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Román vyšel poprvé česky již v roce 1908, ve vlastním překladu jej vydal Josef Florian. Svému mistru a duchovnímu vůdci Léonu Bloyovi tak splatil osm let starý dluh: tehdy ho právě četba Chudé ženy přiměla k radikální změně životních postojů, která vedla ke vzniku dnes již legendárního nakladatelského podniku Dobré dílo.
231 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1897
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785 people want to read
About the author
Léon Bloy
179 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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October 28, 2016
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Léon Bloy was never the most prolific of writers (in the realm of fiction, that is... non-fiction is another matter entirely). As far as I can figure out, he only had published two collections of short stories and two novels in his lifetime. Of the former, there is Sweating Blood(1893: an English translation was put out by Wakefield Press in 2016) and Disagreeable Tales(1894: two English translations of this book exist, one put out by Wakefield Press in 2015 and, more recently, Snuggly Books in 2016, though in the latter case it has been retitled The Tarantula's Parlor and Other Unkind Tales). In regards to his novels, these were entitled Despairing(1897: to my knowledge this book has yet to be translated into English, but I'm desperately hoping that either Wakefield Press or Snuggly Books will do so at some point), and The Woman Who Was Poor, which was published in 1897 and first translated into English in 1937, and has been since reprinted many times (the version of this book that I'm talking about now was put out by St. Augustine's Press in 2015, though the translation is still the 1937 one). As for Bloy's eight journals, those have yet to see English translations as well.
In any case, The Woman Who Was Poor reads less like a conventional novel and more like a fin de siècle martyrology. The "plot" revolves around a young 30 year-old woman named Clotilde Marechale, an artist's model of simple faith living in 1879 Paris who effects divergent opinions amongst two very different groups of characters. Which is to say, the book's more sympathetic characters are bowled over by her religious insights and beauty, whereas seemingly everyone else (that is, the rest of Paris) utterly detests her for no good reason and goes out of their way to try to slander and crush her and her loved ones. At the start of the book Clotilde is desperately poor, but good fortune conspires to see her rise up in the world and temporarily find happiness. Of course, in the second half, the good life she has made for herself comes tumbling down in the most overwrought and melodramatic fashion imaginable.
Like his contemporary Huysmans, Bloy's writing is often at its strongest when he's venting his spleen against something that disgusts him, and like Huysmans, there's very little that doesn't disgust Bloy. In the pages of this book he rails against modernity, Paris, the Jews, Marianne: the French representation of Liberty ("a hussy in a Phrygian bonnet"), studio models ("ghastly creatures, the scum of professional immodesty, of vile and crawling insensibility... those cattle of the figure-studios and the easel, beings whom old Dante would have scrutinized pensively when returning from his Inferno"), Schopenhauer ("that awful pedant, Schopenhauer, who spent his life studying the horizon from the bottom of a well"), Protestantism, "scientific moronism," even hapless furniture: "Across the room an old arm-chair, that might well have been loot from a sacked city, was discharging its entrails of flock and wire, in spite of the almost pathetic coyness of a tattered cover of childish embroidery." One of the "highlights" of the book is the chapters in which Clotilde and her husband move into a wretched (and possibly haunted) house that is described in the most lurid and Gothic terms imaginable, to the effect that it almost seems like something wrenched from the pages of Poe. And you can usually guess how much Bloy likes a character by how they're described, in that the more likeable characters (such as Clotilde) are usually given very brief physical descriptions, whereas her loathsome neighbor Monsieur Poulot is described thusly: "This good man was phlegmatic and heavy, with about as much joviality as a tapeworm in a chemist's shop. Still, when he had drunk a few glasses of absinthe, with his wife, as they soon learned, his high-boned cheeks would glow like a couple of light-houses on a stormy sea. And then, from the centre of a face whose tint oddly reminded one of a Tartar camel in the moulting season, there jutted out a bugle of a nose whose tip, usually veined with purplish streaks, would at such times display a sudden rosy hue and glow like an altar lamp. Beneath it there shrank from sight a weak, flaccid mouth, shaded with one of those bristly moustaches favoured by certain bailiff's men, to give an air of military ferocity to the professional cowardice of their calling. There is little to be said about his eyes; at the best, their expression might be compared to that in the eyes of a sated seal, when it has gorged its fill and is giving itself up to the raptures of digestion." Interestingly enough, this man's wife is even more grotesque in character! Indeed, one of the more perverse pleasures of this book is trying to decide who the most horrible person in it is: Monsieur and Madame Poulot are the obvious contenders, but Clotilde's harpy of a mother (described alternately as a "sniveling old termagant," a "mummified old crone" and a "nightmare houri") and her drunken lout of a boyfriend could easily qualify as well.
Because Bloy had at least one toe dipped in the pool of Naturalism, many of the characters that appear in this book are based on real-life people (for the curious, the list may be found here: http://leon-bloy.blogspot.com/2013/11...). Never one for modesty, Bloy apparently modeled the two most heroic male characters after himself. His old frenemy J.K. Huysmans makes an appearance as well, as Folantin (named after the main character of Huysmans' own novella À vau-l'eau), here recast as a Naturalist/Futurist painter (a subtle jab at Huysmans' notion that he himself was a painter who used words instead of paint), whose best known works of art are entitled "Black Mass" (obviously a reference to Huysmans' novel of Satanism, Là-bas) and "Trappists at Prayer" (another obvious reference, this time to Huysmans' novel En Route).
