Short stories
The Man Who Walked Through Walls
Le Passe-muraille
Marcel Aymé · 1943
Synopsis
The collection brings together ten short stories. In the first, which gave the volume its title, Dutilleul, a modest clerk who lives in Montmartre, discovers in his forty-third year that no wall stops him any more. A doctor prescribes him a remedy. He first uses his gift to torment a new boss who humiliates him, then to burgle banks and jewellers' shops, signing his jobs with a pseudonym. The other stories likewise confront ordinary people with extraordinary situations.
Context
The collection appeared from Gallimard in 1943, under the Occupation; the story that gives it its title had first appeared in 1941 in a magazine. The ten tales mix realism and the fantastic: a singular power, walking through walls or crossing distances with seven-league boots, falls upon ordinary people who make use of it in their own measure. In English, the collection has been translated several times, under different titles, up to the version by Sophie Lewis published in 2012.
Who it is for
Ten independent stories, which can be read separately, in simple language and a light tone.
Prizes and reception
Jean Marais sculpted the character emerging from a wall, with the author's features; the bronze has stood since 1989 in Place Marcel-Aymé, in Montmartre.
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