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Jettatura (1857)

par Théophile Gautier

Autres auteurs: Voir la section autres auteur(e)s.

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1053257,477 (3.75)5
Pierre Jules Theophile Gautier (1811-1872) est un poete, romancier, peintre et critique d'art francais. Lecteur avide, il a cinq ans lorsqu'il commence a lire. Sa grande passion est Robinson Crusoe. En 1820, a l'age de huit ans, il fait un bref sejour en tant que pensionnaire au lycee Louis-le-Grand. Tout en menant "toutes les grandes campagnes romantiques", il ecrit un premier recueil de vers, dont son pere finance la publication. Il travaille egalement pour le magazine de Charles Malo, La France Litteraire, et pour le quotidien d'Emile de Girardin, La Presse. Dans ce journal, Gautier se charge d'abord de la critique d'art. On evalue a plus de deux mille le nombre des feuilletons et articles qu'il aurait rediges pour ce journal. Ainsi en 1838 parait La Comedie de la Mort, un recueil de poemes assez different des precedents ou, sous l'influence de Shakespeare, Goethe et Dante, Gautier sculpte avec vigueur le spectre de la Mort. En 1839, Gautier cede a la tentation du theatre qu'il admire depuis toujours et ecrit Une Larme du Diable puis Le Tricorne Enchante et Pierrot Posthume.… (plus d'informations)
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Die junge englische Adelige Alicia reist mit ihrem Onkel nach Neapel um sich von einer Krankheit zu erholen. Nach einiger Zeit folgt ihr der junge Franzose Paul d’Aspremont, da sich Alicia und Paul zuvor in England verliebt haben. Nach anfänglicher Wiedersehensfreude legt sich ein dunkler Schatten über die Liebe. Die Neapolitaner sagen Paul d’Aspremont nach, dass er den bösen Blick hat und Unglück bringt. Nur zu schnell glaubt Paul den Vorurteilen und sieht sich überall darin bestätigt. Um Alicia zu schützen, entscheidet er sich zu blenden. Allerdings ist es da bereits zu spät, Alicia stirbt an der wiederausgebrochenen Krankheit. Aus Schmerz stürzt sich Paul daraufhin die Klippen hinunter. ( )
  ela82 | Mar 23, 2024 |
review of
Theophile Gautier's The Jinx
- by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 14, 2016

PLEASE READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/504815-the-malevolence-of-the-masses

The family I grew up in didn't own many bks. The most precious of what we did own was a set of 8 goat-skin bound collections published from 1903 to 1929. In approximate chronological ordering by publishing date these were:

The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson in One Volume (no date listed, 900pp)

The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant - Ten Volumes in One (1903, 1003pp)

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe in One Volume - Complete Tales and Poems (1927, 760pp)

The Works of Leo Tolstoi - One Volume Edition (1928, 728pp)

The Works of Theophile Gautier - One Volume Edition (1928, 532pp)

The Works of Victor Hugo - One Volume Edition - Poems, Novels, Stories of Crime, Dramas and Essays on Humanity (1928, 1003pp)

The World's Great Detective Stories - One Volume Edition (1928, 842pp)

The World's Great Romances - One Volume Edition (1929, 724pp)

In some cases I used pencil to check off wch works I'd read in the Tables of Contents. I read all of the Detective Stories & none of the Romances. Even tho I've read considerable amts of all the individual authors & even tho all of them have been important to me, the Gautier bk shows the most checked off: of the 6 sections of the bk, I've read the 1st 4 - neglecting to read Fortunio & Mlle. de Maupin.

Given that I wd've read as much of these bks as I did way back when I was a teenager.. say, 45 yrs ago.. it's no wonder that I don't remember the Gautier in awe-inspiring detail. Nonetheless, the short story "The Mummy's Foot" has stuck w/ me as well as an overall air of the macabre.

When I picked up this copy of The Jinx, I probably didn't remember whether this story was in The Works of Theophile Gautier - One Volume Edition & I probably didn't remember whether I'd already read it (I had). I got it partially b/c I thought it might be interesting to revisit Gautier after more than 4 decades (it was), b/c I liked the cover, & b/c it has a foreword by Gilbert Adair.