Actually, it is for this reason why I'm docking this book one star, being something of a Huysmans loyalist myself. It's bad enough that Bloy here describes Huysmans as a "diarrhetic grisaille merchant" and a "plagiarist of the null" (though to be fair, Bloy does grudgingly admit that Huysmans was "not miserly," and he would know, when you factor in how much money Huysmans gave "the ungrateful mendicant" over the years). Never mind that some of the details that Bloy attributes to Huysmans are fairly accurate: his feline-like manners, his air of disinterest, his mysterious mocking smile, his hatred of all things of the South, his missing most of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 on account of coming down with dysentery (Bloy accuses him of being unpatriotic, but Huysmans himself would be the first to admit that he found himself more in sympathy with the Prussians in that battle), and so on. Bloy even (somewhat pettily) attacks the size of Huysmans' hands, referring to them as "dwarf's hands" (which made me think of the Marc Rubio/Donald Trump hand fiasco of this year's election cycle). However, it's flat-out character assassination when Bloy insinuates that Huysmans (possibly possessed by the "Evil One") isolated a dying Villiers de L'Isle Adam from all his friends and forcing him to marry his mistress while on his deathbed.
It's worth remembering that for a fairly long span of time (1884 to late 1889) Huysmans and Bloy were the best of friends, and by all accounts remaining friends with Bloy for even a small period of time was a great feat in and of itself, for he had a knack for alienating people (usually when they grew tired of giving him money). Huysmans often helped Bloy out financially: to cite just a few examples, in 1885 he helped pay for the funeral of Berthe Dumont (Bloy's fiancée at the time and Clotilde's real-life analogue) when Bloy couldn't afford to give her a proper burial. In 1887, when Bloy's publisher decided to not publish his first novel at the last minute, Huysmans went out of his way to find a new home for it. In 1888 he helped Bloy get a job with a newspaper. He even tried to convince his friends to help Bloy out (for proof of this, see a letter he wrote to his friend Arij Prins on August 11th, 1886, which may be read on page 76 of The Road From Decadence: From Brothel to Cloister: Selected Letters of J.K. Huysmans). Even after their falling out in 1890, Bloy would still hit-up Huysmans for cash, and as late as 1901 was still asking him for handouts (which was somewhat cheeky of him, in light of what he wrote about Huysmans in his 1897 novel). As for Bloy's Villiers de L'Isle Adam theory, it's a pure cock & bull story. The fact of the matter was, Bloy and Villiers had had a falling out months before Villers' death (Villiers had even said the following about Bloy: "He has brought poverty into dishonor") and as a result the dying man wished it that Bloy was nowhere near his deathbed (also, letters written by Villiers confirms that it was his own wish to marry his mistress before his death, so Huysmans was just honoring the man's wishes). In regards to Bloy, in the year 1900 Huysmans wrote the following to a friend: "The man is so well known in Paris, and held in such contempt, that his attacks have no effect. He's an unhappy wretch whose pride is truly diabolical and whose capacity for hatred is immeasurable..."
Still, I found this book a very enjoyable read and would recommend it to anyone. The theological aspects of it are quite fascinating, and Bloy certainly knew how to "turn a phrase." This was probably my favorite line from it: “For the human soul is a gong of pain, on which the slightest percussion sets up vibrations that continually grow, waves that spread outwards in limitless circles of dread.”
In any case, The Woman Who Was Poor reads less like a conventional novel and more like a fin de siècle martyrology. The "plot" revolves around a young 30 year-old woman named Clotilde Marechale, an artist's model of simple faith living in 1879 Paris who effects divergent opinions amongst two very different groups of characters. Which is to say, the book's more sympathetic characters are bowled over by her religious insights and beauty, whereas seemingly everyone else (that is, the rest of Paris) utterly detests her for no good reason and goes out of their way to try to slander and crush her and her loved ones. At the start of the book Clotilde is desperately poor, but good fortune conspires to see her rise up in the world and temporarily find happiness. Of course, in the second half, the good life she has made for herself comes tumbling down in the most overwrought and melodramatic fashion imaginable.
