The garden of torment

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The Garden of Torment , Fischer Verlag, 1923

The garden of torment or the garden of torture (French original title: Le Jardin des supplices ) is a novel published in 1899 by the French writer Octave Mirbeau . The novel is considered to be one of the main works of decadence poetry . It was assembled from several incoherent older texts by the author.

The book is preceded by the dedication "To the priests, soldiers, judges, the people who educate, guide and rule people, I dedicate these pages, full of murder and blood."

Auguste Rodin, illustration for Le Jardin des supplices (Ambroise Vollard publisher, 1902)

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The first-person narrator, a bon vivant, flees Paris after a failed career as a politician, falls under the spell of the young Englishwoman Clara and follows her to China. Clara turns out to be eccentric, lustful and cruel and introduces him to the “garden of torments”, in which torture is cultivated as an art form, but also a cult around flowers and beauty.

Probably the novel inspired Franz Kafka to write his story In der Strafkolonie .

Quotes

  • “Murder is the real foundation of our social institutions [...] if there were no murder, there would also be no more governments. [...] In this business it is like in any other, the little ones have to pay for the big ones. "

Film adaptations

In 1976 Christian Gion directed the French adaptation of the novel entitled "In the Garden of Torment". The main characters in the film are Roger Van Hool and Jacqueline Kerry .

Web links