Given that there're at least 2 prominent Gilbert Adairs in the literary world, one Scottish, one from Northern Ireland, I wasn't even sure wch one had written the foreword but I'm interested in both so it didn't matter that much. As it turns out, the Adair in question is the translator of George Perec's La Disparition into English as A Void - probably my most admired translator accomplishment.

Adair states: "And the first question a potential modern reader, intrigued yet sceptical, will most likely pose is: Théophile who?" (p vii) - a claim born out by my mentioning his name in a conversation at my local coffee shop this morning. Ahem. Wasn't there a time when referencing a 19th century French writer wdn't've been so outrée?! Are my friends really so illiterate? I hereby announce a new expression (unless somebody's beaten me to it): Pulling a Trump. "Pulling a Trump" means expressing indignant ignorance: I'm ignorant & PROUD of it! Showing the sign of the Trump means warding off anything intellectual w/ bluster: Don't use them BIG WORDS around me you towel-head lover! The Idiocracy is here. SO, Adair goes on to put the reader in the know:

"He was the privileged dedicatee of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal. And he was supreme master if what the French refer to as the conte fantastique.

"As a stylist, Gautier was something of a dandy, a forerunner of Wilde, with whom he shared a predilection (that title, Emaux et camées) for individual words as rare as precious gems. By comparison with Gautier, however, Wilde was a vulgarian, camply salivating over eglantines and asphodels. The Frenchman was more of a dandy in the Beau Brummel mode. Complimented on his sartorial elegance at Ascot, Brummel allegedly replied, 'If you noticed me, I couldn't have been elegant', a comment which might equally be made of Gautier's prose, with its innate distaste for gaudy adjectival cuff-links and cravat pins." - pp vii-viii

The translator, Andrew Brown, takes over w/ his Introduction:

"In the twentieth century, a curious superstition started to spread. It decreed that the source of so many of the world's ills could be located, quite simply, in the gaze. The mere activity of looking at something was considered destructive. The gaze, it was said, converted the rich and living variety of the world into an assembly of inert mortified things, displayed for the predatory delectation of the eyes of insatiable spectators. Modern technologies — photography, cinema, television, computer screens — filled the world with a riot of images that the gaze, when not overmastered by such prolifigacy of vision feasted on with lustful voyeurism."

[..]

"When turned in this way on living human beings, or 'subjects', the gaze, even without touching them in any other way, could kill them, or at least, in some symbolic way, convert them into 'objects'." - p xi

For a translator to begin their introduction in this way instead of getting straight to the particulars of the translation process is interesting. Obviously, addressing the notion of "the gaze" in a story about "the evil eye" is relevant & even imaginative insofar as it's making a leap not commonly made between the 2. What I immediately found suspicious or objectionable is Brown's calling theories of the gaze "a curious superstition" - but, then, later he qualifies this:

"the modern superstition repeated earlier, prescientific notions (the Aristotelian and scholastic belief that the eye did no so much receive as emit rays of life; the view of Bishop Berkeley that 'to be is to be perceived'), embellishing them with the still largely misunderstood 'indeterminacy principle' which was interpreted to mean that you could change things — always for the worse, in the view of the scopophobes — just by looking at them.

"What I have called a 'superstition' is of course, in many ways, a perfectly justifiable belief (or, to put it another way, I too am to some extent a scopophobe). That the gaze all too often establishes a gradient of power (seeing often is a way of dominating and controlling), gender (seeing often is more masculine than feminine), violence (seeing often is the first step to rape and murder), and that at the very least it tends to objectify what it rests on, depriving it of life, autonomy and subjecthood, is indisputable." - p xiii

& this is where I just start to GROAN at the thickness of the layers of melodramatic (pseudo?-)intellectual bullshit being piled on. Brown may be very well-read on the literature on the concept of "the gaze", I'm definitely not. I associate this "gaze" notion w/ the feminist critique, specifically, of "the male gaze" wch seems to be purported to be a invasive gaze, a gaze that undresses a woman & violates her sexually as an act of male privilege. I despise this notion, it reeks to me of a 'princess & the commoner' scenario in wch the lowly commoner dares to look upon the princess & is executed as a result. How dare he?

