary than books written long after it. It's a tale of madness and isolation and, like all the best horror fiction, didn't outstay its welcome. Troubling, disturbing, brilliant.

[Dylan Kiewel · Rating 4 out of 5]

like a jean epstein film. or a certain robert eggers...

not that i'm a sailor or anything but i haven't read another book that creates such an atmosphere for its sea whipped locale . working a lighthouse exactly like this sounded romantic until today...

[Léa s'égare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aussi horrible qu’incroyable. Excellente postface qui rend encore plus sensible le génie de ce roman.

[violet · Rating 2 out of 5]

tellement ennuyeux. ne perds pas ton temps

[merlin ⭐]

horrible horrible horrible mais extrêmement bien écrit + phare lieu et modèle sexuel exacerbé de l'érotisme phallique

[H. F. Greenwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[Konstantinos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A perfect companion to the film The Lighthouse by Robert Eggers.