Like his contemporary Huysmans, Bloy's writing is often at its strongest when he's venting his spleen against something that disgusts him, and like Huysmans, there's very little that doesn't disgust Bloy. In the pages of this book he rails against modernity, Paris, the Jews, Marianne: the French representation of Liberty ("a hussy in a Phrygian bonnet"), studio models ("ghastly creatures, the scum of professional immodesty, of vile and crawling insensibility... those cattle of the figure-studios and the easel, beings whom old Dante would have scrutinized pensively when returning from his Inferno"), Schopenhauer ("that awful pedant, Schopenhauer, who spent his life studying the horizon from the bottom of a well"), Protestantism, "scientific moronism," even hapless furniture: "Across the room an old arm-chair, that might well have been loot from a sacked city, was discharging its entrails of flock and wire, in spite of the almost pathetic coyness of a tattered cover of childish embroidery." One of the "highlights" of the book is the chapters in which Clotilde and her husband move into a wretched (and possibly haunted) house that is described in the most lurid and Gothic terms imaginable, to the effect that it almost seems like something wrenched from the pages of Poe. And you can usually guess how much Bloy likes a character by how they're described, in that the more likeable characters (such as Clotilde) are usually given very brief physical descriptions, whereas her loathsome neighbor Monsieur Poulot is described thusly: "This good man was phlegmatic and heavy, with about as much joviality as a tapeworm in a chemist's shop. Still, when he had drunk a few glasses of absinthe, with his wife, as they soon learned, his high-boned cheeks would glow like a couple of light-houses on a stormy sea. And then, from the centre of a face whose tint oddly reminded one of a Tartar camel in the moulting season, there jutted out a bugle of a nose whose tip, usually veined with purplish streaks, would at such times display a sudden rosy hue and glow like an altar lamp. Beneath it there shrank from sight a weak, flaccid mouth, shaded with one of those bristly moustaches favoured by certain bailiff's men, to give an air of military ferocity to the professional cowardice of their calling. There is little to be said about his eyes; at the best, their expression might be compared to that in the eyes of a sated seal, when it has gorged its fill and is giving itself up to the raptures of digestion." Interestingly enough, this man's wife is even more grotesque in character! Indeed, one of the more perverse pleasures of this book is trying to decide who the most horrible person in it is: Monsieur and Madame Poulot are the obvious contenders, but Clotilde's harpy of a mother (described alternately as a "sniveling old termagant," a "mummified old crone" and a "nightmare houri") and her drunken lout of a boyfriend could easily qualify as well.
Because Bloy had at least one toe dipped in the pool of Naturalism, many of the characters that appear in this book are based on real-life people (for the curious, the list may be found here: http://leon-bloy.blogspot.com/2013/11...). Never one for modesty, Bloy apparently modeled the two most heroic male characters after himself. His old frenemy J.K. Huysmans makes an appearance as well, as Folantin (named after the main character of Huysmans' own novella À vau-l'eau), here recast as a Naturalist/Futurist painter (a subtle jab at Huysmans' notion that he himself was a painter who used words instead of paint), whose best known works of art are entitled "Black Mass" (obviously a reference to Huysmans' novel of Satanism, Là-bas) and "Trappists at Prayer" (another obvious reference, this time to Huysmans' novel En Route).
Actually, it is for this reason why I'm docking this book one star, being something of a Huysmans loyalist myself. It's bad enough that Bloy here describes Huysmans as a "diarrhetic grisaille merchant" and a "plagiarist of the null" (though to be fair, Bloy does grudgingly admit that Huysmans was "not miserly," and he would know, when you factor in how much money Huysmans gave "the ungrateful mendicant" over the years). Never mind that some of the details that Bloy attributes to Huysmans are fairly accurate: his feline-like manners, his air of disinterest, his mysterious mocking smile, his hatred of all things of the South, his missing most of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 on account of coming down with dysentery (Bloy accuses him of being unpatriotic, but Huysmans himself would be the first to admit that he found himself more in sympathy with the Prussians in that battle), and so on. Bloy even (somewhat pettily) attacks the size of Huysmans' hands, referring to them as "dwarf's hands" (which made me think of the Marc Rubio/Donald Trump hand fiasco of this year's election cycle). However, it's flat-out character assassination when Bloy insinuates that Huysmans (possibly possessed by the "Evil One") isolated a dying Villiers de L'Isle Adam from all his friends and forcing him to marry his mistress while on his deathbed.
It's worth remembering that for a fairly long span of time (1884 to late 1889) Huysmans and Bloy were the best of friends, and by all accounts remaining friends with Bloy for even a small period of time was a great feat in and of itself, for he had a knack for alienating people (usually when they grew tired of giving him money). Huysmans often helped Bloy out financially: to cite just a few examples, in 1885 he helped pay for the funeral of Berthe Dumont (Bloy's fiancée at the time and Clotilde's real-life analogue) when Bloy couldn't afford to give her a proper burial. In 1887, when Bloy's publisher decided to not publish his first novel at the last minute, Huysmans went out of his way to find a new home for it. In 1888 he helped Bloy get a job with a newspaper. He even tried to convince his friends to help Bloy out (for proof of this, see a letter he wrote to his friend Arij Prins on August 11th, 1886, which may be read on page 76 of The Road From Decadence: From Brothel to Cloister: Selected Letters of J.K. Huysmans). Even after their falling out in 1890, Bloy would still hit-up Huysmans for cash, and as late as 1901 was still asking him for handouts (which was somewhat cheeky of him, in light of what he wrote about Huysmans in his 1897 novel). As for Bloy's Villiers de L'Isle Adam theory, it's a pure cock & bull story. The fact of the matter was, Bloy and Villiers had had a falling out months before Villers' death (Villiers had even said the following about Bloy: "He has brought poverty into dishonor") and as a result the dying man wished it that Bloy was nowhere near his deathbed (also, letters written by Villiers confirms that it was his own wish to marry his mistress before his death, so Huysmans was just honoring the man's wishes). In regards to Bloy, in the year 1900 Huysmans wrote the following to a friend: "The man is so well known in Paris, and held in such contempt, that his attacks have no effect. He's an unhappy wretch whose pride is truly diabolical and whose capacity for hatred is immeasurable..."
