Hervé Bazin

Hervé Bazin (actually Jean-Pierre Hervé-Bazin ; born April 7, 1911 in Angers ; † February 17, 1996 there ) was a French writer .

life and work

Bazin had a difficult childhood in a pious bourgeois family and defied his authoritarian mother. He fled home several times during his youth, rebelled against the Catholic upbringing and broke ties with his family at the age of 20. At first he did various small occupations and wrote poetry. In 1946 he founded the poetry magazine La Coquille and in 1947 received the Prix ​​Guillaume Apollinaire for his first collection of poems Jour , which was followed by the collection of poems A la poursuite d'Iris .

On the advice of Paul Valéry, he turned away from poetry and wrote prose.

In 1948 he dealt with the conflicts he had with his mother during his childhood in his best-known novel Vipère au poing , in which he tells the hateful relationship between a harsh and cruel mother and her children. Bazin had a sensational success with this autobiographical novel. The book was filmed for television in 1971 and for cinema in 2004 and is now one of the classics of French post-war literature.

Vipère au poing is the first part of the Les Rezeau trilogy (Rezeau family). The following two volumes, La mort du petit cheval (1950, The tablecloth is cut up) and Cri de la chouette (1970, The owl is calling), deal with Jean's attempt to defy her paternal inheritance and independence from the stingy and stubborn mother who continues to be portrayed as a malicious opponent.

In terms of both its subject matter and its spelling, Bazin ties in with the older family novel of the late 19th century. As in this traditional French social novel, the main focus is on the meticulous documentation of everyday French worlds and the moral criticism of the mentalities in them.

In 1960 Bazin became a member of the Académie Goncourt , of which he became president in 1973.

Politically, he belonged to the Mouvement de la Paix (peace movement), which was close to the Communist Party, to which Bazin also felt connected. In 1980 he received the Lenin Prize .

Bazin is the great-nephew of the Académicien René Bazin .

Alternative French spelling

In his 1966 essay Plumons l'oiseau - Divertissement (Let's pluck the bird - Conversation), Bazin uses l'ortografiǝ lojikǝ (Logical Spelling), an essentially phonematic orthography for the French language . He also suggests six new punctuation marks ("points d'intonation"):

• 

  Point d'amour
  (love)

• 

  Point de conviction
  (conviction)

• 

  Point d'autorité
  (authority)

• 

  Point d'ironie
  (irony, see also: signs of irony )

• 

  Point d'acclamation
  (consent)

• 

  Point de doute
  (doubt)

Example:

Classic spelling	ortografiǝ lojikǝ
J'aime, dit l'amant, Je parle, dit le député, J'enseigne, dit le professeur, Je régne, dit le roi, Je crois, dit le moine, Je pense, dit le philosophe, Je trouve, dit le savant ...	J'èmǝ  di l'amã, Je parlǝ, di le député, J'ãsèñǝ, di le profèsœr, Je réñǝ  di le rw͐a, Je krw͐a  di le mw͐anǝ, Je pãsǝ, di le filozofǝ, Je trwvǝ, di le savã ...

Works (selection)

Lyric:

• Jour , 1946
• A la poursuite d'Iris , 1948
• Bestiaire , 1953
• Humeurs , 1953

Novels, short stories:

• Les Rézeau

- Vipère au Poing , 1948 (Viper in a stranglehold)

- La Mort du petit cheval , 1950 (the tablecloth is cut up)

- Le Cri de la chouette , 1970 (The owl calls)

• La Tête contre les murs , 1949 (With your head against the wall)
• Le Bureau des Mariages , 1951 (The marriage office)
• Lève toi et marche , 1952 (get up and go)
• Qui j'ose aimer , 1956 ( whom I dare to love)
• Au nom du fils , 1960 (My son)
• Chapeau bas , 1963
• Les Bienheureux de la désolation , 1970 (happiness on the volcano)
• Madame Ex , 1975 (Madame X)
• Le demon de minuit , 1988
• Le Neuvième Jour , 1994

Essays:

• La Fin des asiles , 1959
• Ce que je crois , 1977

Web links

• Literature by and about Hervé Bazin in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica on Hervé Bazin
2. ↑ Vipère au poing at @ lalettre.com
3. ↑ Hervé Bazin: Plumons l'oiseau . Editions Bernard Grasset, Paris 1966, et al. P. 142.
4. ↑ Hervé Bazin: Plumons l'oiseau . Editions Bernard Grasset, Paris 1966, p. 192/190.