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Sweating Blood
First published in French in 1893, Sweating Blood describes the atrocities of war in 30 tales of horror and inhumanity from the pen of the "Pilgrim of the Absolute," Leon Bloy. Writing with blood, sweat, tears and moral outrage, Bloy drew from anecdotes, news reports and his own experiences as a guerilla fighter to compose a fragmented depiction of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, told with equal measures of hatred and pathos, and alternating between cutting detail and muted anguish. From heaps of corpses, monstrous butchers, cowardly bourgeois, bloody massacres, seas of mud, drunken desperation, frightful disfigurement, grotesque hallucinations and ghoulish means of personal revenge, a generalized portrait of suffering is revealed that ultimately requires a religious lens: for through Bloy's maniacal nationalism and frenetic Catholicism, it is a hell that emerges here, a 19th-century apocalypse that tore a country apart and set the stage for a century of atrocities that were yet to come.
Leon Bloy (1846-1917) was born to a freethinking yet stern father and a pious Spanish-Catholic mother in southwestern France. Nourishing anti-religious sentiments in his youth, his outlook changed radically when he moved to Paris and came under the influence of Jules-Amedee Barbey d'Aurevilly. In his subsequent years of writing pamphlets, novels, essays, poetry and a multi volume diary, Bloy earned his dual nicknames of "The Pilgrim of the Absolute" through his unorthodox devotion to the Catholic Church and "The Ungrateful Beggar" through his endless reliance on the charity of friends to support him and his family.
Leon Bloy (1846-1917) was born to a freethinking yet stern father and a pious Spanish-Catholic mother in southwestern France. Nourishing anti-religious sentiments in his youth, his outlook changed radically when he moved to Paris and came under the influence of Jules-Amedee Barbey d'Aurevilly. In his subsequent years of writing pamphlets, novels, essays, poetry and a multi volume diary, Bloy earned his dual nicknames of "The Pilgrim of the Absolute" through his unorthodox devotion to the Catholic Church and "The Ungrateful Beggar" through his endless reliance on the charity of friends to support him and his family.
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1893
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About the author
Léon Bloy
150 books125 followersBloy was born in Notre-Dame-de-Sanilhac, in the arondissement of Périgueux, Dordogne. He was the second of six sons of Voltairean freethinker and stern disciplinarian Jean Baptiste Bloy and his wife Anne-Marie Carreau, pious Spanish-Catholic daughter of a Napoleonic soldier. After an agnostic and unhappy youth in which he cultivated an intense hatred for the Roman Catholic Church and its teaching, his father found him a job in Paris, where he went in 1864. In December 1868, he met the aging Catholic author Barbey d'Aurevilly, who lived opposite him in rue Rousselet and became his mentor. Shortly afterwards, he underwent a dramatic religious conversion.
Bloy's works reflect a deepening devotion to the Catholic Church and most generally a tremendous craving for the Absolute. His devotion to religion resulted in a complete dependence on charity; he acquired his nickname ("the ungrateful beggar") as a result of the many letters requesting financial aid from friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers, all the while carrying on with his literary work, in which his eight-volume Diary takes an important place.
Bloy was a friend of the author Joris-Karl Huysmans, the painter Georges Rouault, and the philosopher Jacques Maritain, and was instrumental in reconciling these intellectuals with Roman Catholicism. However, he acquired a reputation for bigotry because of his frequent outbursts of temper; and his first novel, Le Désespéré, a fierce attack on rationalism and those he believed to be in league with it, made him fall out with the literary community of his time and even many of his old friends. Soon, Bloy could count such prestigious authors as Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Ernest Renan, Alphonse Daudet, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Paul Bourget and Anatole France as his enemies.
In addition to his published works, he left a large body of correspondence with public and literary figures. He died in Bourg-la-Reine.
Bloy's works reflect a deepening devotion to the Catholic Church and most generally a tremendous craving for the Absolute. His devotion to religion resulted in a complete dependence on charity; he acquired his nickname ("the ungrateful beggar") as a result of the many letters requesting financial aid from friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers, all the while carrying on with his literary work, in which his eight-volume Diary takes an important place.
Bloy was a friend of the author Joris-Karl Huysmans, the painter Georges Rouault, and the philosopher Jacques Maritain, and was instrumental in reconciling these intellectuals with Roman Catholicism. However, he acquired a reputation for bigotry because of his frequent outbursts of temper; and his first novel, Le Désespéré, a fierce attack on rationalism and those he believed to be in league with it, made him fall out with the literary community of his time and even many of his old friends. Soon, Bloy could count such prestigious authors as Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Ernest Renan, Alphonse Daudet, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Paul Bourget and Anatole France as his enemies.
