| Title | : | In the Sky |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0990733513 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780990733515 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 196 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1892 |
–Robert Ziegler
Octave Mirbeau would soon rankle bourgeois sensibilities with such fin-de-siècle literary provocations as The Torture Garden (1899) and Diary of a Chambermaid (1900), but in 1892 the French anarchist and litterateur signaled the arrival of modernism with Dans le ciel (In the Sky), an emotionally arresting fictional portrait of a reclusive painter tragically undone by the vaulting, annihilative power of his own ineffable vision. Informed by the author’s active engagement with the late nineteenth-century avant garde, this obscure novel illuminates the Impressionist milieu while presenting a timeless meditation on the bond of friendship and the volatile communion between madness and art.
Originally serialized in the French literary journal L’Echo de Paris between September 1892 and May 1893, In the Sky remained unpublished until 1989 when preeminent Mirbeau scholars Jean-François Nivet and Pierre Michel edited and released the first standalone edition as an unfinished novella. Over a century after its initial publication, Mirbeau’s overlooked classic now appears in English for the first time.
The present text has been faithfully translated by the American novelist Ann Sterzinger with assistance by Mirbeau scholars Robert Ziegler and Claire Nettleton, who also contributes an introduction.
In the Sky Reviews
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This book broke my heart. There are books you read at moments when you need to read them and this was one of those sorts of books for me. I was left feeling unsettled the first time I read In the Sky, and read it again to see if I could pinpoint what this book was trying to tell me. The second read was more of a revelation, and I’m not going to discuss the reasons in any real depth because, even though I discuss books in a confessional manner, this book caused me to consider my life in a manner that I prefer not to discuss overmuch. As much as I tend to treat this site like a diary, even I have parts of my mind that don’t need to be shown because the contemplation trumps the discussion. That should be in itself an excellent reason for any regular reader here to read this book. A book that helps me cauterize my continual brain bleed is a rare, interesting, compelling book.
Mirbeau is a genius. He portrayed with great intensity a quietly malignant life, a person rotting inside because of tension and fear, a person for whom a blue sky is a crushing reminder that there is no freedom, only a mocking emptiness that can never be filled. This is a book about a man who died while still living, who kept dying long after the disease had eaten its fill. That Mirbeau never finished this novella makes it all the better a representation of the life half-eaten, half-lived, never complete. Ann Sterzinger is also a genius to be able to read these words in their original French and convey such exquisite misery so precisely yet with such raw, bleeding emotion.
You can read my entire and very long discussion on Odd Things Considered. -
Let it be noted, that my rating is based on the Italian version. I haven't read the English translation, so... not what I am rating here.
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FULL REVIEW
It's an engaging story with excellent prose with a lot to chew on. This story of artists working in the 19th century avant-garde remains as relevant as ever with its mockery of middle-class values, its portrayal of the frustrations of the artist, and the search for one's place in the vast, hostile sky. It's great that this book was brought to the English language, and I hope it receives the attention it deserves. -
Curiously I read it after I read Hill of Dreams of Arthur Machen and it gave me that same feeling and synchronically the main characters name is Lucien while Machen's character was Lucian.
The most important part for me was that perfect description of the frustration of the artist with its work, which is the same topic to the story of Lucian in the Hill of Dreams
I feel these two books as twin stories, as if they were the same story in parallel universes, kinda like Stephen King's Desperation/Regulators you could say -
What a pleasant surprise, this is a great modern novella that contains insight into the impossibility of the artists' process. It's pretty bleak, but also really contains a depth fo character and an interesting structure. I was pleasantly surprised. Mirbeau could use more editions of his work for sure, it seems the right time to reassess his body of work.
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It's one of those small books that took a long time for me to read because I kept stopping to think about what I'd read and how it made me feel. Mirbeau is such an interesting author, because despite writing in the 1890s and 1910s, much of what he writes about feels relevant today. He has an amazing ability to cut through the bullshit and get to the point.
Advice for would-be readers of this specific edition: do not read the introduction first. I skipped it, then went back and read it. Holy crap, dude, SPOILERS in the introduction! I hate literary books that do that. As if the plot isn't important because we're all here for genius.
The translator's afterward is also a bit weird to read. Because she wants to provide some literary criticism and caveats and explanations. These, while somewhat interesting, felt unnecessary.
I enjoyed the book, though I have to admit it drags in a few places. The tormented genius artist stuff felt like a drag. Everything up until that point was fantastic.