"The gaze, it was said, converted the rich and living variety of the world into an assembly of inert mortified things": I think of the electron microscope: "The major disadvantage of the transmission electron microscope is the need for extremely thin sections of the specimens, typically about 100 nanometers. Biological specimens are typically required to be chemically fixed, dehydrated and embedded in a polymer resin to stabilize them sufficiently to allow ultrathin sectioning." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_microscope ) - but it's not the GAZE that's 'fixing' these objects (ie: killing them) it's the process of getting to where they can be still enuf to be observed. The 'naked eye', the typical 'tool' of the 'gaze' doesn't need to kill its subject &, in the case if the sexual male gaze probably prefers for the subject to be alive.

"When turned in this way on living human beings, or 'subjects', the gaze, even without touching them in any other way, could kill them, or at least, in some symbolic way, convert them into 'objects'."

Right. Why not the opposite? Can't the gaze, when welcomed, empower the gazed-at to feel desired &, therefore, desirable, usually a welcome sensation under the right circumstances?

"violence (seeing often is the first step to rape and murder)": Wow, really, how can Brown not be embarrassed by that?! Breathing might also be "the first step to rape and murder" b/c, HEY!, if the rapist/murderer isn't breathing than he sure as shit ain't gonna commit no crimes! Seeing might also be the first step to handing a hungry person a banana so don't be in too much of a hurry to blind anyone, ok?!

I'm reminded of my 9th grade biology teacher's attempts to intimidate me. I'd probably committed some minor infraction of his Draconian rules about students shd be seen & not heard, I'd probably made some sort of joke SO he proceeded to try to stare me down. Now I was wise to his tricks so I stared right back at him & didn't back down. (Not) Sorry Mr. Bossman but you can't stifle my spirit that way. HE had to back down, he cdn't maintain his stare as long as I cd, I was banished from the class & sent to the library of all places! Ha ha! I love the library!

"Gautier does not conclude for or against the credibility of the jinx. Alicia Ward, faced with its malevolent power, retreats from classical robustness to northern Gothic etherialism, and, although bravely prepared to sustain and even invite Paul's deadly gaze, is gradually transformed into a type of beauty too spiritual to survive. Indeed, she changes in appearance, like a casebook example from the aesthetics of Hegel, from this-worldly classicism to other-worldly romanticism, or from the clear outlines of Kant's 'beautiful' to the mistier and more abstract premonitions of his 'sublime', finally moving beyond the realm of appearance altogether." - p xv

Wow, nice, I mean I think it's all uni-educated crap b/c I think Gautier was just writing a thrilling yarn full of heart-string-rending tragedy but I have to give Brown a hand for laying it on much thicker than usual. I also have to give Brown a hand for writing a thoroughly enjoyable translation. Here's the 1st paragraph in the original French:

"Le Léopold, superbe bateau à vapeur toscan qui fait le trajet de Marseille à Naples, venait de doubler la pointe de Procida. Les passagers étaient tous sur le pont, guéris du mal de mer par l'aspect de la terre, plus efficace que les bonbons de Malte et autres recettes employées en pareil cas."

Here's the Google translator translation:

"Leopold, fabulous Tuscan steamboat that traveled from Naples to Marseille, had double the point of Procida. The passengers were all on deck, cured of seasickness by the appearance of the earth, more effective than Malta candy and other recipes used in such cases."

I love Google Translate, for me it's very useful fro international communication. THANK YOU. Obviosuly, there are problems but the gist gets across well enuf. If I were to minimally correct it it might become:

'Leopold, the fabulous Tuscan steamboat that traveled from Naples to Marseille, had doubled the point of Procida. The passengers were all on deck, cured of seasickness by the appearance of the shore, more effective than Malta candy and other recipes used in such cases.'

Now that's probably the most literal translation but it's not very exciting, is it?! I reckon it's missing some of the sensuality of the original French. Here's the uncredited translation in the 1928 goat-skin bound edition I have:

"The good ship Leopold, the large steamer which plies between Marseilles and Naples, had just doubled Cape Procida. The passengers were all on deck, suddenly cured of their sea-sickness by the sight of land, a more efficacious remedy than Malta pills and other recipes prescribed by physicians for this purpose."

