France is good at skillfully integrating moving stories and criticism of reality, and expresses profound philosophies with rich and wonderful imagination, so that people can be taught and inspired by beautiful artistic enjoyment, and finally became the best French humor master after Rabelais and Voltaire.
His career spanned 60 years
This year marks the 180th anniversary of the birth and 100th anniversary of the death of French writer Anatole France (1844-1924). François Thibaud, born to a modest bookseller family in Paris. His father ran books and materials related to the French Revolution, and the bookstore environment made him develop a habit of reading, and developed a humanitarian ideology of disgust with violence and sympathy for the weak. After graduating from high school, he was self-taught while earning a living, using his pen name from his native France. The early Golden Psalm (1873) depicts the death of a dragonfly and a monkey, and a stag dueling for a mate, expressing compassion for the weak animal and a desire for happiness. The three-act drama The Marriage of the Corinthians (1876), which portrays Christ as the culprit of the destruction of human love, is considered the masterpiece of the Parnassians in which he participated.
In 1881, Française published the novel The Crimes of Bonnard, which portrayed the moving image of the old scholar Bonnard. The first part, "Christmas Firewood", writes that Bonnard sympathizes with Mrs. Gogues, who is in a difficult situation, and sends her broth and chopping wood during the cold winter months, including a piece of Christmas firewood. Unexpectedly, many years later, she became the princess of Russia, not only gave him a piece of Christmas wood carved by a famous teacher, but also bought him a manuscript that he had dreamed of for 40 years. The second part, "Jeanne Alexandre", writes about Bonnard's rescue of the granddaughter of his first love, rescued her from the tiger's mouth on the charge of abducting her young daughter, and decided to sell all the books in her collection to pay her dowry when she became an adult, but finally "stole" a few manuscripts from the pile of books that were really difficult to give up, which was Bonnard's only "crime". The novel is a hymn to the goodness and beauty of human nature, imbued with a strong humanitarian atmosphere, so it won the Grand Prix of the Académie Française, and France became a professional writer. During his 60-year career, he published nearly 40 volumes of novels, poems, reviews, political commentaries, plays and memoirs, and had a profound impact on modern and contemporary French literature.
Francis was born sensitive and affectionate, but due to his poor family, mediocre appearance and wooden nature, he did not marry and start a family until he was 32 years old. After he became famous, Proust asked him why he was so erudite, and he summed up his youth in just one sentence: "It's very simple, dear Marcel: I am not as beautiful as you are, not as likable, and not going to social circles as you, so I stay at home and read books and read non-stop." This seemingly light-hearted and humorous self-deprecation contains how many ups and downs and bitterness!
One of the most humorous masters of France
Inheriting the materialist tradition of the 18th-century French atheists, Francis's opposition to religion and the admiration of science are important features of his novels. The novel Tess (1889) is based on his earlier poem The Legend of St. Tess, in which the ancient Egyptian desert monk Bafonis wants to free the beautiful actress Tess from a sinful life, so he uses a vision of heaven to convince her to burn her treasure and send her to a convent, where he himself falls in love with her. In the end, Tess fell ill and died, leaving him with nothing but remorse and despair. Francis humorously ridiculed the stupidity and hypocrisy of the monks and extolled the happiness and joy of worldly life. Bafonis went to hell for a lifetime of penance, but Tess went to heaven after a lifetime of debauchery.
Elder Guanar, in the philosophical novel The Goosepaw Queen's Rotisserie (1892), is affable and fond of reading, but also fond of money, wine, and women. He believed in God, but after stealing or fighting, he always found a basis for self-comfort in the sayings of the saints. He was elegant but uninhibited, and he was always ready to make a witty argument that was both unreasonable and embarrassing. In his view, there is nothing sacred in the world, because "men are selfish, cowardly, and debauched," "it is difficult not to sin," and "honorable figures make people more unhappy" than "liars, scoundrels, and all kinds of bad people," and in short, the center of all human activity is "hunger and love." These arguments that expose social reality may seem absurd, but they have a certain amount of truth, and they are also painful to read.
Francis loves life, and love is an important theme in his work. From unrequited love in his youth to sexual encounters in his later years, he has tasted love. The Red Lily (1894), written after his love affair with Mrs. Kayafi, is a vivid depiction of the joys and pains of love, and the damage of jealousy to love. The tragedy between an actress and two men in "A Burlesque Story" (1903) shows that France, in his pursuit of pleasure, has decided that human selfishness will inevitably ruin a beautiful love, which is exactly the same as the idea expressed in "The Goosepaw Queen's Rotisserie".
The essence of humor is irony, and France believes that "without irony, the world would be a forest without birds". From medieval civic literature to Rabelais's The Legend of the Giants, from Molière's comedies to the philosophical novels of Voltaire and Diderot, French literature is characterized by a ubiquitous sense of humor and irony. Inheriting and developing this tradition of French national culture, Française is satire, effortless, witty and natural, without losing his elegance at all times. The Life of Joan of Arc (1908) portrays Joan of Arc as a "daughter of the people" with abundant sources, erasing the aura that religious legends have placed on her head. The novel "Penguin Island" (1908) mercilessly mocks French history, religion and tradition, and "The Rebellion of the Angels" (1914) writes that the defeated God became Satan, and the victorious Satan became the new God, and the angels had the same emotions and desires as humans, thus completely shattering the myth of angels in the church. France is good at skillfully integrating moving stories and criticism of reality, and expresses profound philosophies with rich and wonderful imagination, so that people can be taught and inspired by beautiful artistic enjoyment, and finally became the best French humor master after Rabelais and Voltaire. (Produced by the "Thought Workshop" of the social science newspaper, the full text can be found in the social science newspaper and its official website)