L'abbé Jules

by Octave Mirbeau

C’est l’évocation d’un prêtre hystérique et en révolte permanente contre l’Église romaine et contre une société étouffante et oppressive. Jules Dervelle est constamment déchiré entre les besoins de sa chair et ses « postulations » vers le ciel. Mirbeau a choisi pour cadre un petit village du Perche, Viantais, inspiré de Rémalard, où il a passé sa jeunesse : chacun y vit sous le regard de tous et les exigences du corps et celles de l’esprit y sont lamentablement comprimées. Extrait : La vérité, c'est que les Robin, confiants dans les promesses du sénateur, attendaient un avancement prochain, et ne voulaient pas payer les frais de deux déménagements. Ils attendirent douze ans, dans la maison des demoiselles Lejars et, durant ces douze années, ils ne cessèrent de s'excuser, à chaque invitation nouvelle. -- Oh ! nous vous en devons, des dîners !... C'est honteux vraiment !... Mais quand nous aurons nos meubles !... Ma mère ne s'était pas trompée. C'étaient bien les Robin qui avaient sonné à la grille. Ils arrivèrent, lui, soufflant, sa figure enfouie dans le triple tour d'un cache-nez à carreaux noirs et blancs ; elle, minaudant sous une capeline de laine rouge, qu'ornait un large ruban de velours noir. -- Quel temps ! mes amis, s'exclama M. Robin, qui s'ébrouait ainsi qu'un vieux cheval, quel temps !... Et le daromètre baisse toujours.

Genres: Fiction, French Literature, Roman, Literary Fiction, France

195 pages, Kindle Edition

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]

.

[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.