I refer here to Felix Feneon (1861-1944), and the above introduction was written with a glancing nod to the writing style he employed in the series of three-line vignettes pulled together in Novels in Three Lines, recently published by New York Review Books. The book collects Feneon's unsigned pieces written for the French newspaper Le Matin in 1906, and while the ostensible purpose of these tightly constructed micro-stories is journalistic, literary ambition is also definably present. Is it possible to write a novel in three lines? Judge for yourself:
"Arrested in St. Germain for petty theft, Joel Guilbert drank sublimate. He was detoxified, but died yesterday of delirium tremens."
"Love decidedly has a hard time sitting still. Emile Contet, 25 Rue Davy, pierced with his knife his wife's breast."
"In preparation for his journey to the United States, where he will be buried, M. Stillman (car accident on July 18) was embalmed in Lisieux."
Each item has its own narrative arc, its own climax. Some are missing the conclusion, but great literature is judged in part by its capacity for generating artful ambiguity--for setting off possibilities without causing confusion.
Why did Guilbert drink poison? What is the relation of his drinking poison to his committing petty acts of thievery? And then the irony--detoxified and, presumably, granted a reprieve from death, only to succumb to the lingering effects of the poison later on.
Contet's spousal murder is one of many that Feneon recounts, domestic violence being a staple of French society in the early 1900s, or so it would seem here. The way the illustration so startlingly and conclusively develops the theme presented forces us to acknowledge a kind of retro-active understatement in the first sentence when we re-read it. The dry, deadpan irony is wicked in its intent.
M. Stillman evidently intended to emigrate to America. The move was permanent in a way he never intended, though parts of him, it seems, are meant to remain in France.
What Feneon is saying, indirectly, in each of these cases is that he has told us all that we really need to know. Either we can figure out the rest, or the rest is unknowable and we stare right in the face of life's mystery.
Throughout the collection, Feneon's "novels" are shot through with irony, particularly understatement. Again and again, Feneon returns to the same subjects. In particular: domestic violence; theft, murder, and general criminal activity; suicide; fatal and near-fatal accidents; elections; strikes; love gone wrong. Occasionally, he discovers to us a tiny episode of serendipity or of tragedy averted:
"M. and Mlle Mamette were canoeing down the Marne. At Bibelots-du-Diable they capsized. Assisted by M. Oauliton, the brother rescued the sister."
Amidst so much squalor and turmoil the reader begins to seek out these events, count the pages between them. Such moments are indeed few and far between. The overall picture is bleak, French realism that complements Zola but with great terseness. When one entry announces a simple festivity, we wonder what darkness lingers just beyond the fringes of the report:
"In Caen, on the esplanade along the river Orne, the students' fair (dances, wrestling matches, etc.) was jolly despite inclement weather."
Seems innocent enough, doesn't it? Don't you believe it. When a woman's one-hundredth birthday is celebrated, you wonder what kind of awful secrets she has harbored, what she has seen in her life, but Feneon doesn't tell.
In Feneon's world, homemade bombs full of powder and nails are frequently left on doorsteps, but more often than not they fail to go off. That leaves the near-victim with cold comfort--it's unsettling to know that someone wants you dead--and it leaves the reader puzzled, because we are given no explanation as to why these anonymous acts of attempted terrorism are being perpetrated. Labor disputes? Anarchism at work? Unrest is the rule of the day; this is a volatile place in history.
Outside of the political, the cruellest of tragic ironies are delivered, in Feneon's words, like punchlines. This makes the jokes of poor taste but for all that strangely affecting:
"Catherine Rosello of Toulon, mother of four, got out of the way of a freight train. She was then run over by a passenger train."
Other novels skirt the edge of mystery. We come close to a truth, but never quite arrive:
"In a hotel in Lille, M. H. Hallynch, of Ypres, hanged himself for reasons that, acccording to a letter he left, will soon be made known."
But the reason is never made known. Presumably there is one, somewhere, but there's likely not a soul alive who is privy to it now.
Some entries exercise a kind of extended compression, as though Feneon was pushing himself to even greater degrees of compactness:
"Their horse reared, scared by an automobile, and ejected from their carriage M. Pioger, of Louplande, Sarthe, and his maid. Killed. Injured."
Names and places figure largely in these pieces. The onslaught of place-names is bewildering to one who is not intimately familiar with French geography, but such detail does nevertheless give a sense of specificity and precision to these events: we know that they are occurring somewhere, in a place as familiar to the characters who act them out as our own neigborhoods are to us. Feneon often refers to characters by last name only, as though we might know who they are--as though we were co-workers, comrades, or neighbors. This assumption of familiarity is sometimes chilling, as in the case of the neighborhood kids whose play borders on the fatal:
"In the course of a brawl among children in Gueugnon, Saone-et-Loire, Pissis nearly stabbed Fournier to death."
In all, this catalog of a world of woe is strangely compelling. It makes the reader question the nature and purpose of the news. It's no wonder, you think, that the upbeat human interest piece has become such a staple of reportage in our culture. Such stories, trite as they may sometimes seem in the context of a slicked-over television news production, fend off despair. But Feneon forces us to look. His mini-tragedies evoke fear and pity. We close the book glad that we are ourselves still in one piece. We promise to be a little more careful next time we cross the street against heavy traffic.
[With all due apologies for the absence of accent marks!]
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