User:MorelMWilliam/sandbox1
 |
| Author | Jean Genet |
|---|---|
| Original title | Journal du voleur |
| Translator | Bernard Frechtman |
| Language | French |
| Genre | novel |
| Publisher | Gallimard (Original French), Grove Press (English Translation) |
Publication date | 1949 |
| Publication place | France |
Published in English | 1964 |
| Media type | |
| Preceded by | Querelle of Brest |
| Followed by | Prisoner of Love |
The Thief's Journal (Journal du voleur) is perhaps Jean Genet's most famous work. It is a part- fact, part-fiction autobiography that charts the author's progress through Europe in a curiously depoliticized 1930s, wearing nothing but rags and enduring hunger, contempt, fatigue and vice. Spain, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Nazi Germany, Belgium... everywhere is the same: bars, dives, flop-houses; robbery, prison and expulsion.
The novel is structured around a series of homosexual love affairs between the author / anti-hero and various criminals, con artists, pimps, and even a detective.
A common theme is the inversion of ideals: betrayal is the ultimate form of devotion, petty delinquency is brazen heroism, and confinement is freedom.
Under inspiration of "Being and Nothingness", this work is affirmed to be "pursuit of the impossible nothingness" and it was dedicated to Jean-Paul Sartre and "Castor", that means Simone de Beauvoir.
Genet appropriates Christian language and concepts to pursue an alternative form of "sainthood" with its own trinity of "virtues" - homosexuality, theft and betrayal. Each burglary is set up as quasi-religious ritual, and the narrator describes his self-preparation for his crimes like that of a monk in a vigil of prayer, readying himself for a "holy" life. He establishes a "constructed reader," a fictional personification of the bourgeois values of the late 1940s, against which to measure his deviance from the "norms" of society.
The novel is a voyage of self-discovery, transcending moral laws; it is the philosophical expression of perverted vice; the working out of an aesthetic of degradation.
Plot
[edit]The journal is set in the time frame between 1932 and 1940, recounting the travels across Europe made by the narrator (Jean), who lives mostly on begging and prostitution. Talking about his early life, the narrator, who is 35 years old, states that he was abandoned by his family when he was a boy. He doesn't know his father'a name and hence uses his mother's name as his last name. At 16, he was sent to a reform school.
The journal starts with Jean reflecting on his choosing a life of "homosexuality, debauchery, thievery, extreme poverty, treason, and guile", while in prison in French Guiana.[1] He states that he finds an "erotic quality" in criminals, who, according to Jean, live in an entirely different universe from the conventional one, cut off from the nuances of values, morality and law. It was his "heart's biding" that he wanted to understand them, for which, he adds, he had to be one among them. So he set out like any young student would on the profession of his choice.
Jean then proceeds to describe the men he thus encountered, starting with his unsophisticated lover Salvador, living in poverty with him in in Barcelona's dark underbelly of Barrio China. Though they beg for their living, Jean is content, as he is with Salvador's not so flattering features. He then comes across Stilitano, a handsome vagrant, whose brutish ways impresses him. Jean dumps Salvador, thus ending his six month long relationship, and leaves to Andalusia where Stilitano deserts him. At this point, Jean decides to return to France, his home country, but is denied entry as he has no valid papers. So he proceeds to Central Europe instead, taking occasional lovers, like Michaelis and Java. In 1936, Jean gets to Antwerp, where he reunites with Stilitano. Stilitano had acquired some money betraying a friend of his to the police, and is now living with a girlfriend, being her pimp. He also trades drugs occasionally. Then enters Armand, an embodiment of a beast, who impresses Jean with his brutish ways, and he becomes his lover. Stilitano pales in comparison to Armand, as Jean gets to know more about him. He catches Stilitano treating himself with comics of super-heroes, trying to emulate them. "Stilitano was seeking a type and attempting to copy a real hero or play a role", writes Jean, later in the journal. Armand then leaves for France, leaving his stuff with Jean, who then takes to robbing. He is joined by Robert, who is used to lure their victims before Stilitano and Jean would rob them. Jean also takes to robbing on his own, transforming into one of the most feared thiefs of the area. Armand, when he gets back, is stunned by the change, and starts to respect him, thus ending their relationship of submission and dominance.
References
[edit]- ^ Renauer, Brian C.; Reed, Jack K. (1995). "Review of The Thief's Journal". Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture. 3 (6). Lund University Libraries: 150–152. ISSN 1070-8286. Retrieved Nov 15, 2011.
Category:1949 novels Category:Novels by Jean Genet Category:El Raval Category:Novels set in Barcelona
 | This article about a philosophical novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |