The Journal of Jules Renard

By Jules Renard

Book Overview

Spanning 1887 to a month before his death in 1910, The Journal of Jules Renard is a unique autobiographical masterpiece that, though celebrated abroad and cited as a principle influence by writers as varying as Somerset Maugham and Donald Barthelme, remains more of a cult object in the United States.

Throughout his journal, Renard develops not only his artistic convictions but also his humanity as he reflects on the nineteenth-century French literary and art scene, and on the emergence of his position as an important novelist and playwright in that world. Through a mix of aphorisms and observations, short scenes, gossip, jokes, and meditations on life and art, Renard portrays the details of his personal life--his love interests, his position as a socialist mayor of Chitry, the suicide of his father--that often appear in his work.

In recent years, the fragmented memoir has grown in popularity, and there's been a resurgence of diary as an artistic form. Once again, Jean Paul Sartre's assessment that "directly, or indirectly, Renard is at the origin of contemporary literature" rings true. In a new introduction, Sarah Manguso--whose groundbreaking nonfiction incorporates elements of diary and aphorism--both contextualizes and celebrates Renard's seminal journal.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1941040810
• ISBN13: 9781941040812
• Release Date: November 2017
• Publisher: Tin House
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.4"