Page "Octave Mirbeau" Paragraph 9

Mirbeau then underwent a grave existential and literary crisis, yet during this time, he still published in serial form a pre-existentialist novel about the artist ’ s fate, Dans le ciel ( In the Sky ), introducing the figure of a painter directly modeled on Van Gogh, Lucien.

In the aftermath of the Dreyfus Affair-which exacerbated Mirbeau ’ s pessimism-he published two novels judged to be scandalous by self-styled paragons of virtue: Le Jardin des supplices ( Torture Garden ( 1899 ) and Le Journal d ' une femme de chambre ( Diary of a Chambermaid ) ( 1900 ), then Les Vingt et un Jours d ' un neurasthénique ( 1901 ).

In these works, Mirbeau unsettled traditional novelistic conventions, practicing the technique of collage, transgressing the code of verisimilitude and fictional credibility, and defying the hypocritical rules of propriety.