The Octopus Bearing the Initials V. H.

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The Sponger by Jules Renard

Images and excerpts from The Sponger by Jules Renard (trans. Edward Hyams, Longmans, Green and Co., 1957; in French, L'Écornifleur, 1892).

Note on copyright page: "The illustrations were drawn by Ch. Huard and engraved on wood by G.Lemoine for the original French edition."

From Edward Hyams' preface: "Some years ago L'Écornifleur received a remarkable tribute: a literary jury composed of Francois Mauriac, Jacques de Lacretelle, Andre Maurois, Francis Carco(!), Marcel Pagnol, Colette, and other distinguished persons of letters, included the book in a list of the twelve best French novels of the nineteenth century."

From the flap copy: "It is the story of Henri, an aspiring poet in the Paris of the 'eighties, who can deceive everyone as to the power and quality of his talent with the unfortunate exception of himself. He becomes a sort of domestic parasite in the household of the Vernets; M. Vernet is a self-made businessman, his wife a self-made woman of sensibility."

Excerpt:

He recharged my plate. Silently, our jaws competed. Mme Vernet repeated that she adores hard bread. M. Vernet gave her all the crusts. Mlle Marguerite added hers and, timidly, I offered mine. It became a game. I was stuffing myself with crumb, so that she should not go short of crust, ready to suffer indigestion for the pleasure of observing the soundness of her teeth. But I was beaten by Mlle Marguerite: she it was who ate most and provided the most crusts. Her nose, doing her toiling mouth's share of breathing, produced a continuous humming sound.

I could hear it, but was looking at her as if trying to see it. Every now and then she tried to laugh. Drama! She choked, mouthfuls were regurgitated, her cheeks were inflated, her lips forced open despite her efforts, and out into her unfolded napkin flew a burst of white things, resembling those flakes of filed horn which are put in glass balls full of water, to imitate snow.

(detail)

A little earlier Mme Vernet's eating is described:

She has taken to affecting a taste, hitherto denied her, for plain food. Leaving wine to townsmen, she will drink nothing but cyder. Her lips crinkle at it, like the leaves of a sensitive plant. Is she smiling? Or making a face? She likes home-made bread, hard and blackish at best; knives which will not cut, glasses without stems. She would like to have insects falling into the food.

See my previous posts:

--The Journal of Jules Renard
--Jules Renard, translated by Richard Wilbur

The Journal of Jules Renard

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Graham Lambkin

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Biology Today, Richard Oden

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Biology Today, Douglas Roy

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Biology Today, Eucaryotic versus Procaryotic

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Biology Today, Earnie and Helga Kollar

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Biology Today, Terry Lamb drawings

Walter de la Mare, Three Royal Monkeys

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Pitch Black

From Pitch Black by Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton (Cinco Puntos, October 2008).

It was a pleasure meeting and working next to Youme & Cinco Puntos at the Brooklyn Book Fest. This is my favorite painting from her new book.

Divers

Many years ago I collected some diving books for collage material. None of my collages turned out as mysterious as this un-edited book illustration.

Aerobica Cigarettes for Children

Everything about these candy cigarettes makes me happy. I bought them on the boardwalk of some godforsaken Jersey beach about seven years ago.

I remember smoking candy cigarettes as a child. You could blow a tasteless white powder out of the end of a shaft of gum and then chew the nasty gum for five minutes until it turned to a rough sucking stone.

I want one right now.

Viy

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Chief Bottle-Washer

Words of caution from Scott Walker, self-described "chief bottle-washer" at Graywolf Press from 1974 to 1994:

Starting a small publishing company takes an angel's combination of idealism, passion, unreasonableness, innocence, naiveté and blind obedience to an inner voice telling you to go heart- and head-long into something utterly likely to fail. It would in fact be a kindness if the venture failed, because success requires so much time and intellectual and emotional energy that it squeezes to death every last healthy impulse you had to start with.

To keep going as a publisher requires luck and a mundane assortment of personality defects. It helps enormously if you have nothing better to do, are out of touch with your feelings (agony, worry, exhaustion, frustration...) and are disinclined to concentrate on any one thing for more than a few minutes at a time. (These faults are more often referred to as commitment, bravery and an ability to do a lot of things at once. This is clearly propaganda.)

This was therapy for me to type.

It is the beginning of Graywolf-co-founder Walker's preface to Keeping the Books: Developing financial capacity in your nonprofit press. (Long out of print!)

Much more encouraging was meeting the future of publishing at the Brooklyn Book Fair: Bruce McPherson's kids!

Walter Schnackenberg

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