I wouldn't recommend this book unless you're a Mirbeau completist, which is something I've somehow become, having now read his big 3 books that were translated into English. Are there more? I should find out. -
"Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraya; j’eus la terreur de ces étoiles si muettes, dont le pâle clignotement recule encore, sans l’éclairer jamais, le mystère affolant de l’incommensurable. Qu’étais-je moi, si petit, parmi ces mondes?"
Georges reçoit la lettre de son vieil ami peintre Lucien qu’il n’a plus revu depuis des années et qui le supplie de venir lui rendre visite, lui qui s’est isolé du monde dans une abbaye au milieu des plaines.
À travers le personnage de Lucien qui est inspiré de Van Gogh, Mirbeau aborde le thème de l’art et de la folie de l’artiste, condamné à courir derrière un idéal qui toujours se dérobe, parce que les moyens dont il dispose ne sont jamais à la hauteur de cet idéal qu’il s’est fixé.
Lucien est ainsi frustré de ne pas arriver à retranscrire la beauté de la nature dans ses toiles, et sombre progressivement dans la folie…
"La nature, on peut encore la concevoir vaguement, avec son cerveau, peut-être, mais l’exprimer avec cet outil gauche, lourd et infidèle qu’est la main, voilà qui est, je crois, au-dessus des forces humaines".
Mirbeau critique la société bourgeoise dans laquelle les artistes novateurs ne peuvent trouver leur place et peuvent difficilement vivre de leur art, ce qui les poussent à s’isoler pour chercher leur voie.
J’ai été très touchée par ces deux personnages, incompris de tous et aux destins tourmentés, et je compte poursuivre ma découverte de cet auteur! -
I had a roommate who tried to make his lackluster stories exciting by speaking loudly and gesticulating a lot, but it just made them annoying. This book is like that; a lot of "intense feelings" and tears culminating in a pulpy ending.
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Estuvo interesante pero no es un libro que volvería a leer
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Oh dear, oh dear. Frustrated much?
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Mirbeau is best known for his novel ‘The Torture Garden’. 'In the Sky' has remained largely ignored (and untranslated) until now. It's definitely a worthwhile addition to his English language canon.
As the blurb for the book indicates, the tale revolves around an artist Lucien, who, like the Garden of 'The Torture Garden', we do not encounter until halfway through the book. Lucien is an artist trying to capture the inner essence of things such as painting the sky or the bark of a dog and slowly extricates himself from Paris to a remote mountain house in order to liberate himself from his surroundings and open himself to his creative potential. This story is narrated by his friend X who aspires to literature and is encouraged in this by Lucien. The reader gets the sense that he will also be doomed to failure although whether that manifests itself in a madness similar to Luciens’ is unclear.
There are some good moments in this novel, Mirbeau writes in a clear style but yet is able to portray Lucien's passion with intensity as he attempts to explain to the less enlightened X what is going on and why.
Although the whole ‘madman as artist’ theme has been heavily debated (and worked, Mirbeau does not mention any artist by name but ‘In The Sky’ is supposedly inspired by Van Gogh), neither translator nor Mirbeau scholar Claire Nettleton in her introduction mention the element that lifts this book above a ‘run of the mill’ exploration of this trope, namely Mirbeau’s anarchism.
I am certain that the novel is primarily an extended critique of society. Take this extract where X writes of the family: “Every reasonably well-constituted being is born with some dominant faculties, some individual strengths which correspond exactly to a need or to a pleasure in life. Instead of helping them develop normally, the family moves fast to suffocate and drown them. It produces nothing but social outcasts, revels, unbalanced people, unhappy people, through its marvellous instinct of alienating them from themselves…” At school, the teachers “indifferent hands of mercenaries with no stake in him…fills everything with his stiff, fake gravitas, a profoundly stupid dogmatism that kills the curiosity in a child's soul instead of developing it”.
Even more clearly: “Man can’t stand to let something beautiful and pure, a thing on wings, pass over him. He hates everything that soars, and everything that sings…all around, coming from everywhere, you hear rifle shots; above you from all over, like moans, like screams. The sky is filled with death throes, just like the earth.”
As someone who believes that lots of interesting things can be found at the edgelands (if you had not already guessed from my previous reviews) this book struck something of a chord with me. I haven’t come away from the book feeling that I have ‘learnt’ anything I didn’t already know, but I did like its intensity and it packs a quick punch in its 200 or so pages. Overall, I think it’s his best novel.