In addition to his published works, he left a large body of correspondence with public and literary figures. He died in Bourg-la-Reine.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 19, 2021
Esta selección se compone de dieciséis cuentos que retratan la guerra franco-prusiana (1870-1871) en la que Leon Bloy (1846-1917) luchó como voluntario.
Ruben Dario dice en el prólogo que es un libro que “hace daño con sus espantos sepulcrales, sus carnicerías locas, su olor a carne quemada…”, y sí, es cierto que la mayoría de los relatos dan cuenta de sucesos de lo más cueles y espantosos que el propio autor vivió o escucho de primera mano durante el conflicto, pero también hay otros temas que abundan, como el constante reproche por la incompetencia de los mandos franceses, la humillación en la que se vio sumido el pueblo francés y el odio hacia los bárbaros alemanes en tanto invasores de su tierra..
El estilo del autor es conciso y bastante áspero y rudo, algo que ayuda a la eficacia de los cuentos, sobre todo por el clima recreado, que es uno de los mayores méritos de Leon Bloy a lo largo de todos los cuentos.
Navidad prusiana, El sepulturero de vivos, En la mesa de los vencedores, La salamandra vampiro y Una francotiradora me parecieron los mejores, pero en general todos los cuentos están muy bien.
“Algunos dejaron la vida, a pesar del gran apego que tenían por ella. otros volvió cojos, rendidos, perdidos sin remisión, perennemente convalecientes. Pero la mayoría de los supervivientes traían un alma infinitamente hastiada que engendraría una generación subsiguiente ayuna de todo entusiasmo.”
“Mi querido niño, eres el quinto de mis hijos que esta en el frente. Aun así, me será mas fácil consolarme de tu muerte que de la humillación y la vergüenza de nuestra patria…”
Ruben Dario dice en el prólogo que es un libro que “hace daño con sus espantos sepulcrales, sus carnicerías locas, su olor a carne quemada…”, y sí, es cierto que la mayoría de los relatos dan cuenta de sucesos de lo más cueles y espantosos que el propio autor vivió o escucho de primera mano durante el conflicto, pero también hay otros temas que abundan, como el constante reproche por la incompetencia de los mandos franceses, la humillación en la que se vio sumido el pueblo francés y el odio hacia los bárbaros alemanes en tanto invasores de su tierra..
El estilo del autor es conciso y bastante áspero y rudo, algo que ayuda a la eficacia de los cuentos, sobre todo por el clima recreado, que es uno de los mayores méritos de Leon Bloy a lo largo de todos los cuentos.
Navidad prusiana, El sepulturero de vivos, En la mesa de los vencedores, La salamandra vampiro y Una francotiradora me parecieron los mejores, pero en general todos los cuentos están muy bien.
“Algunos dejaron la vida, a pesar del gran apego que tenían por ella. otros volvió cojos, rendidos, perdidos sin remisión, perennemente convalecientes. Pero la mayoría de los supervivientes traían un alma infinitamente hastiada que engendraría una generación subsiguiente ayuna de todo entusiasmo.”
“Mi querido niño, eres el quinto de mis hijos que esta en el frente. Aun así, me será mas fácil consolarme de tu muerte que de la humillación y la vergüenza de nuestra patria…”
July 9, 2022
Beautiful, brief spurts of violence and degradation.
June 5, 2016
"But when France suffers, it is God who suffers; the awful God in agony for the whole of the earth, who sweats blood."
-Leon Bloy
In some ways, I think I enjoyed this volume even more than Bloy's first short story collection ("Disagreeable Tales"). Once again, what we have here is a book consisting of very short stories (all of which fall between 3-8 pages long), but this time they are united by their subject matter: generally speaking, all the stories in "Sweating Blood" (first published in France in 1893 under the title "Sueur de Sang") revolve around the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.
Due to this subject matter, the stories are incredibly violent: women are raped, priests' heads are blown off by bullets, faces are butchered by bayonets, young men are disemboweled, enemas of boiling oil are administered, and so on and so forth. The plot of the story "The Lover's Nest," which involves two AWOL French soldiers conspiring with local prostitutes to lure German soldiers to a brothel, where they then proceed to strangle them and dump their corpses in a well, almost sounds like it would make a good Tarantino b-movie. In the story "At the Victor's Table," a priest listens to the confession of a dying woman, who relates a dark tale of cannibalism: the twist at the end of this story is something pretty much straight out of Poe.
