This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By PIERRE LOTI
With a Preface by ALBERT SOREL, of the French Academy
LOUIS-MARIE-JULIEN VIAUD, "Pierre Loti," was born in Rochefort, of an oldFrench-Protestant family, January 14, 1850. He was connected with the.French Navy from 1867 to 1900, and is now a retired officer with fullcaptain's rank. Although of a most energetic character and a veteran ofvarious campaigns—Japan, Tonkin, Senegal, China (1900)—M. Viaud was sotimid as a young midshipman that his comrades named him "Loti," a smallIndian flower which seems ever discreetly to hide itself. This is,perhaps, a pleasantry, as elsewhere there is a much more romanticexplanation of the word. Suffice it to say that Pierre Loti has beenalways the nom de plume of M. Viaud.
Lod has no immediate literary ancestor and no pupil worthy of the name.He indulges in a dainty pessimism and is most of all an impressionist,not of the vogue of Zola—although he can be, on occasion, as brutallyplain as he—but more in the manner of Victor Hugo, his predecessor, orAlphonse Daudet, his lifelong friend. In Loti's works, however,pessimism is softened to a musical melancholy; the style is direct; thevocabulary exquisite; the moral situations familiar; the characters notcomplex. In short, his place is unique, apart from the normal lines ofnovelistic development.
The vein of Loti is not absolutely new, but is certainly novel. In himit first revealed itself in a receptive sympathy for the rare flood ofexperiences that his naval life brought on him, experiences which had notfallen to the lot of Bernardin de St. Pierre or Chateaubriand, both ofwhom he resembles. But neither of those writers possessed Loti'sdelicate sensitiveness to exotic nature as it is reflected in the foreignmind and heart. Strange but real worlds he has conjured up for us inmost of his works and with means that are, as with all great artists,extremely simple. He may be compared to Kipling and to Stevenson: toKipling, because he has done for the French seaman something that theEnglishman has done for "Tommy Atkins," although their methods are oftenmore opposed than similar; like Stevenson, he has gone searching forromance in the ends of the earth; like Stevenson, too, he has put intoall of his works a style that is never less than dominant and oftenirresistible. Charm, indeed, is the one fine quality that all hiscritics, whether friendly or not, acknowledge, and it is one well able tocover, if need be, a multitude of literary sins.
Pierre Loti was elected a member of the French Academy in 1891,succeeding to the chair of Octave Feuillet. Some of his writings are:'Aziyade,' written in 1879; the scene is laid in Constantinople. Thiswas followed by 'Rarahu,' a Polynesian idyl (1880; again published underthe title Le Mariage de Loti, 1882). 'Roman d'un Spahi (1881) deals withAlgiers. Taton-gaye is a true 'bete-humaine', sunk in moral slumber orquivering with ferocious joys. It is in this book that Loti has eclipsedZola. One of his masterpieces is 'Mon Freye Yves' (ocean and Brittany),together with 'Pecheur d'Islande' (1886); both translated into German byElizabeth, Queen of Roumania (Carmen Sylva). In 1884 was published 'Lestrois Dames de la Kasbah,' relating also to Algiers, and then came'Ma