This translator adds in "the good ship" to make the mere name Leopold embellished. They further embellish by adding "prescribed by physicians". Now that's not really fair is it? Brown's translation is this:

"The Leopold, a superb Tuscan steamboat which sailed between Marseilles and Naples, had just rounded the tip of Procida. The passengers were all out on deck, cured of their seasickness by the sight of land: a more effective cure than Malta sweets and other prescriptions used in such cases." - p 3

Brown doesn't resort to additions to make the writing less prosaic he just changes a few word choices that presumably didn't work for him in direct translation. Therefore, "doubled" becomes "rounded". I think this is an improvement, at least for an early 21st century reader b/c "doubled" is a tad archaic in a way that might confuse some whereas "rounded" is still conventionally comprehensible. ALSO, instead of "fabulous" as the Tuscan steamboat adjective that Google produces or "large" as Brown's predecessor translator had it it becomes "superb". For me, superb evokes exemplary craftsmanship both in building & in maintenance - far preferable to the mere size of "large" & to the spectacle of "fantastic".

Then we get to Adair's "Beau Brummel mode":

"His clothes were elegant without drawing attention to themselves by any showiness of detail: a dark blue frock-coat, a black polka-dot cravat whose knot was tied in a manner neither affected nor negligent, a waistcoat of the same design as the cravat, light grey trousers, beneath which was a fine pair of boots; the chain holding his watch was all of gold, and his pince-nez dangled from a cord of flat silk; his hand, elegantly gloved, was tapping a small slender cane in twisted vine stock, tipped with ornamental silver." - p 6

I don't know how much credit Brown deserves for the translation but I know it 'does it for me' in the sense that I'm instantly sympathetic to the character not b/c I 'inevitably' like the way he's dressed but b/c the author has gone to the trouble of describing him so 'lovingly', in such detail. In this case, the imaginary observation of my gaze enriches the character for me - he's not flat. At any rate, Adair's appreciation for Gautier's description works for me in Brown's translation:

"You climbed onto this terrace, whose sheer vertical sides overlooked a sunken path, up steps made of broad disjointed flagstones between which flourished tenacious weeds. Four weather-beaten columns, taken from some ancient ruin, their lost capitals replaced by stone dice, supported a trellis of poles entwined and roofed over by vines. From the parapets there hung thick streamers and garlands of wild vines and wall-plants. At the foot of the walls, Indian figs, aloes, and arbutus trees grew in charming disorder, and beyond a wood dominated by a palm tree and three Italian pines, the view extended across the rolling terrain dotted with white villas, and came to rest on the purplish silhouette of Vesuvius, or lost itself in the blue immensity of the sea." - pp 13-14

Paul's 'Evil Eye' & the servant's warding off of it:

"And his eyes rested in a strange fixed stare on the young woman standing before him.

"Suddenly the pretty pink flush that she had boasted of having lured to her face disappeared from Alicia's cheeks, as the russet tones of evening leave the snowy cheeks of the mountainside when the sun dips below the horizon; trembling all over, she clutched her heart; her charming lips, grown pallid, tightened." - p 16

"Doubtless, the result of her scrutiny had not been in Paul's favour, as Vicè's brow, already as yellow-brown as a cigar, had grown even darker; and as she saw off the stranger, she pointed at him, without him being able to see, the little finger and index finger of her hand, while the other two fingers, bent back against the palm, joined her thumb as if to form a cabalistic sign." - pp 16-17

" 'Do stay, Paul,' said the commodore; 'I'd been mentally planning things out for the evening, depending on my niece's approval: we would have gone first to drink a glass of water from the fountain of Santa Lucia — it smells of rotten eggs, but gives you an appetite['] " - pp 26-27

"The Fountain of Santa Lucia — Commissioned by viceroy Juan Alfonso Pimente at the beginning of the 17th century, the fountain was originally located on what is today via Cesario Console, the street that leads from the Royal palace to Santa Lucia. It was moved once, and then again in 1895 to its current location on the grounds of the Villa Comunale. It is by Michelangelo Naccherino (1550-1622)." - http://www.naplesldm.com/pubfountains.html

"If you have hydrogen sulfide in your water supply it can damage pipes as it corrodes many different types of metals and can also cause black stains on silverware and plumbing fixtures. In most cases drinking water that has a strong rotten egg odor, although particularly unpleasant, is perfectly safe to drink." - http://www.waterlogic.com/en-us/resources/water-problems/why-does-my-water-smell...

