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Article: Pain as a pencil sharpener.(In the Land of Pain by Alphonse Daudet)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- December 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Quadrant Magazine Company, 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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In the Land of Pain, by Alphonse Daudet, translated and edited by Julian Barnes; Cape, 2002, $32.95.
ALPHONSE DAUDET (1840-97) is a neglected writer these days, even in France where, in his heyday, he was as well known as Maupassant, Flaubert and the Goncourts. Poet, journalist, dramatist and novelist, he was acclaimed for his brilliantly sunny Provencal and Algerian divertissements collected in Tartarin de Tarascon and Lettres de mon Moulin. After all, it is usually only the most distinctive writers who impress their vision on the language: French boasts the word tartarinade, which itself describes a kind of boasting. At the height of his fame Henry James called ...