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Article: Jean Genet, RIP. (obituary)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- June 6, 1986
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1986 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Jean Genet, RIP NOVELIST, playwright, prose master, and Parisian cult anti-hero, Jean Genet was a striking figure in that he cared enough about Western culture to attack it in every conceivable detail. Nothing important went un-negated. To his credit, he was not indifferent. All of the West's virtues he depicted as vices; all of its vices became for him virtues. His anti-morality possessed a kind of Cartesian consistency.
His five novels, from Our Lady of the Flowers (1943) to The Thief's Journal (1949), constitute his most important body of work. They are autobiographical, the facts often merging into mythologization, and they exhibit a remarkably resourceful ...