Disagreeable Tales

Disagreeable Tales (French: Histoires désobligeantes) is an 1894 short story collection by the French writer Léon Bloy. It consists of 30 tales set in Paris, focused on criminality, perversions, and other subject matters typical of the decadent movement. The common theme is the faith in God in a time of human spiritual crisis.[1] An English translation by Erik Butler was published in 2015 by Wakefield Press.[2]

Disagreeable Tales
Title page
AuthorLéon Bloy
Original titleHistoires désobligeantes
TranslatorErik Butler
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
PublisherDentu
Publication date
1894
Published in English
2015
Pages369

Stories
  1. Herbal Tea
  2. The Old Man of the House
  3. The Religion of Monsieur Pleur
  4. The Parlor of Tarantulas
  5. Draft for a Funeral Oration
  6. The Prisoners of Longjumeau
  7. A Lousy Idea
  8. Two Ghosts
  9. A Dentist's Terrible Punishment
  10. The Awakening of Alain Chartier
  11. The Stroker of Compassion
  12. Monsieur's Past
  13. Whatever You Want!
  14. Well-Done
  15. The End of Don Juan
  16. A Martyr
  17. Suspicion
  18. The Telephone of Calypso
  19. A Recruit
  20. Botched Sacrilege
  21. It's Gonna Blow!
  22. The Silver Lining
  23. A Well-Fed Man
  24. The Lucky Bean
  25. Digestive Aids
  26. The Reading Room
  27. Nobody's Perfect
  28. Let's Be Reasonable!
  29. Jocasta on the Streets
  30. Cain's Luckiest Fine

Reception

Erik Morse wrote for The Paris Review in 2015, "What distinguishes Bloy's 'tales' from those written by Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Poe, and Lautréamont is the marked absence of any sensualist or proto-surrealist tone with its ecstatic invocations of the flesh, like those that characterize Romantic literature since William Blake. Rather, Bloy's bilious allusions to excrement ('ordure'), genitalia, rot, disease, and waste descend from a negative theology, which extols a mystical, self-mortification[.] ... For Bloy, all physical pleasures are diversion or, worst yet, satanic temptation, so it is only through intense suffering and punishment that his characters can expiate their sins."[1]

References
  1. Morse, Erik (2015-07-14). "Léon Bloy's Decadent, Perverse 'Disagreeable Tales'". The Paris Review. Retrieved 2015-10-27.
  2. "Disagreeable tales". WorldCat. Retrieved 2015-10-27.
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