I’ve had a copy of The
Mysteries of Paris* on my shelf for decades, with the clear intention of
reading it. I suppose the pandemic gave
me the opportunity to do so. I’ve had my
anonymously translated and undated 1,300 + page Walter J. Black edition for
long enough that it’s finally been superseded by a Penguin Classics translation
from 2015.** I read the beginning of both editions to help me decide which
version to go with (I’m sure as hell not going to read it twice), and
ultimately chose the older one. Despite
its having been thoroughly bowdlerized, with an inexact (if not simply
fanciful) translation, the 19th Century sensibility and underworld argot
seem more alive here than in the meticulously translated (and to me –
remarkably flat) Penguin edition. Sure,
some scenes have been omitted, but it’s pretty easy to tell from the context of
the narrative when a rape or some other such horror represented by lacunae has
occurred. Frankly, I simply enjoyed the flavor of the older edition better, and
I’m reading for enjoyment.
The Mysteries of Paris
began publication in a serialized form in 1842-43, and was an immediate
success. It was a social novel, luridly yet humanely representing different
strata of Parisian society and therefore appealing to a wide audience. It could be read in bourgeois drawing rooms,
or aloud in a smoky tavern for eager listeners.
It proved to be a model for later works, such as Les Miserables (which took up its examination of social issues
having to do with crime and the poor, and the responsibilities of the wealthy)
and The Count of Monte Christo. Sue clearly sought to use his novel as a
means of putting forth aspirational views of reforming how French society views
the poor, and how society approaches questions of incarceration and
rehabilitation.
The cast of characters is large, but surprisingly intimate
in a contrived way. As we read, we
become astonished at how, in a large and crowded metropolis, the right people
just happen to run into each other at the right time; for instance, in a
woman’s prison, the heroine just happens to form a bond with another inmate
whose lover happens to be the brother of the river pirate who will later try to
drown said heroine in a hit job later in the novel. There is a remarkable trend
of serendipity in this work, from the very first scene.
*Potential Spoilers Ahead*
And so – in the beginning, a mysterious man thwarts an attempted assault of a teenage streetwalker by a ruffian who goes by the name of “Slasher” (the first of many delightful sobriquets in the book). Slasher, as we should not be surprised to learn, is a fellow with a sharp knife and anger issues, but comes to have a deep respect – devotion, really – for Monsieur Rudolph, who has, to use the vernacular, kicked his ass. Incredibly, this M. Rudolph, the Slasher, and the virginal prostitute la Goualeuse (aka Fleur-de-Marie) end the evening as fast friends. From here, the novel descends into a blur of secrets, betrayals, suicides, madness, poverty, infanticide (alleged), noble actions, social polemics, and icky craven lust. We meet the Screech-Owl, a one-eyed crone who is the tormenter of dear Fleur-de-Marie and the companion of the hideously disfigured (by his own hand) Schoolmaster and other unsavory types. We take side trips to an idyllic farm run as a social experiment, and to an antebellum slave plantation in Louisiana, where the (obviously) cruel master keeps a harem of dusky maidens to serve his own perverted lusts. We meet the honest clerk Germaine, of uncertain parentage (there’s a lot of that) and the endearingly hardworking seamstress Mademoiselle Dimpleton (aka Rigolette), the desperately poor gem-cutter Morel and his family, which includes his gibberingly senile mother-in-law and his unfortunate daughter Louise, who is held captive and assaulted by the loathsome solicitor Jacques Ferrand, and we meet the proprietors of the rooming house where many of these folks live, the comical Madame Pipelet and her husband Alfred who, in characteristic ill-fitting clothing and a floppy oversized hat, is tormented to distraction by the affectionate teasing of a bohemian artiste named Cabrion, who plasters he and Alfred’s names on the walls of Paris as exemplars of inextinguishable friendship. We will also meet an epileptic nobleman who holds a gentleman’s breakfast during which he blows his own head off after his wife – who has had her father turned against her by a gold-digging stepmother who has likely poisoned her (the wife’s, that is) own mother – refuses to sleep with him due to his horrid foaming-at-the-mouth. (Apparently he stopped foaming long enough once to have sired a daughter upon her, but who the hell knows what happened to her? Wrong! It’s not Fleur-de-Marie – she’s someone else’s lost daughter, the big secret of the book that’s revealed quite casually about one-third of the way in.)
Lest you think I’ve given too much away, my friends, we’ve
hardly scratched the surface. I haven’t
even mentioned Cicely, the irresistibly sexy quadroon (think young Lisa Bonet)
who brings about Ferrand’s downfall, driven mad with lust; her abandoned
husband, the African-American David, who rose from slavery to the practice of
medicine in the service of Rudolph; the Skeleton, who rules his fellow prisoners with an iron hand; a
disenfranchised noblewoman and her daughter, dying helplessly of hunger in a
garret as the daughter is threatened with assault; or finally the duplicitous
Sarah McGregor, who pursues Rudolph (remember him?) even unto death based on an early prophecy that she would marry into nobility. And just who is this Rudolph, master of
disguise? Is he a lowly clerk, or
something more? Like maybe, say, a German prince? That might explain the Sarah McGregor thing.
It’s a long and raucous ride, with lots of noble actions, regretful
weeping, earnest emotion, hidden love, violence, torture, assault, blinding (for his own
good, really), drownings and near-drownings, partings and reunions. But after all the twists and turns and the
serial cliffhangers, the wicked are punished to the appropriate degree of their
repentance, monetary legacies are established to raise the poor – a few of them
anyway – above the filth and violence of the Paris streets, and father and
daughter are reunited for a happy ending.
Well, not really: Sue sought fit to tack on an epilogue in which, despite
his best efforts, Rudolph simply cannot convince his poor daughter, the
delicate flower who had been debauched in the dark alleys and dim taverns of
Paris, that you can unring a bell, and a fat turd of a downer is dropped on the
final act, but one which might have been oddly satisfying to the weeping
readers of France.
*Entitled The Works of Sue, a misnomer, as The
Mysteries of Paris is the only work represented, and Sue published many
other works, including an equally long novel called The Wandering Jew (1844).
** There is also a Dedalus edition, based, I believe on a different older translation. I don't believe this one is still in print.
