Jules Renard | |
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 | |
| Born | Pierre-Jules Renard 22 February 1864 Châlons-du-Maine, Mayenne, France |
| Died | 22 May 1910 (aged 46) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Author |
| Spouse |
Marie Morneau (m. 1888) |
| French and Francophone literature |
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Pierre-Jules Renard (pronounced [pjɛʁ ʒyl ʁənaʁ]; 22 February 1864 – 22 May 1910) was a French author and member of the Académie Goncourt, most famous for the works Poil de carotte (Carrot Top, 1894) and Les Histoires Naturelles (Nature Stories, 1896). Among his other works are Le Plaisir de rompre (The Pleasure of Breaking, 1898) and the posthumously published Huit Jours à la campagne (A Week in the Country, 1912).
The child of François Renard and Anna-Rose Colin, Renard was born in Châlons-du-Maine, Mayenne where his father was working on the construction of a railroad. Renard grew up in Chitry-les-Mines, (Nièvre). He had three older siblings, including Amélie (born 1858), who died at a young age. A second sister was also named Amélie (born 1859). A third child, Maurice, was born before Pierre-Jules in 1862. Renard's childhood was characterized as difficult and sad (un grand silence roux or "a great ruddy silence"). Although he decided not to attend the prestigious École normale supérieure, love of literature would eventually dominate his life. From 1885 to 86, he served in the military in Bourges.
On 28 April 1888, Renard married Marie Morneau.[1] He and his wife lived at 43 rue du Rocher in the 8th Arrondissement of Paris. He began to frequent literary cafés and to contribute to Parisian newspapers. Among his steady friends were Alfred Capus and Lucien Guitry. Jules Renard wrote poems, short stories, short plays, novels and his famous Poil de carotte. He was elected mayor (maire) of Chitry les mines (58) on 15 May 1904 as the socialist candidate and became a member of the Académie Goncourt in 1907, thanks to Octave Mirbeau. He died of arteriosclerosis in Paris.
Some of Jules Renard's works take their inspiration from the countryside he loved in the Nièvre region.[2] His character portraits are sharp, ironic and sometimes cruel (in his Histoires naturelles he humanizes animals and animalizes men) and he was an active supporter of pacifism and anticlericalism (apparent in La Bigote).[3][4]
His Journal, 1887–1910 (published in 1925) is a masterpiece of introspection, irony, humor and nostalgia, and provides an important glimpse into the literary life.
The English writer Somerset Maugham was influenced to publish his own well-known journals by the example of Renard. In the introduction to his own work A Writer's Notebook, Maugham wrote an apt summary of the virtues of Renard's journal: "The journal is wonderfully good reading. It is extremely amusing. It is witty and subtle and often wise...Jules Renard jotted down neat retorts and clever phrases, epigrams, things seen, the sayings of people and the look of them, descriptions of scenery, effects of sunshine and shadow, everything, in short, that could be of use to him when he sat down to write for publication."[5]
The American novelist Gilbert Sorrentino based his 1994 work Red the Fiend on Renard's Poil de carotte. For a great part, the 2008 memoir Nothing to Be Frightened Of by the English novelist Julian Barnes is a homage to Jules Renard.
Renard is one of several popular philosophers whose quotations appear on the road signs of Project HIMANK in the Ladakh region of northern India. On one such sign in the Nubra Valley, he is quoted as saying, "Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired".
