Novel
Monsieur de Phocas
Jean Lorrain · 1901
Synopsis
Duke Jean de Fréneuse, who has himself called Monsieur de Phocas, entrusts his private diary to a narrator. In it he recounts an obsession: to recover a certain murky transparency, a greenish glint that he believed he saw in the eyes of a statue of Antinous in the Louvre, and which he pursues in precious stones, portraits, statues, wax masks and the eyes of the girls of the night. An English painter, Claudius Ethal, a sinister figure, feeds this quest and draws him further into perversion.
Context
The book appeared in 1901. It presents itself as the manuscript that the duke leaves to a narrator, who transcribes it. A roman à clef, it borrows from figures of the time, foremost among them Robert de Montesquiou, and the painter Claudius Ethal is said to be inspired by Oscar Wilde. It is ranked alongside À rebours, by Huysmans, published in 1884, among the major works of the Decadent movement.
Who it is for
A novel in the form of a diary, in a precious and heavily laden language, for anyone who wants to know the literature of the end of the nineteenth century.
Prizes and reception
Reissued in 2024 in Flammarion's GF series; Brian Stableford translated it into English for Dedalus.
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