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Alphonse Daudet

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In the Land of Pain (Vintage Classics) Kindle Edition

by Alphonse Daudet (Author), Julian Barnes (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 37 ratings

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A “startling [and] splendid” book (The New York Times Book Review) from one of the greatest writers of the nineteenth century on his years of enduring severe illness—a classic in the literary annals of human suffering. • Edited and translated by the bestselling, Booker Prize winning author of The Sense of an Ending.

“Pain, you must be everything for me. Let me find in you all those foreign lands you will not let me visit.” —Alphonse Daudet

Daudet (1840–1897) was a greatly admired writer during his lifetime, praised by Dickens and Henry James. In the prime of his life, he developed an agonizing nerve disease caused by syphilis and began taking notes about his experience, published posthumously as In the Land of Pain. Daudet wrote in powerful, unflinching images about his excruciating symptoms, his fears, his desperate attempts at treatment, and the effects of the morphine he came to depend on. His novelist’s eye and sense of humor did not desert him as he observed the bizarre society of his fellow patients at curative spas, nor did his generosity and compassion for them and for his friends and family. In Julian Barnes’s crystalline translation, Daudet’s notes comprise a record—at once shattering, haunting, and beguiling—of both the banal and the transformative realities of physical suffering.

Print length

103 pages
Language

English
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Publisher

Vintage
Publication date

March 22, 2016
File size

3353 KB
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A popular writer in his time and admired by Charles Dickens and Henry James, French novelist, playwright and journalist Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897) has been largely forgotten today. According to novelist and essayist Barnes (Something to Declare, etc.), Daudet's work, although considered charming and topical in its heyday, did not have the depth and relevance to transcend its age-with one exception, this small volume, translated into English now for the first time. Basically a loose journal of ideas, metaphors and observations, the book offers a devastating emotional and spiritual portrait of a main in profound physical pain in the tertiary stage of syphilis. Daudet continued to write and publish during his illness, though he experienced bouts of rheumatism and severe fatigue, which progressed on to debilitating "locomotor ataxia (the inability to control one's movements), and finally, paralysis." Daudet's descriptions of his physical ailment are palpably horrifying, and the feelings of isolation and inadequacy that result give readers a new understanding of the psychology of illness. Of the "sheer torture" of his pain, Daudet ultimately concludes that there are no words, "only howls." Words, he says, "only come when everything is over.... They refer only to memory, and are either powerless or untruthful." However inadequate the author may believe his words to have been, the indomitable spirit of life that is conveyed on every one of these pages is Daudet's ultimate triumph. 4 illus.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The New Yorker

Syphilis may lack something of the romantic aura surrounding tuberculosis in literary history, but it was the illness of choice for the French nineteenth century: Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Maupassant all suffered from it. Daudet, best known for his light, charming stories of southern France (Barnes judges him a tie for fourth-most important syphilitic), died of it, in 1897. These are his notes from underground. They include a narrative of his treatments (in which the author is hung in the air by the jaw and injected with a solution extracted from guinea pigs), ruminations on fear and fraud, and sharp observations of the healthy. But much of the book—and the book's force—lies in the patient's flailing search for a language to match his suffering. "Tonight, pain in the form of an impish little bird hopping hither and thither," he writes. "The only part of me that's alive is my pain."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

From Booklist

Acclaimed novelist Barnes describes French writer Daudet (1840-97) as having been "substantially forgotten," but in his day, Daudet counted among his circle Flaubert, Dickens, James, Zola, Turgenev, and the Goncourt brothers, and was widely admired as a "sunny humorist and clear stylist." He was also one of the "literary syphilitics," stricken with a form called tabes dorsalis, a horrifically painful affliction that impaired motion and eventually brought on paralysis. A generous and philosophical man, Daudet faced his ever-increasing pain and debility with remarkable courage and kindness to others. Grateful to remain sound of mind, he found some comfort in writing about his struggle, making the keenly observant and vital notes that comprise this remarkable, impressionistic, and life-affirming memoir. Daudet's gifts for vivid description, sharp humor, penetrating reflection, and lithe storytelling were irrepressible, and his account of his derailed life from "the day Pain entered" onward, a text rediscovered and superbly translated by Barnes, is deeply affecting testimony to the radiance of the soul even as the body turns to "stone which feels pain." Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“Startling . . . splendid. . . . Daudet provides the pain in images that . . . have rarely been equaled; and in words that turn wit to its true task of assaying the dark.” —The New York Times Book Review

“These are [Daudet’s] notes from underground. They include . . . ruminations on fear and fraud, and sharp observations of the healthy. But much of the book—and the book’s force—lies in the patient’s flailing search for a language to match his suffering.” —The New Yorker

From the Inside Flap

As Julian Barnes writes in the introduction to his superb translation of Alphonse Daudet’s La Doulou, the mostly forgotten writer nowadays “ate at the top literary table” during his lifetime (1840–1897). Henry James described him as “the happiest novelist” and “the most charming story-teller” of his day. Yet if Daudet dined in the highest company, he was also “a member of a less enviable nineteenth-century French club: that of literary syphilitics.” In the Land of Pain―notes toward a book never written―is his timelessly resonant response to the disease.

