Novel
Carrot Top
Poil de carotte
Jules Renard · 1894
Opening lines
—Je parie, dit madame Lepic, qu'Honorine a encore oublié de fermer les poules.
“I bet,” said Madame Lepic, “that Honorine has forgotten to shut in the hens again.”
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
The youngest of the three children of M. and Mme Lepic, a red-haired boy whom the whole household, his mother included, calls Carrot Top, endures the bullying of an unjust and cruel mother, under the gaze of a silent father. His brother Félix and his sister Ernestine are better treated than he is. He is deprived of the dishes he likes, he is made to finish off wounded game before being reproached for his cruelty. He gradually learns to defend himself through cunning and irony.
Context
The book appeared from Flammarion in 1894. This novel is made up of brief, discontinuous scenes, in which the author transposes his own childhood. He made from it a one-act comedy, first staged at the Théâtre Antoine on 1 March 1900 with immediate success: in it he softened the picture of the family and made his hero an adolescent. Julien Duvivier made two films from it, a silent one in 1925 and then a sound film in 1932.
Who it is for
Very short narratives, written in a dry style, which can be read in any order and are read differently again in adulthood.
Prizes and reception
The most famous book of its author, adapted several times, was translated into English under the title Carrot Top.
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