Still, I found this book a very enjoyable read and would recommend it to anyone. The theological aspects of it are quite fascinating, and Bloy certainly knew how to "turn a phrase." This was probably my favorite line from it: “For the human soul is a gong of pain, on which the slightest percussion sets up vibrations that continually grow, waves that spread outwards in limitless circles of dread.”
March 19, 2016
Um romance excessivo...ou de extremos. Tipo Paraíso e Inferno...
- Muito vocabulário desconhecido. Cerca de 10% das palavras não sei o que significam.
- As personagens ou são vilões ou quase santos.
- Uma grande carga religiosa. Muita fartura de sermões e orações.
- Quase toda a gente morre. Os maus morrem como castigo de serem causadores da morte dos bons.
Não me lembro de uma personagem que tivesse uma vida tão trágica quanto Clotilde; mas quanto mais sofria mais aumentava a sua fé.
"Quanto mais uma mulher é santa, mais ela é mulher."
"— Há só uma tristeza — disse-lhe ela, na última vez que lá esteve —, a de NÃO SERMOS SANTOS..."
Embora não me comovesse com tanta desgraça e me aborrecesse com tanto credo, gostei do estilo de escrita, concordante com a classe social em que estavam inseridas as personagens: erudito para a alta, popular para a baixa.
- Muito vocabulário desconhecido. Cerca de 10% das palavras não sei o que significam.
- As personagens ou são vilões ou quase santos.
- Uma grande carga religiosa. Muita fartura de sermões e orações.
- Quase toda a gente morre. Os maus morrem como castigo de serem causadores da morte dos bons.
Não me lembro de uma personagem que tivesse uma vida tão trágica quanto Clotilde; mas quanto mais sofria mais aumentava a sua fé.
"Quanto mais uma mulher é santa, mais ela é mulher."
"— Há só uma tristeza — disse-lhe ela, na última vez que lá esteve —, a de NÃO SERMOS SANTOS..."
Embora não me comovesse com tanta desgraça e me aborrecesse com tanto credo, gostei do estilo de escrita, concordante com a classe social em que estavam inseridas as personagens: erudito para a alta, popular para a baixa.
January 3, 2025
"La Femme pauvre" is a dog's breakfast that I read because Michel Houellebecq referred to it glowingly in Sousmission. Written in extravagant purple prose, it is filled with self-pity and weird plot turns. Bloy energetically attacks French liberal intellectuals and German philosophers reserving his nastier blows for luke-warm Catholics. The whole sorry enterprise concludes with a deus ex machina as God's grace unexpectedly descends upon the beleaguered heroine. At least I know how where Houllebecq is coming from.
March 29, 2013
De nos jours, Léon Bloy semble être en odeur de sainteté dans l’Eglise Catholique, même chez le Saint-Siège. Le pape François Ier n’a pas hésité à citer cet écrivain à la plume de feu et au cœur résolument tourné vers le Christ et la Vierge Marie. Etrange retournement de l’histoire, surtout quand on sait que Léon Bloy avait beau adoré la religion Catholique et ses traditions, il n’en demeurait pas moins très critique envers son clergé trop superficiel dans sa foi et parfois aussi le pape (Il détestait Pie X).
La Femme pauvre est un roman admirable. Divisé en deux grandes parties, on y apprend la triste histoire de Clothilde Maréchal, fille pieuse mais tourmentée, simple mais déchue, courageuse malgré son horrible tartuffe de mère ainsi que son alcoolique de compagnon revendiquant le droit d’être son père. Celui-ci est déjà mort depuis longtemps et sa mémoire est salie par la mère de Clothilde. Vivant dans une froide misère, Clothilde est obligée de pourvoir aux besoins de sa famille, qui ne se lasse pas de lui reprocher quantité de choses. C’est finalement en étant obligé de poser nue pour un peintre que Clothilde prend enfin un autre chemin.
Pélopidas Gacougnol artiste peintre exubérant et un peu grossier au premier abord, se prend rapidement d’affection pour cette étrange pauvrette dont l’âme n’en est pas moins riche et humble. Ensemble, il rencontre Caïn Marchenoir, le héros d’un précédent roman – Le Désespéré – et aussi une des incarnations de Léon Bloy. Ce brillant mais féroce catholique s’est quelque peu assagi dans ce livre, il n’en a pas perdu sa verve à parler et à se battre contre ce Monde bourgeois et mécréant. Enfin, un troisième individu de cette trinité d’âmes hautes s’invite, Léopold, véritable flibustier de l’esprit et enlumineur de profession. C’est certainement le plus violent et orageux des trois, il ne se laisse pas faire, il n’hésite à s’attaquer directement à un adversaire par un discours enflammé et véhément.
