Corbehaut
Corbehaut is a novel by Félix Vallotton , written in 1920 and published posthumously in 1970. The edition, translated into German, followed in 1973 and published by Manesse Verlag .
action
“The novel does not have a plot in the traditional sense. Rather, it consists of a number of highly unusual stories, some of which go far back into the past, which on the other hand, especially as regards the central, dominant story, are eerily linked to the present. "
Pierre Cortal, a Paris law graduate and quite unsuccessful writer, submits a story to the Petit Français , which leads the publisher to offer him a contract for a serialized novel. After the author of the successful penny novel Corbehaut suddenly died, Cortal should continue this lurid horror novel as quickly as possible. To do this, he travels to a little Breton port town, sets up in the local Hotel des voyageurs et de la marine and regularly sends new episodes of the work to Paris. After he has completed the first episode of the medieval novel, he relocates the sequel, which appears under his own name, to the modern era; Corbehaut is now a greedy banker who seeks to tyrannize and destroy the people around him.
On his tours through Prestel-sur-mer, Cortal gradually got to know the local dignitaries, the pharmacist Trégoz and finally Vigile Honoré, who familiarized him with the history of the place and the gruesome secrets of the Lacoubière family. Cortal finally learns that Honoré's father did not commit suicide, but was murdered around 1870, and tries to find out more about it. Gradually, Honoré reveals the family secret to him, until it turns out that he himself shot his father when he assaulted a maid and tried to strangle her.
reception
“Not an 'I' is told”, wrote Rudolf Koella in the epilogue of the German-language edition (1973), “but a young man named Pierre Cortal, who is only briefly characterized by a few lines […] But he only makes up the main character of the narrative. It is not he who experiences the stories this novel is about; they are told to him, and he then carries them on, distorted into the colportage novel . This creates a connection to the framework plot, which in turn relates to these stories. Because how soon does Pierre Cortal have to find out that all the horrors and horrors that he invents for his hit novel 'Corbehaut' are simply eclipsed by actual events. "
expenditure
- Félix Vallotton: Corbehaut . Préface de Gustave Roud. Lausanne, Société de la Feuille d'Avis, 1970.
- Félix Vallotton: Corbehaut . Novel. Translated from the French by Franz Bäschlin. Afterword by Rudolf Koella. Zurich, Manesse, 1973.