View source for Disagreeable Tales

{{Short description|Short story collection by Léon Bloy}}
{{Infobox book|
| name          = Disagreeable Tales
| image         = Histoires Désobligeantes title page.png
| border        = yes
| caption       = Title page
| author        = [[Léon Bloy]]
| title_orig    = Histoires désobligeantes
| translator    = Erik Butler
| country       = France
| language      = French
| publisher     = Dentu
| pub_date      = 1894
| english_pub_date = 2015
| pages         = 369
}}
'''''Disagreeable Tales''''' ({{Langx|fr|'''Histoires désobligeantes'''}}) is an 1894 short story collection by the French writer [[Léon Bloy]]. It consists of thirty tales set in Paris, focusing 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.<ref name="Morse" />

The book is dedicated "To my dear friend Eugène Borrel, in devout remembrance of Our Lady of Ephesus, who places us so far away from contemporary garbage."

==Stories==
The English titles listed here are from the [[Wakefield Press (US)|Wakefield Press]] edition.<ref name=":1" /> An edition held by the [[Bibliothèque nationale de France|Bibliothèque nationale]] appears to contain two additional stories, "''L'appel du Gouffre''" and "''L'Ami des Bêtes''", though they are in fact excerpts from Bloy's novel ''[[The Woman Who Was Poor]]''. Both pieces appear in the [[Snuggly Books]] edition.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bloy |first=Léon (1846-1917) Auteur du texte |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k108120c |title=Histoires désobligeantes / Léon Bloy |date=1890–1899 |language=EN}}</ref><ref name=":0" />

Nearly all the stories in ''Histoires désobligeantes'' were originally published in ''[[Gil Blas (periodical)|Gil Blas]]''; the date given after the French title refers to the issue in which the work first appeared.
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
# "Herbal Tea" ("''La Tisane''")
# '''"The Old Man of the House"''' ("''Le Vieux de la Maison,''" 29 July 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1893-07-29 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7524718h |access-date=2023-09-01 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>
# "The Religion of Monsieur Pleur" ("''La Religion de Monsieur Pleur''")
# '''"The Parlor of Tarantulas"''' ("''Le Parloir des Tarentules,''" 12 August 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1893-08-12 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7524732s |access-date=2023-09-11 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>
# '''"Draft for a Funeral Oration"''' ("''Projet d'Oraison funèbre,''" 25 August 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1893-08-25 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7524745d |access-date=2023-09-11 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>
# "The Prisoners of Longjumeau" ("''Les Captifs de Longjumeau''")
# '''"A Lousy Idea"''' ("''Une Idée médiocre,''" 8 September 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1893-09-08 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7524759f |access-date=2023-09-09 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>  Four young men decide to live together, but when one of them marries, the other three continually harangue him for intimate details of his relations with his new wife (whom they also harass), until she is finally driven into the arms of a lover and makes her escape.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brosman |first1=Catharine Savage |title=Nineteenth-century French fiction writers: naturalism and beyond, 1860-1900 |date=1992 |publisher=Gale Research |location=Detroit |isbn=0810376008 |page=20 |url=https://archive.org/details/nineteenthcentur0123unse/mode/2up}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Peacock |first1=Scot |title=Contemporary authors: a bio-bibliographical guide to current writers in fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television, and other fields |date=2000 |publisher=Gale Research |location=Detroit |isbn=0787632430 |page=41 |url=https://archive.org/details/contemporaryauth183peac/}}</ref>
# '''"Two Ghosts"''' ("''Deux Fantômes,''" 15 September 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1893-09-15 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7524766k |access-date=2023-09-11 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>
# '''"A Dentist's Terrible Punishment"''' (''"Terrible Châtiment d'un Dentiste,"'' 22 September 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1893-09-22 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7524773q |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref> A dentist murders a love rival, but after marrying the woman he killed for, he fathers a child with her only to discover that it resembles his victim, and so he strangles the baby.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ivry |first=Benjamin |date=2020-01-08 |title=The Catholic writer who rivalled Dostoyevky |url=https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-catholic-writer-who-rivalled-dostoyevky/ |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=Catholic Herald |language=en-GB}}</ref>
# "The Awakening of Alain Chartier" ("''Le Réveil d'Alain Chartier''")
# '''"The Stroker of Compassion"''' ("''Le frôleur compatissant,''" 6 October 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1893-10-06 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7524787r |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>
# "Monsieur's Past" ("''Le Passé du Monsieur''")
# '''"Whatever You Want!"''' ("''Tout ce que tu voudras!''", 27 October 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1893-10-27 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7524808g |access-date=2023-09-04 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>  Making his way home after a night of pleasure, a man encounters a prostitute who may be his sister.
# '''"Well-Done"''' ("''La dernière cuite''", 3 November 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1893-11-03 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7524815m |access-date=2023-09-04 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref> The son of a retired, well-to-do coffin bleacher ends up accidentally cremating his father before he is dead.
# '''"The End of [[Don Juan]]"''' ("''La Fin de don Juan''") During the reign of [[Louis Philippe]], the handsome Hector de la Tour de Pise sires hideously misshapen children, and in his old age licks the feet of a prostitute.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=The Tarantula's Parlor and Other Unkind Tales - Léon Bloy |url=https://www.snugglybooks.co.uk/the-tarantulas-parlor-and-other-unkind-tales/ |access-date=2023-08-30 |website=Snuggly Books |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Singer |first=Armand E. (Armand Edwards) |url=http://archive.org/details/donjuanthemeanno0000sing |title=The Don Juan theme : an annotated bibliography of versions, analogues, uses, and adaptations |date=1993 |publisher=Morgantown : West Virginia University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-937058-32-9}}</ref>
# "A Martyr" ("''Une Martyre''")
# "Suspicion" ("''Le Soupçon''")
# '''"The Telephone of [[Calypso (nymphs)|Calypso]]"''' ("''Le Téléphone de Calypso,''" 22 December 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1893-12-22 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k75248643 |access-date=2023-09-11 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>
# "A Recruit" ("''Une Recrue''")
# "Botched Sacrilege" ("''Sacrilège raté''")
# '''"It's Gonna Blow!"''' ("''Le Torchon brûle!''" 5 January 1894)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1894-01-05 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k75222452 |access-date=2023-09-11 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref> A discussion about the forgivableness of the human soul degenerates into a confession of murder and arson.<ref name="Morse" />
# "The Silver Lining" ("''La Taie d'argent''")
# "A Well-Fed Man" ("''Un homme bien nourri''")
# "The Lucky Bean" ("''La Fève''")
# "Digestive Aids" ("''Propos digestifs''")
# "The Reading Room" ("''Le Cabinet de lecture''")
# "Nobody's Perfect" ("''On n'est pas parfait''")
# '''"Let's Be Reasonable!"''' ("''Soyons raisonnables,''" 23 February 1893)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1894-02-23 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7522294j |access-date=2023-09-14 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>
# '''"[[Jocasta]] on the Streets"''' ("''Jocaste sur le trottoir,''" 16 March 1894)<ref>{{Cite web |date=1894-03-16 |title=Gil Blas / dir. A. Dumont |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k75223158 |access-date=2023-09-14 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref> 
# "[[Cain]]'s Luckiest Fine" ("''La plus belle Trouvaille de Caïn''")
{{div col end}}