Gautier's story gets into some detail justifying belief in the evil eye that I was originally going to quote but, HEY!, read the story. I don't find these justifications particularly compelling. Having been previously aware of the hand gesture previously described but w/o having given much thought to what people believe to be its practical basis I was interested in the following:

" 'Just as the lightning rod draws off the lightning with its spike,' replied Altavilla, 'so the sharp tips of those horns on which the jettatore's gaze is fixed drain away the harmful fluid and strip it of its dangerous electricity. Fingers crooked forward and coral amulets perform the same office.' " - p 38

A part of what interests me about this is that I've been using a specific hand gesture, mostly while being photographed, for the last 40 yrs. For this gesture, I splay the index & middle fingers apart from each other & curl back the ring & little fingers. The thumbs generally stick up b/c that's what's most comfortable but it's not necessary to the gesture. Both hands do this & I place them in front of my eyes so that the place at wch the index & middle finger meet the hand is to the outside of my eyes. Usually the hands are at different distances from my face. This has always been intended as a perspective trick of sorts. The idea is that ordinarily in a portrait the viewer looks at the eyes - by putting this gesture in front of the eyes I'm using the implied perspective vanishing point of the sideways "V"s to direct the viewer's eyes away from the portrait eyes - generating a kind of vacillation.

I don't find this perspective trick to be entirely successful but I enjoy doing it. In 40 yrs I don't recall anyone ever noticing my doing it or commenting on it. W/in 10 yrs of my starting to do this similar hand gestures starting appearing in hip-hop culture. That's always interested me.

PLEASE READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/504815-the-malevolence-of-the-masses ( )
  tENTATIVELY | Apr 3, 2022 |
Wonderful, creepy, decadent novel of love, honor, and the evil eye. ( )
1 voter Randy_Hierodule | Jan 12, 2008 |
3 sur 3
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Nom de l'auteurRôleType d'auteurŒuvre ?Statut
Gautier, ThéophileAuteurauteur principaltoutes les éditionsconfirmé
Adair, GilbertAvant-proposauteur secondairequelques éditionsconfirmé
Brown, AndrewTraducteurauteur secondairequelques éditionsconfirmé
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Il Leopold, superbo battello a vapore toscano in servizio sul traghetto da Marsiglia a Napoli, aveva appena doppiato la punta di Procida. I passeggeri erano tutti sul ponte, guariti dal mal di mare grazie all'aspetto della terra, più efficace dei confetti di Malta e di altri rimedi impiegati in casi simili.
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Pierre Jules Theophile Gautier (1811-1872) est un poete, romancier, peintre et critique d'art francais. Lecteur avide, il a cinq ans lorsqu'il commence a lire. Sa grande passion est Robinson Crusoe. En 1820, a l'age de huit ans, il fait un bref sejour en tant que pensionnaire au lycee Louis-le-Grand. Tout en menant "toutes les grandes campagnes romantiques", il ecrit un premier recueil de vers, dont son pere finance la publication. Il travaille egalement pour le magazine de Charles Malo, La France Litteraire, et pour le quotidien d'Emile de Girardin, La Presse. Dans ce journal, Gautier se charge d'abord de la critique d'art. On evalue a plus de deux mille le nombre des feuilletons et articles qu'il aurait rediges pour ce journal. Ainsi en 1838 parait La Comedie de la Mort, un recueil de poemes assez different des precedents ou, sous l'influence de Shakespeare, Goethe et Dante, Gautier sculpte avec vigueur le spectre de la Mort. En 1839, Gautier cede a la tentation du theatre qu'il admire depuis toujours et ecrit Une Larme du Diable puis Le Tricorne Enchante et Pierrot Posthume.

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