Novel
The Child
L'Enfant
Jules Vallès · 1879
Opening lines
Ai-je été nourri par ma mère? Est-ce une paysanne qui m'a donné son lait? Je n'en sais rien.
Was I nursed by my mother? Was it a peasant woman who gave me her milk? I have no idea.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Jacques Vingtras is five years old when his story begins. His mother, a hard and unjust peasant woman, whips him every morning for his own good; his father is a teacher. The family moves from Le Puy to Saint-Étienne, then to Nantes, and the child finds everywhere, at home as at school, the same privations and the same humiliations, which he recounts with a grating humour.
Context
The narrative first appeared as a serial in Le Siècle, in the summer of 1878, under the title Jacques Vingtras and under the pseudonym La Chaussade, then in volume form in 1879. The author's name and the title L'Enfant appeared only with the third edition, in 1881. The book opens an autobiographical trilogy completed by Le Bachelier and L'Insurgé; in it he challenges the authority of parents and of school.
Who it is for
Short chapters in the first person, in a spoken and funny language; the laughter is constant and consoles for nothing.
Prizes and reception
First part of an autobiographical trilogy, it was translated into English by Douglas Parmée for New York Review Books.
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