The Journal of Jules Renard

From 1887 to a month before his death in 1910, French author and playwright Jules Renard composed an autobiographical masterpiece. Celebrated abroad and cited as a principal influence by writers as various as Somerset Maugham, Susan Sontag, and Donald Barthelme, The Journal of Jules Renard has established a cultish following. Over the course of decades, Renard develops not only his career and artistic convictions but also his humanity. He reflects on art and literature-and their accompanying social scenes-and moments from his personal life that he so often mined in his work (his love interests, his position as a socialist mayor of Chitry, the suicide of his father). A mix of aphorisms, observations, gossip, jokes, meditations, and short scenes, The Journal of Jules Renard anticipated the lyric essay and memoir of the twenty-first century, but remains a unique work all its own. From the journal: In order to do certain things, it is necessary to behave like a coachman who has let go of the reins and fallen asleep. Sarah Bernhardt. When she comes down the winding staircase of the hotel, it looks as though she were standing still, while the staircase turns around her. I turn home, my heart filled with anguish because I have watched the sun set and heard the birds sing, and because I shall have had so few days on this earth I love, and there are so many dead before me. Book jacket.