De ces trois hommes, Clothilde en trouvera sa vie véritablement changée. La pauvrette qui dormait sur un matelas moisi dans la pièce commune du logis de sa matrone de mère découvre enfin une accalmie dans sa vie d’épave. Accalmie toute relative cependant, car c’est véritablement à un feu du Logos, du verbe, du Christ et de l’art qui pénètre son âme avec une force incommensurable. Clothilde ne dédaigne pas l’éducation de ces trois hommes là, elle en ressent le besoin. Lors d’une soirée lettrée, Gacougnol invite d’autres personnages, certains très proche de leur vision de l’art et de la religion catholique : Lazare Druide (Henry de Groux dans la réalité), Bohémond de l’Isle -de -France, (il s’agit bien évidemment du comte de Villiers de l’Isle d’Adam), et d’autres beaucoup plus fantaisistes : Folentin (Huysmans, ancien ami écrivain devenu ennemi pour Bloy), Crozant (un pianiste qui se prétends hanter par les morts). Derrière cette mosaïque de portraits se cache une poésie subtile et ardente. Plusieurs moments m’ont marqué durant cette soirée, le vibrant hommage de Caïn Marchenoir envers ce Moyen-âge millénaire mystérieux et indicible ainsi que ce vieux débat sur la musique de Wagner considéré comme proche du malin selon Marchenoir et qui rappelle l’essai de Baudelaire sur la représentation de Tannhäuser à Paris il y a quelques dizaines d’années auparavant…
Ces instants de grâce, Clothilde les perdra brusquement. Sans trop en révéler sur le roman, dès la seconde partie, Clothilde retombera dans une période misérable à la suite d’un drame atroce, puis sera sauvée à nouveau par le mariage avec une âme providentielle. Ensemble, ils devront néanmoins se battre contre les affres du Monde. Le malheur étant toujours un créancier très douloureux, les rares moments de bonheurs seront toujours payés par de longs hivers de souffrances. La pauvreté, l’injustice, le mépris, les drames et enfin la solitude seront les nombreux obstacles qui se dresseront sur la route de Clothilde. (Mention spéciale aux voisins « Poulot », véritables êtres infâmes de l’espèce humaine)
Ce chemin laborieux n’en reste pas moins poétique. Il y a là les plus belles pages qu’aient pu écrire Bloy. Malgré les ténèbres les plus épaisses, l’espoir à travers le Christ permet aux héros de ce roman de tenir, d’avancer. En cela, la phrase finale de Clothilde résonne comme un écho encore dans ma tête : « Il n’y a qu’une tristesse, c’est de N’ETRE PAS DES SAINTS ».
La Femme pauvre est un roman admirable. Divisé en deux grandes parties, on y apprend la triste histoire de Clothilde Maréchal, fille pieuse mais tourmentée, simple mais déchue, courageuse malgré son horrible tartuffe de mère ainsi que son alcoolique de compagnon revendiquant le droit d’être son père. Celui-ci est déjà mort depuis longtemps et sa mémoire est salie par la mère de Clothilde. Vivant dans une froide misère, Clothilde est obligée de pourvoir aux besoins de sa famille, qui ne se lasse pas de lui reprocher quantité de choses. C’est finalement en étant obligé de poser nue pour un peintre que Clothilde prend enfin un autre chemin.
Pélopidas Gacougnol artiste peintre exubérant et un peu grossier au premier abord, se prend rapidement d’affection pour cette étrange pauvrette dont l’âme n’en est pas moins riche et humble. Ensemble, il rencontre Caïn Marchenoir, le héros d’un précédent roman – Le Désespéré – et aussi une des incarnations de Léon Bloy. Ce brillant mais féroce catholique s’est quelque peu assagi dans ce livre, il n’en a pas perdu sa verve à parler et à se battre contre ce Monde bourgeois et mécréant. Enfin, un troisième individu de cette trinité d’âmes hautes s’invite, Léopold, véritable flibustier de l’esprit et enlumineur de profession. C’est certainement le plus violent et orageux des trois, il ne se laisse pas faire, il n’hésite à s’attaquer directement à un adversaire par un discours enflammé et véhément.
De ces trois hommes, Clothilde en trouvera sa vie véritablement changée. La pauvrette qui dormait sur un matelas moisi dans la pièce commune du logis de sa matrone de mère découvre enfin une accalmie dans sa vie d’épave. Accalmie toute relative cependant, car c’est véritablement à un feu du Logos, du verbe, du Christ et de l’art qui pénètre son âme avec une force incommensurable. Clothilde ne dédaigne pas l’éducation de ces trois hommes là, elle en ressent le besoin. Lors d’une soirée lettrée, Gacougnol invite d’autres personnages, certains très proche de leur vision de l’art et de la religion catholique : Lazare Druide (Henry de Groux dans la réalité), Bohémond de l’Isle -de -France, (il s’agit bien évidemment du comte de Villiers de l’Isle d’Adam), et d’autres beaucoup plus fantaisistes : Folentin (Huysmans, ancien ami écrivain devenu ennemi pour Bloy), Crozant (un pianiste qui se prétends hanter par les morts). Derrière cette mosaïque de portraits se cache une poésie subtile et ardente. Plusieurs moments m’ont marqué durant cette soirée, le vibrant hommage de Caïn Marchenoir envers ce Moyen-âge millénaire mystérieux et indicible ainsi que ce vieux débat sur la musique de Wagner considéré comme proche du malin selon Marchenoir et qui rappelle l’essai de Baudelaire sur la représentation de Tannhäuser à Paris il y a quelques dizaines d’années auparavant…
Ces instants de grâce, Clothilde les perdra brusquement. Sans trop en révéler sur le roman, dès la seconde partie, Clothilde retombera dans une période misérable à la suite d’un drame atroce, puis sera sauvée à nouveau par le mariage avec une âme providentielle. Ensemble, ils devront néanmoins se battre contre les affres du Monde. Le malheur étant toujours un créancier très douloureux, les rares moments de bonheurs seront toujours payés par de longs hivers de souffrances. La pauvreté, l’injustice, le mépris, les drames et enfin la solitude seront les nombreux obstacles qui se dresseront sur la route de Clothilde. (Mention spéciale aux voisins « Poulot », véritables êtres infâmes de l’espèce humaine)
Ce chemin laborieux n’en reste pas moins poétique. Il y a là les plus belles pages qu’aient pu écrire Bloy. Malgré les ténèbres les plus épaisses, l’espoir à travers le Christ permet aux héros de ce roman de tenir, d’avancer. En cela, la phrase finale de Clothilde résonne comme un écho encore dans ma tête : « Il n’y a qu’une tristesse, c’est de N’ETRE PAS DES SAINTS ».