In quick, sharp, unflinching strokes of his pen, Daudet wrote about his symptoms (“This is me: the one-man-band of pain”) and his treatments (“Mor-phine nights . . . thick black waves, sleepless on the surface of life, the void beneath”); about his fears and reflections (“Pain, you must be everything for me. Let me find in you all those foreign lands you will not let me visit. Be my philosophy, be my science”); his impressions of the patients, himself included, and their strange life at curative baths and spas (“Russians, both men and women, go into the baths naked . . . Alarm among the Southerners”); and about the “clever way in which death cuts us down, but makes it look like just a thinning-out.”

Given Barnes’s crystalline translation, these notes comprise a record―at once shattering and lighthearted, haunting and beguiling―of both the banal and the transformative experience of physical suffering, and a testament to the complex resiliency of the human spirit.

About the Author

Alphonse Daudet was born in Nîmes, France, in 1840. Novelist, playwright, and journalist, his success came through his novels and stories. He contracted syphilis at the age of seventeen and died at the age of
fifty-seven.

Julian Barnes is the author of nine novels, a book of stories, and a collection of essays. He is the recipient of the Prix Femina, and in 1988 was made an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He lives in London.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01CWZH7FQ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (March 22, 2016)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 22, 2016
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3353 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 103 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0224069438

Best Sellers Rank: #841,958 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #161 in World Literature Short Stories
- #184 in French Literature (Kindle Store)
- #616 in French Literature (Books)

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David R. Anderson

Ripped apart by pain, he shouts "Long live Life!"

Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2012

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Old Soldiers Never Die
They Just Fade Away

But Dying Writers Want Their Say
Before we lay them away

Alphonese Daudet (1840-1897) a famous, wealthy and popular 19th Century French author, had one distinction that he could well have done without: he was a member of the group of literary syphilitics that included Baudelaire, Flaubert and Maupassant. Sexually active from the age of twelve, at 17 he contracted the disease which, when it reached the tertiary stage in 1882, condemned him to lead the last twelve years of his life "in increasing pain and debility." During that time he continued to write fiction, very little of which is considered of consequence today. What has survived are the elements of the book to be called "La Doulou" (from the French word for pain) that would track the progress of his disease. It is this text and his additional notes which Julian Barnes has edited and translated from the French to form "In the Land of Pain."

In his review of "In the Land of Pain" for the New York Times Book Review (Feb. 2, 2003) Richard Eder wrote "Barnes has given Daudet a startling resurrection. . . .He delivers words and, in full and suggestive notes, a context that allow a minor 19th Century storyteller . . .to claim vital recognition from our own, and perhaps every, time." High praise, and, in my opinion, not a bit overblown. I first read "Land of Pain" to help me understand the agony of a friend in the throws of his own pain brought on by a harrowing combination of cancer and osteoporosis exacerbated by frequent bone-breaking falls. As with Daudet's, my friend's pain management programs often seemed to make matters worse, not better.

Daudet wrote with unwavering clarity about his pain. Her are two examples:

"Varieties of Pain. Sometimes on the sole of the foot, an incision, a thin one, hair-thin. Or a penknife stabbing away beneath the big toenail. . . .Rats gnawing at the toes with very sharp teeth."

"Pain finds its way everywhere, into my vision, my feelings, my sense of judgment; it's an infiltration."

At some point, perhaps eighteen months before his death, Dauded abandoned the effort to complete "Le Doulou". Still, to the end, according to Barnes, "he talked about the project, and even answered journalists' questions about its progress."

End note. The introduction, explanations by way of footnotes, and the "Note on Syphilis" with which Barnes concludes the book, add immeasurably to its quality. "In the Land of Pain" deserves a place of honor on the shelf of books which contain their authors' last words to us. For my reviews of three others worthy of your attention, see "Mortality" by Christopher Hitchens, "Ill Fares the Land" by Tony Judt, and "Diaries" by George Orwell. And see also, "The Journal of a Disappointed Man" by W.N.P. Barbellion.

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roundheadslovene

As much a work by Barnes as Daudet.....

Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2023

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An interesting little book. About 100 pp, of which only about 70 pp is the text of Daudet's notes regarding his pain and life with syphilis (tabes). He died in 1897, it was published in France by his widow in 1940, and this is the first English translation (2002). By novelist Julian Barnes - who adds an Intro and 2 End Notes, as well as informative and entertaining, as well as detailed, Notes throughout the original text. Barnes became interested in this collection of notes when he was writing his early novel, "Flaubert's Parrot". Flaubert was a friend of Daudet, and also had syphilis. There is a nice interview online where Barnes talks about what got him interested, and his enjoyment in doing some scholarly research in order to edit/write this tome.
The short Part II is the more interesting of the 2 Parts. He goes into detail about the characters who inhabit the spas he attends.
Oddly in his Intro Barnes talks about the virulent antisemitism of Daudet's son, Leon, but does not bring up Alphonso's own deep antisemitism (I recently finally got around to reading his "Letters from My Windmill", and it appears even there in that idyllic countryside memoir!).
An interesting little read, about late 19th C French literature and culture, medicinal practices - and life with pain. Perhaps the best entry is his last (3 or 4 years before he died), in which he fictionalizes a discussion between two syphilitic patients about whether it is better to be the head of a family or a batchelor with this illness.
Reading this has brought me to Barnes earlier novel once again, after decades. And the journals of the Goncourts (which recounts the politics and culture of this period), something I have wanted to read for decades.

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ghost of a red rose

Surprisingly Beautiful For Such an Ugly Subject

Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2010

It is very hard to review this book critically or give it a rating, because one can't judge it by the same criteria with which we usually evaluate books. It isn't a finished work, or even close. It's a collection of notes written for a planned book that never got beyond the note-taking stage due to the death of the author in 1897.

Daudet contracted syphilis at the age of seventeen, and at the time, there was no cure. By the early 1880's he was in the tertiary (final) stage of the disease, which in his case took the form of "tabes dorsalis,' which translates literally as "wasting away of the back." It is a form of neurosyphilis which attacks the spinal cord and column and is one of the slowest and most excruciatingly painful ways that a person can die.

I was interested in this book because my grandfather also died of syphilis. I never knew him - even my father barely remembers him because he was only a child when my grandfather was institutionalized due to his illness. From what few records exists, it seems he may have suffered from the same form as Daudet, as he also had blindness and ataxia. So reading this book felt like a way to connect with my unknown and long-dead grandfather.

It is easy to see why Daudet was so much-loved both as an author and a human being - a friend and a family man. Although known for his philandering (one wonders how he justified marriage and fatherhood, much less a series of love affairs, knowing full well that he had a fatal sexually-transmitted disease), his great love for his wife and children is evident. Not wanting them to suffer too, he exhibited an incredibly rigorous self-control in hiding his pain from his family. (We know this from the many notes written by his friends that are included in the book.) Instead, he channeled his expressions of suffering into his writing. The planned book was to be a journal of the progression of Daudet's pain and his journey into death.

Even unfinished and unedited, and concerning such a difficult and ugly subject, these writings are surprisingly poetic and beautiful. It makes me want to read some of his finished works, and wonder why - although highly popular at the time - they are mostly forgotten today.

The book also includes some important background information about the life and personality of Alphonse Daudet and about the medical manifestations of the disease of syphilis.

(87 pages)

Quotes from In The Land of Pain:

"Pain is always new to the sufferer, but loses its originality for those around him. Everyone will get used to it except me."

"The walks I used to take around this land of pain. Could still find it in myself to laugh. Lunches. La Bellocquiére. Seen it all again in my mind's eye. Villemagne and the Pont-du-Diable. Felt like crying. I remember what Caoudal said: 'And to think that I shall come to regret all this!'"

"Exchange between the bachelor and the married man. The problem of jealousy, when a man is no longer a man and becomes unable to defend his hearth and home."

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Sal Paradise

Inspirational

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 1, 2020

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Daudet is noted as an author whose books are filled with good cheer but the surprising thing about him is that he suffered from Syphillis throughout most of his adult life and it eventually killed him.

It is easy to be in good form when feeling well and everything is going well for you. But true character is when a man can maintain a positive and optimistic demeanour in the world when crumbling from the inside out.

One person found this helpful

J

Useful literary disease picture for those who many come across it in medical practice.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 19, 2018

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I would advise very helpful for medical, health, history students to get a picture of how this well known but now largely controlled illness affected the author and how common severe it was in his era..
They say a picture paints a thousand words though here the words paint a thousand pictures indicating in a sadly and very sharp irony by the author how neurological illness affects the nervous system though not necessarily the sanity.

Poignant words about treatment for more recent cases towards the end and generally a delicate handling by the translator.

2 people found this helpful