==English translations==
''Histoires Désobligeantes'' has been translated into English twice, first by Erik Butler for Wakefield Press in 2015,<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Disagreeable Tales |url=https://wakefieldpress.com/products/disagreeable-tales |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=Wakefield Press |language=en}}</ref> and then by [[Brian Stableford]], with an introduction and footnotes, as ''The Tarantula's Parlor and Other Unkind Tales'' for Snuggly Books in 2016.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=The Tarantula's Parlor and Other Unkind Tales - Léon Bloy |url=https://www.snugglybooks.co.uk/the-tarantulas-parlor-and-other-unkind-tales/ |access-date=2023-08-30 |website=Snuggly Books |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Reception==
[[Erik Morse]] wrote for ''[[The Paris Review]]'' in 2015, "What distinguishes Bloy's 'tales' from those written by [[Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam|Villiers de L'Isle-Adam]], [[Edgar Allan Poe|Poe]], and [[Comte de Lautréamont|Lautréamont]] is the marked absence of any sensualist or proto-[[Surrealism|surrealist]] tone with its ecstatic invocations of the flesh, like those that characterize [[Romanticism|Romantic literature]] since [[William Blake]]. Rather, Bloy's bilious allusions to excrement ('ordure'), genitalia, rot, disease, and waste descend from a [[Apophatic theology|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."<ref name="Morse">{{Cite web|last=Morse|first=Erik|authorlink=Erik Morse|date=2015-07-14|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/07/14/disagreeable-tales/|title=Léon Bloy's Decadent, Perverse 'Disagreeable Tales'|work=[[The Paris Review]]|accessdate=2015-10-27}}</ref>

''[[Complete Review|The Complete Review]]'' and ''The'' ''Pan Review'' both praise Butler's translation.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Disagreeable Tales - Léon Bloy |url=https://www.complete-review.com/reviews/ancienf/bloyl.htm |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=www.complete-review.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Andresen |first=Mark |date=2015-08-01 |title=THE PAN REVIEW: Disagreeable Tales by Leon Bloy, (Translated by Erik Butler), Wakefield Press |url=https://panreview.blogspot.com/2015/08/disagreeable-tales-by-leon-bloy.html |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=THE PAN REVIEW}}</ref>

==References==
{{Wikisourcelang|fr|Histoires désobligeantes}}
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.geist.com/fact/columns/leon-bloy-reader/ "Léon Bloy and His Monogamous Reader"] by [[Alberto Manguel]] at ''[[Geist (magazine)|Geist]]''

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1894 short story collections]]
[[Category:Christian fiction]]
[[Category:French short story collections]]
[[Category:French-language short story collections]]
[[Category:Short stories set in Paris]]
[[Category:Works by Léon Bloy]]