May 12, 2023
Bloy’s anguish is singular and prophetic and marvelous. Im so happy i read this
January 4, 2018
Depuis que j'avais lu Le Désespéré, il y a de ça quelques années, j'avais failli oublier la fascination que ce roman m'avait procuré, et j'avais failli oublier cet ovni littéraire qu'est à mes yeux Léon Bloy. Auteur français, dont l'œuvre est marquée par une ferveur religieuse revendiquée, très critique vis-à-vis du réalisme et notamment du naturalisme zolien ; Léon Bloy manie les mots avec une virtuosité particulière qui donne vie à ses récits, mais surtout à ses personnages, pleins d'une humilité louée. Le symbolisme présent dans son écriture va jusqu'au mysticisme même des signes, et c'est ce poids des images qui me séduit le plus dans sa plume. En lisant un roman de Bloy, on a l'impression d'être face à un tableau vivant et magistral, comme si cet ensemble de phrases n'était qu'une hypotypose à elle tout seule.
Mon avis détaillé est dans cet article, sur mon blog : https://nightthoughtsandartefacts.wor...
Mon avis détaillé est dans cet article, sur mon blog : https://nightthoughtsandartefacts.wor...
April 5, 2013
Uneven fiction, but remarkable theology. Near the end, a priest says (in his heart, not out loud), "God, my brethren, is very terrible, when it pleases Him to be terrible."
November 26, 2023
Un livre stimulant (plein de mots peu usités), décapant (Bloy est sans concession dans sa description de la bassesse du cœur humain), bouleversant (Clotilde transforme les personnages qui l'entourent ainsi que le lecteur), transcendant ("Il n'y a qu'une tristesse, c'est de ne pas être des Saints").
Je suis reconnaissante d'avoir pu lire ce livre. Il vaut le détour, il aurait même fait changer de route quelques-uns !
Je suis reconnaissante d'avoir pu lire ce livre. Il vaut le détour, il aurait même fait changer de route quelques-uns !
January 31, 2022
Stunningly written and invitingly deep.
December 31, 2021
"Elle a même compris, et cela n’est pas très loin du sublime, que la Femme n’existe vraiment qu’à la condition d’être sans pain, sans gîte, sans amis, sans époux et sans enfants, et que c’est comme cela seulement qu’elle peut forcer à descendre son Sauveur." This right here is why I didn't like this book.
October 6, 2013
Had this book not been finished in the wake of Bloy's loss of two young sons during a period of intense poverty, and were we not in possession of the testimony of Jacques and Raissa Maritain's tremendous respect for him, it would be tempting to dismiss this book as sentimental rubbish. (Perhaps the fault lies in the old translation: 1937, I.J. Collins.) But whatever Bloy was (and he was many things, not all of them good), he was spiritually and theologically formidable and he understood the misery of poverty better than almost any other writer. So the book has to be taken seriously, though its style is so different from what we expect today. I can only conclude that Bloy's meaning is largely opaque for me, despite many years' study of Christian theology and asceticism.
The book is the source of the much-loved line that first made Bloy known to me: "There is only one misery, and that is not to be saints." It's treatment of the suffering of the poor is prolonged, wretched, and purple. But if you want to know what he means by that line rather than simply filling it with your own meaning, it must be read.
The book is the source of the much-loved line that first made Bloy known to me: "There is only one misery, and that is not to be saints." It's treatment of the suffering of the poor is prolonged, wretched, and purple. But if you want to know what he means by that line rather than simply filling it with your own meaning, it must be read.
October 4, 2021
Bloy me hizo reconciliarme con el catolicismo. Ya con eso es uno de los libros de mi vida.
November 7, 2018
Piedad R.
Este libro es una descripción detallada de la vida de una mujer, en toda la extensión de la palabra. Pues en Clotilde, el personaje principal, se manifiestan todos los dones que le fueron concedidos a sus congéneres desde la Creación. Tal vez sea por esto mismo, por sus dotes completas de madre, amiga, hija esposa y devota religiosidad, que hoy puede representar la fuerza de lo femenino y ser el paradigma necesario para ésta generación que, en su mayoría, pretende diluir la Verdad y se recrea con ideas sobre lo Humano, la mayoría de las veces confusas y hasta falaces.
