Le Lieutenant Burda

by Ferdinand von Saar, Jacques Le Rider (Translator)

• Un roman inédit en français du grand écrivain autrichien Ferdinand von Saar.
• Une œuvre originale qui plonge au cœur de la société de l'Empire austro-hongrois.
• Présentation et traduction de Jacques Le Rider, un des meilleurs spécialistes de littérature autrichienne. Considéré comme le Maupassant autrichien, Ferdinand von Saar est un écrivain qui saisit en profondeur les nuances et les aspirations de l'Empire austro-hongrois. Avec un talent particulier, il se penche sur les problèmes psychologiques causés la mobilité des classes sociales. Dignes d'un Balzac, ses romans et nouvelles mettent en scène les travers et les dérives d'un monde. Le Lieutenant Burda s'inscrit pleinement dans cette veine cruelle. Ce roman bref raconte l'histoire d'un officier d'origine bourgeoise s'éprenant d'une fille de l'aristocratie et décrit les désillusions paralysantes que provoque sa demande en mariage. Le destin de cet officier épris d'élégance, de savoir-vivre et d'ascension sociale s'achèvera de la manière la plus brutale. Ferdinand von Saar excelle dans la description d'une société traversée par ses jeux dangereux et ses rapports de classe. Le destin de Burda exprime le tragique de la condition humaine et la confrontation entre l'idéal d'un amour et la pesanteur des conventions sociales. Un magnifique roman dans la plus pure tradition de la littérature viennoise.

126 pages, Paperback

Published August 25, 2022

About the author

Ferdinand Ludwig Adam von Saar was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet.

Together with Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach he was one of the most important realistic writers in the German language of the ending 19th century in Austria.

Reviews

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delicate and ambiguous story. The story takes place in 1854 in Brno and Prague. Joseph Burda is a lieutenant of lowly origin, better-than-average looks, and outsize ambitions. Unhappy with his circumstances, he convinces himself that a young princess he has seen from afar at the theatre has fallen in love with him and keeps sending him coded messages. The fellow officer in whom he confides, and who is the narrator of the tale, immediately understands that this romance probably exists only in Burda's fevered brain, and could not come to fruition even if the princess had noticed his comrade. In fact pretty soon the narrator gets tasked with telling Burda to stop making a nuisance of himself. What is very clever is that it's hard to tell how much of his wishful thinking Burda genuinely believes in. Chance events conspire to give plausibility to his interpretation of the princess's behavior, and his friend is torn between wanting to shake him up and pitying him. Burda is clearly a snob, for whom ordinary women have no appeal, regardless of their looks or merits, but he is also a dreamer who models his behavior on that of heroes of opera and drama who can only fall in love with a king's daughter. While not a sympathetic character he is also a victim of a rigid social system where upward mobility is almost nonexistent. Predictably, his life is cut short in a duel. Even in death he is short-changed as his opponent deals him an underhand blow for which he won't face consequences because he belongs to the right class. This richly annotated edition by Jacques Le Rider contains even more background information than I knew what to do with, but since most translations come with too little contextualization, that's nothing to grumble about.