The Goncourt Brothers

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29366, 19 November 1960, Page 3

The Goncourt Brothers

The Goncourt Brothers. By Andre Billy. Deutsch. 338 pp. Index.

Margaret Shaw’s translation of the latest biography of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt will be welcomed by discerning readers. The collaboration of these brothers produced a series of novels and of miscellaneous works that have something unique about them. Their popularity has fluctuated. Outside France “Renee Mauperin” was once widely read. Nowadays “La Fille Elisa,” which has recently been reprinted, is probably better known. The realism of their novels startled readers 100 years ago; but realism tended to be obscured by their artistic preoccupations. “Manette Salamon,” for instance, one of the last oftheir joint productions is a good example of this. This tale of life in Parisian studios is almost tragic; but the effect is blurred by the Studied elaboration of the writers’ prose. As Edmond wrote later, “Always, always, the novelist must write with an eye to those who have the most refined and subtle appreciation of French prose, and always he will try to put into what he writes that indefinable something, exquisite and fascinating, which the most intelligent translation can never convey in another tongue.” The Goncourts had a second reputation as collectors and connoisseurs, who did much to create the nineteenth century vogue for oriental art —Chinese porcelain, laqueur, jade and Japanese colour prints. Andre Billy devotes a chapter to the cult of Japan. Another of theit preoccupations was the life and art of eighteenth century France. In the ’eighties it was common knowledge that the Goncourts had collaborated in keeping a journal, which Edmond had continued after his brother’s untimely death in 1870. “In my Journal,” Jules wrote, “I have tried to collect all the interesting things that are lost in conversation.” They set down all manner of artistic discriptions: “but anecdotes and the trend of manners interested them no less; they liked these to be hideously foul and gloomy, sharing the taste of writers of their day for the horrible, repulsive and atrocious side of human nature and of society.” Naturally It was understood that some parts of the Journal could not be published for many years; but the volumes that did appear caused consternation in literary and artistic circles. The firm of Nelson published in English an innocuous abridgment of the Journal some fifty years ago. Mr Billy points out that the Goncourts were men of letters in a sense that no-one else has ever been or will ever be again. Their passion for literature and the arts “welded them together in unalterable affection for each other.” He concludes. “If their art had not beer their exclusive preoccupation, if loye and politics had created a division in their hearts, their extraordinary sense of identity would have been destroyed; this fraternal couple to whom no period in literature presents a parallel, would have ceased to exist