La descripción armoniosa con la que el Autor va presentando a personajes y situaciones, a veces tristísimas y conmovedoras, pero sumamente verosímiles, permite recrear mentalmente una imagen en la que se extasía el pensamiento y obliga a la reflexión pausada.
De ahí que, es recomendable, difundir ésta historia novelesca entre individuos y comunidades de jóvenes, mayores y ancianos, especialmente ávidos de retornar a la Verdad, en estos tiempos de confusión y maldadosa arbitrariedad para clasificar los que es bueno y diferenciarlo de lo que es malo.
Este libro es una descripción detallada de la vida de una mujer, en toda la extensión de la palabra. Pues en Clotilde, el personaje principal, se manifiestan todos los dones que le fueron concedidos a sus congéneres desde la Creación. Tal vez sea por esto mismo, por sus dotes completas de madre, amiga, hija esposa y devota religiosidad, que hoy puede representar la fuerza de lo femenino y ser el paradigma necesario para ésta generación que, en su mayoría, pretende diluir la Verdad y se recrea con ideas sobre lo Humano, la mayoría de las veces confusas y hasta falaces.
La descripción armoniosa con la que el Autor va presentando a personajes y situaciones, a veces tristísimas y conmovedoras, pero sumamente verosímiles, permite recrear mentalmente una imagen en la que se extasía el pensamiento y obliga a la reflexión pausada.
De ahí que, es recomendable, difundir ésta historia novelesca entre individuos y comunidades de jóvenes, mayores y ancianos, especialmente ávidos de retornar a la Verdad, en estos tiempos de confusión y maldadosa arbitrariedad para clasificar los que es bueno y diferenciarlo de lo que es malo.
September 9, 2022
Le livre aurait pu être plus que correct s'il n'y avait pas un passage au milieu qui part dans tous les sens. Il y a des dizaines de pages de potins incompréhensibles à l'occasion d'une réception d'artistes, l'action est alors suspendue (pendant un nombre de pages astronomique). Je n'avais qu'une envie, arrêter ce livre, mais j'avais promis à la youtubeuse Galatée de le lire donc j'ai continué. Heureusement ensuite on reprend le récit, mais ça restera un livre oubliable pour moi. Cependant il y a quelques personnages proches de l'idéologie antispéciste.
En tout cas l'auteur a voulu mettre tous les mots qu'il connaissait dans ce livre. La richesse du vocabulaire prime sur l'histoire. Je trouve le style de La femme pauvre lointainement similaire à celui du livre Les liaisons dangereuses, mais sans se prendre au sérieux. C'est un classique qui ne se prend pas au sérieux, voyez vous-même :
« Cette soirée parut divine à Clothilde qui aurait bien voulu qu'elle durât indéfiniment pour ne s'achever que le jour où, devenue très vielle, elle aurait pu s'en aller sans amertume dans un cercueil trop étroit ... »
« Puis, ce qu'on ose appeler la Vie reprit tranquillement son cours. »
En tout cas l'auteur a voulu mettre tous les mots qu'il connaissait dans ce livre. La richesse du vocabulaire prime sur l'histoire. Je trouve le style de La femme pauvre lointainement similaire à celui du livre Les liaisons dangereuses, mais sans se prendre au sérieux. C'est un classique qui ne se prend pas au sérieux, voyez vous-même :
« Cette soirée parut divine à Clothilde qui aurait bien voulu qu'elle durât indéfiniment pour ne s'achever que le jour où, devenue très vielle, elle aurait pu s'en aller sans amertume dans un cercueil trop étroit ... »
« Puis, ce qu'on ose appeler la Vie reprit tranquillement son cours. »
November 19, 2025
What a brilliant and blundering book. Vicious and tender. Hilarious and horrific. Bloy has profound pity for Catholics--and none for anyone else. His strengths lay in florid syntax, long and winding insults, and a proto-postmodern disregard for the fourth wall, which is paper-thin throughout. He is a writer of the highest caliber, but as a novelist, he has a tough time staying On Task. There are whole chapters and characters that do not pertain to the plot. One whole chapter is an excuse to attack the music of Wagner; another is--in its entirety--a bizarre euphemism for the wonders of the female sex organ. And Bloy never passes on an opportunity to shove the plot aside so that he might Wax Catholic in ejaculations so exultant they flirt with speaking in tongues.
At the book's heart, there is a particular sequence describing extreme squalor and loss that crowns Bloy a master of horror, transforming the material world into a nightmare, and with one single page putting even Lovecraft to shame.
At the book's heart, there is a particular sequence describing extreme squalor and loss that crowns Bloy a master of horror, transforming the material world into a nightmare, and with one single page putting even Lovecraft to shame.
July 15, 2017
Read this book as much to get a taste of the enigmatic and truculent Bloy as to read a captivating story about a woman who suffers the vagaries of fortune in late 19th century France. Like Chesterton, Bloy was uncompromising about the truth and unafraid to offend anyone in defending it, but lacked Chesterton's playful charm (and his sensuality). Born in poverty, he depended throughout his life on the mercy of others, and it was from the perspective of poverty that he wrote. He called himself alternately the "ungrateful beggar" and "the pilgrim of the Absolute," and both sides of him show through in this novel. The character of Clotilde, cast and off and rejected by Parisian society, becomes a vehicle through which he expresses the sublimity and power of the Gospel, as understand through the experience of marginalization and poverty which unites her to Christ's suffering and to the suffering of all. -- Jordan Burge
May 19, 2025
This book was the strangest intertwining of the terror of poverty, the wretchedness of an evil, and the glory, warmth and simplicity of holiness. It fluctuates between profound and beautiful reflections on life, God and the world and then the most sad and vivid descriptions of poverty and the absolute ugliness of evil. Do I recommend this book? I am not quite sure. I am certain that I needed to read it, and it is one of those books that increased my desire for closeness to God. If that is what you are interested in, then this book is for you.
"'If you are not an artist, what are you, then?'
'I am a Pilgrim of the Holy Sepulchre!' replied Marchenoir, with that fine, grave, clear voice of his that usually set all the crests and wattles shaking; 'I am just that--and nothing else. Life has no other objective, and the 'folly' of the Crusades is precisely what has done the greatest honour to human reason.'"
"'If you are not an artist, what are you, then?'
'I am a Pilgrim of the Holy Sepulchre!' replied Marchenoir, with that fine, grave, clear voice of his that usually set all the crests and wattles shaking; 'I am just that--and nothing else. Life has no other objective, and the 'folly' of the Crusades is precisely what has done the greatest honour to human reason.'"
January 26, 2023
I wanted to like this one more. The style felt overwrought and over-dramatic. At times this made for great quips and enjoyable sections of reading when taken on their own, but when a novel begins to approximate an uninterrupted series of diatribes, it loses something of what it could have been.
That said, the story is very powerful and the characters compelling. The tragedy of the story is well expressed and is not resolved simplistically, but leads into reflection on hope and redemption in the midst of suffering.
That said, the story is very powerful and the characters compelling. The tragedy of the story is well expressed and is not resolved simplistically, but leads into reflection on hope and redemption in the midst of suffering.
May 23, 2023
The luscious detailed prose is reminiscent of Dickens. If you, like me, thinks that Dickens is a bit too wordy at times, the same is true for Bloy. The middle of this book was a bit of a slog with little action and much talk about literature, art, history and religion. At its best, the dialogue and action are riveting and carry you along as in a dream. There is much of the real meaning of Catholicism and poverty as opposed to the facsimile of it clothed in hypocrisy. It was hard to read this and not be disturbed about how poorly I measure up to the ideal of Christ.
May 5, 2025
Takto si představuji konzervativní román. I když jsem někde slyšel, že měl pozitivní vliv na budoucí katolické intelektuály, na mě příliš pesimistické, bez radosti. Chápu že odsuzuje hřích, ale chybí mi láska k hříšníkovi. Trpí dobří i špatní, od začátku do konce. Není náhodou trochu ovlivněný jansenismem?
Spousta kulturních narážek, ve kterých se dnes člověk těžko orientuje, ale tehdejší kritika Richarda Wagnera stojí za to...
Spousta kulturních narážek, ve kterých se dnes člověk těžko orientuje, ale tehdejší kritika Richarda Wagnera stojí za to...
August 13, 2019
"Clotilde silently prepared for suffering"
That about sums up "The Woman Who Was Poor". Heaping tortures upon his suffering characters with a sadism that only the most zealous of the French Catholic writers of the era were capable, Leon Bloy manages to make the filth of 19th century Parisian poverty the most beautiful thing possible.
10/10 would almost convert to Catholicism.
That about sums up "The Woman Who Was Poor". Heaping tortures upon his suffering characters with a sadism that only the most zealous of the French Catholic writers of the era were capable, Leon Bloy manages to make the filth of 19th century Parisian poverty the most beautiful thing possible.
10/10 would almost convert to Catholicism.
September 25, 2025
It’s not a perfect book. It’s visceral and gross and waxes between cloying and what might be termed poverty p-rn. But parts of it are so moving, so thought-provoking, that it ranks with the great works of faith written in the last two centuries. It forces a reader to contemplate the divine, the mystical, and what Christian faith really entails.
June 24, 2022
I thought this book was okay. I think the author went off on too many tangents, which in my opinion, detracted from the story. It was difficult to read with noise and distractions, so it took me a while to complete. I get the point of the book and there are some beautiful parts.
July 27, 2023
Esperaba muchísimo más de este libro, me pareció un tanto plano y si bien aborda temas de cómo encontrar a Dios en las tribulaciones, tampoco creo que sea una obra maestra o de una profundidad teológica fuera de serie, quizá no supe captar el mensaje que tantas personas ven.
February 6, 2021
Absolutely beautiful
February 12, 2021
This one was really good. Turn of the century France but didn’t feel too far away, and wasn’t hard to read. Not a feel good story but still made me feel good you know?
Read
January 31, 2022I found this book very hard to read on so many levels.
It was deeply moving and thought provoking, even heartbreaking at several times. It was a struggle to finish it but I am glad I did.
It was deeply moving and thought provoking, even heartbreaking at several times. It was a struggle to finish it but I am glad I did.
April 2, 2023
Good book
August 7, 2023
Haunting.
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