Some of the stories function as short character sketches, and the personalities that pop into (and just as quickly pop out of) this book are quite memorable: a female peasant who dresses like a man in an attempt to join the French army to fight the Germans, a horse-loving hunchback who makes a living in the forest collecting manure (his nickname, incidentally, is "Mouche-a-Caca"); even Barbey d'Aurevilly makes a cameo, in a story where, after rebuffing the advances of a prostitute (who is thus described as a "delirious she-camel"), is slandered by her when she accuses him of being a Prussian spy. One of the more interesting characters is the protagonist of "The Vampire Salamander." The title character in that one is a man who was nearly burnt alive by the Germans, a man who had his nose, lips and ears burnt off, giving him a horrifying countenance. Not content with merely killing the Germans, he becomes "... a zealous desecrator of tombs," trying to scar the very souls of the dead Germans by "...defiling their rotting remains."
This time around Bloy reserves most of his artful vitriol for the invading Prussians, who are often depicted as bestial (he frequently compares them to swine), buffoonish, cowardly, and so forth (he even describes one of their leading generals as an "Alexander of the Outhouses"). He also spends a lot of energy trashing the country of Germany in general, even taking some time in one story ("The Musician of Silence") to trash the work of Richard Wagner, whose music he colorfully describes as "...a mush of Scandinavian theogony and Christianity that would nauseate a hippopotamus." In the very first story he also takes a bit of time to insult historians who sanitize the war itself, dismissing them as "... the scribblerian alligators of yesteryear" (an insult I hope that I myself might be able to utilize in a conversation in my own life some day).
-Leon Bloy
In some ways, I think I enjoyed this volume even more than Bloy's first short story collection ("Disagreeable Tales"). Once again, what we have here is a book consisting of very short stories (all of which fall between 3-8 pages long), but this time they are united by their subject matter: generally speaking, all the stories in "Sweating Blood" (first published in France in 1893 under the title "Sueur de Sang") revolve around the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.
Due to this subject matter, the stories are incredibly violent: women are raped, priests' heads are blown off by bullets, faces are butchered by bayonets, young men are disemboweled, enemas of boiling oil are administered, and so on and so forth. The plot of the story "The Lover's Nest," which involves two AWOL French soldiers conspiring with local prostitutes to lure German soldiers to a brothel, where they then proceed to strangle them and dump their corpses in a well, almost sounds like it would make a good Tarantino b-movie. In the story "At the Victor's Table," a priest listens to the confession of a dying woman, who relates a dark tale of cannibalism: the twist at the end of this story is something pretty much straight out of Poe.
Some of the stories function as short character sketches, and the personalities that pop into (and just as quickly pop out of) this book are quite memorable: a female peasant who dresses like a man in an attempt to join the French army to fight the Germans, a horse-loving hunchback who makes a living in the forest collecting manure (his nickname, incidentally, is "Mouche-a-Caca"); even Barbey d'Aurevilly makes a cameo, in a story where, after rebuffing the advances of a prostitute (who is thus described as a "delirious she-camel"), is slandered by her when she accuses him of being a Prussian spy. One of the more interesting characters is the protagonist of "The Vampire Salamander." The title character in that one is a man who was nearly burnt alive by the Germans, a man who had his nose, lips and ears burnt off, giving him a horrifying countenance. Not content with merely killing the Germans, he becomes "... a zealous desecrator of tombs," trying to scar the very souls of the dead Germans by "...defiling their rotting remains."
This time around Bloy reserves most of his artful vitriol for the invading Prussians, who are often depicted as bestial (he frequently compares them to swine), buffoonish, cowardly, and so forth (he even describes one of their leading generals as an "Alexander of the Outhouses"). He also spends a lot of energy trashing the country of Germany in general, even taking some time in one story ("The Musician of Silence") to trash the work of Richard Wagner, whose music he colorfully describes as "...a mush of Scandinavian theogony and Christianity that would nauseate a hippopotamus." In the very first story he also takes a bit of time to insult historians who sanitize the war itself, dismissing them as "... the scribblerian alligators of yesteryear" (an insult I hope that I myself might be able to utilize in a conversation in my own life some day).
July 9, 2018
Much like Babel's RED CALVARY, Bloy's collection of progressing short tales details the absurdity and horror of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war. The stories swing from individual acts of sacrifice, failure, heroism and superhuman death. While the single universal theme to all the stories is the monstrous, shit stained character and actions of the invading Prussians.
Again, much like Babel, Bloy's language soars when detailing the atrocities and humiliations inflicted upon the fine, buttery crust of the French society. Poets, socialites, and families of Wealth are a specific focal point. In part, I think to show the violence that is inflicted upon the most delicate, finest, and most sensitive of society by War.
