Nature Stories

by Jules Renard, Douglas Parmée (Translator), Pierre Bonnard (Illustrator)

Overview

The natural world in all its richness, glimpsed variously in the house, the barnyard, and the garden, in ponds and streams, and at large in the woods and the fields, including old friends like the dog, the cat, the cow, and the pig, along with more unusual and sometimes alarming characters such as the weasel, the dragonfly, snakes of several sorts, and even a whale, not to mention ants in their seeming infinitude and a single humble potato—all these and more are the subjects of what may well be the most deft and delightful book of literary miniatures ever written. In Jules Renard’s world, plants and animals not only feel but speak (one species, the swallow, appears to write Hebrew), and yet, for all the anthropomorphic wit and whimsy the author indulges in, they guard their mystery too. Sly, funny, and touching, Nature Stories, here beautifully rendered into English by Douglas Parmée and accompanied by the wonderful ink-brush images of Pierre Bonnard with which the book was originally published, is a literary classic of inexhaustible freshness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590173640
Publisher:	New York Review Books
Publication date:	12/07/2010
Series:	NYRB Classics Series
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	1,096,916
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Jules Renard (1864–1910) was a French novelist, playwright, and diarist who divided his time between Paris and the Burgundian countryside for most of his life. He described his lonely childhood growing up in a cold bourgeois family in the autobiographical novel Poil de carotte (Carrot Top). Though educated to be a teacher, the young Renard moved to Paris where he took up with an actress of the Comédie-Française and was introduced into the city’s most prestigious literary salons. His marriage in 1888 to Marie Morneau brought him a large dowry and allowed him to devote himself to life as an homme de lettres and to found the literary review Mercure de France. For the rest of his short life Renard would spend the warmer months in Chitry, where like his father before him he became mayor. In Paris he lived the life of a member of the Académie Goncourt and counted among his friends Alphonse Daudet, Edmond de Goncourt, Anatole France, Paul Claudel, and Sarah Bernhardt. In addition to Poil de carotte and Histoires naturelles, Renard is best known for his five-volume Journal, cited as an influence by authors as diverse as W. Somerset Maugham, Susan Sontag, Donald Barthelme, and Samuel Beckett. Among his other works are Le plaisir de rompre, L’ écornifleur, and Huit jours à la campagne.


Douglas Parmée (1914–2008) was a lecturer in modern languages at Cambridge and a Lifetime Fellow of Queens’ College. He translated many works of classic and contemporary literature from French, Italian, and German, receiving the the Scott Moncrieff Prize for French translation in 1976. NYRB Classics publishes his translations of The Child by Jules Vallès and Afloat by Guy de Maupassant and in 2011 will publish his translation of Irretrievable by Theodor Fontaine.

 

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was among the most iconic and original Post-Impressionist French painters, and a founding member of the avant-garde group Les Nabis.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Lying in Wait 3

Hunting for Pictures 5

The Hen 6

Cocks 9

Ducks 12

Turkeys 15

Pigeons 16

The Peacock 19

The Swan 20

One Dog 23

Two Dogs 24

Dédèche has Died 26

The Cat 29

Flies 31

The Cow 32

The Death of Brunette 34

The Ox 39

The Bull 40

The Mare 43

The Horse 44

The Donkey 47

The Pig 48

The Pig and his Pearls 50

The Nanny Goat 51

The Billy Goat 53

Two Rabbits 54

The Hare 56

The Lizard 59

The Green Lizard 60

The Grass Snake 61

The Weasel 62

The Hedgehog 63

The Snake 65

The Worm 66

Frogs 69

The Toad 70

The Grasshopper 73

The Cricket 74

The Cockroach 76

The Glowworm 77

The Spider 78

The May Bug 79

Ants 80

The Snail 82

A Sunrise 84

The Caterpillar 87

The Butterfly 88

The Wasp 91

The Flea 92

The Dragonfly 95

The Squirrel 96

The Mouse 99

Monkeys 100

The Stag 103

The Gudgeon 104

The Pike 106

The Whale 107

Fish 108

The Garden 113

Poppies 114

The Vine 115

Bats 116

The Birdless Cage 119

A Canary 120

The Finch 123

The Bullfinches' Nest 125

The Sparrow 126

The Swallows 128

The Magpie 131

The Blackbird 132

The Golden Oriole 133

The Parrot 133

The Lark 134

The Kingfisher 137

The Hawk 138

The Wagtail 140

Partridges 141

The Woodcock 148

A Family of Trees 151

The End of the Shooting Season 152

The New Moon 155

The Wood 156

Rain 157

The Furious Dog 158

Autumn Leaves 161

Editorial Reviews

Parmée's new translation of Renard's classic, late 19th-century stories (accompanied by ink-blot illustrations by Pierre Bonnard) convey the author's inimitable sensibility and his delight in nature's humor and mystery. Ranging from a few words to a few pages in length, each portrait reads like a prose poem and delivers sharp observations and fanciful stories about everything from bats to birds, autumn leaves to the new moon. Renard's five-word evocation of a flea ("An elastic pinch of snuff") and succinct description of a butterfly ("This love-letter, folded in two, is looking for a flowery address") are among the best shorter entries; of the longer, more elaborate entries, "Fish" and "The End of the Shooting Season" tell rich stories of man's changing and complicated relationship with nature. Taken cumulatively, Renard's tender, wry, and surprising tributes remind us of the millions of creatures and characters in our midst. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Renard’s way with the detail is unforgettable. Renard writes about spiders, about the moon, and the poetry he makes from the things his eyes tell him is joyful.”
—Michael Silverblatt, Bookworm


“Renard’s people—and animals and plants, too—are not reflections of Renard. They are not metaphors for his moods. They are not steps in his argument. They are as close as he can come to describing being someone or something not Renard. Renard’s truthfulness is the truthfulness of a scrupulous, disinterested witness. You trust him as you trust a Quaker.”
—Naomi Bliven, The New Yorker


“directly, or indirectly, Renard is at the origin of contemporary literature.” —Jean-Paul Sartre

"There is no real equivalent for the French word esprit which is somewhere between and beyond humor and wit and which is essentially what these short commentaries on the bird and animal world display." —Kirkus Reviews

“The farmyard beasts, hunted game, insects and birds of the Nièvre were world enough for him [Renard]. Sometimes their activities add up to a story, sometimes an extended observation; or they might just provide a joyful moment—for instance, when a kingfisher comes and perches on his fishing-rod (‘I was swelling with pride at having been taken for a tree’). And on almost every page there are brilliant descriptions and comparisons.” – Julian Barnes, London Review of Books

From the Publisher