But what of the war? There is very little said about the chaos of combat. Instead, Bloy sets his sights upon the deepening mud, the strangled cries of the dying on the dark, abandoned battlefields, or the moments of home invasion - where small group ambushes small group. So too, does Bloy mostly ignore the machinations of Generals or strategy (other than to point out the French's main tactic was retreat). Instead, Bloy introduces us to the superhuman Polack who takes fifty bullets and as many stab wounds, as a way of dissecting the horror of combat upon the single body.
SWEATING BLOOD is no where near perfect. But when Bloy is in his full poetic swing, he creates a language that is hard and terrorizing - so in other words, poetry.
Again, much like Babel, Bloy's language soars when detailing the atrocities and humiliations inflicted upon the fine, buttery crust of the French society. Poets, socialites, and families of Wealth are a specific focal point. In part, I think to show the violence that is inflicted upon the most delicate, finest, and most sensitive of society by War.
But what of the war? There is very little said about the chaos of combat. Instead, Bloy sets his sights upon the deepening mud, the strangled cries of the dying on the dark, abandoned battlefields, or the moments of home invasion - where small group ambushes small group. So too, does Bloy mostly ignore the machinations of Generals or strategy (other than to point out the French's main tactic was retreat). Instead, Bloy introduces us to the superhuman Polack who takes fifty bullets and as many stab wounds, as a way of dissecting the horror of combat upon the single body.
SWEATING BLOOD is no where near perfect. But when Bloy is in his full poetic swing, he creates a language that is hard and terrorizing - so in other words, poetry.
October 25, 2024
If you're curious about Bloy, start here; this collection is far superior to his other, "Disreputable Tales". He writes about the butchery of war with a gothic eye, and his sarcasm runs through every vignette and portrait like electricity, proving that hatred (in this case: for all things Germanic) is not an unsuitable muse for ingenious literature.
November 7, 2020
Bloy brings the Franco-Prussian War to life in bitterly told short stories that are full of cruelty, shame, vitriol, sarcasm and a kind of deep brutal beauty and honesty. Bloy has a journalist's eye and candor, a veteran's wisdom and an artist's ability to assemble the fragments of utter physical and mental destruction into something haunting and meaningful. There are characters in here you won't be able to forget — the vampire salamander and dung collector will probably haunt me for some time — and scenes that will stick with you. All of it is guided by Bloy's gentlemanly, if cutting, prose.
October 16, 2018
Horrid little stories, none of them overly long, displaying Bloy's hatred in equal measure for the Germans and the French peasentry and bourgeois alike. To Bloy, every peasant who isnt suffering bodily in the war is as likely to sell out his own country and sell supplies to the Prussians. Some of the stories become very grim, and merrit the horror monicker quite well.
May 28, 2025
Reading this, it’s hard not to find oneself esteeming France as Bloy. The indomitable will and sublime soul he presents of his people dragged through the charnel house can only breed respect. Even if some of this is drawn not from verifiable sources but anecdotes, the spirit is what comes off strongest and is probably Bloy’s intention: the mood, the atmosphere, the disposition of France in the wake of Prussian slaughter. One wonders what he would have made of the World Wars. The translation seems to slip tonally here and there, which is jarring, but I was still able to understand the spirit of the work.
June 13, 2025
A precursor in hallucinatory war-reportage that you might find re-animated, like a flyblown soldier, in Malaparte, Celine, Babel, Kozinsky etc. Bloy's war is the Franco-Prussian war, his style, that of a saber-slashing Symbolist who makes short, brutal work of mythic chapters with Grimm-coded titles like The House of the Devil, A German Monk, The Dung Collector, The Vampire Salamander. All chapters could, however, simply be called That Fat Fucking Prussian who Got what he Deserved, such is Bloy's vitriol for the Germans. Fans of Bauderlaire, Poe, or the aformentioned writers should check this out.
March 8, 2022
Bloy brings to life one of the most important but seldom talked about war's in history. The Franco-prussian war, despite being a French nationalist he shows the true face of war away from the propaganda and national chest beating, in all its cruelty, violence, and hatred from both sides of the conflict
January 11, 2025
This is a collection of short stories that capture the horrors of modern warfare. Bloy was a veteran and witness to the atrocities of the Franco-Prussian War. He portrayed the unspeakable horrors under the prism of French nationalism and religious fervor. The proto-fascist messages should be a warning for the world today.
April 15, 2023
REST IN PEACE HORSE BRO GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN!!!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews