In the Land of Pain

by Alphonse Daudet

Book Overview

A "startling [and] splendid" book (The New York Times Book Review) from one of the greatest writers of the nineteenth century on his years of enduring severe illness--a classic in the literary annals... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375414851
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Knopf
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.5" x 0.8" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Morbid Yet Poignant

You can approach this book in two ways, first as a looker and secondly as an insider. For all you malady of the month types, this will certainly satisfy your curiousity and would please any gothic type. For those looking for something deeper, you will find substance in this book. As a person with tardive dystonia, a motor disorder, I can empathize with the pain and muscle spasms that the author of this book describes and how every moment of each day is spent trying to fend them off. People have mentioned that the author's neurosyphillis could now have been treated by medication. But I see something of greater importance. It would be almost a century before people began to think of themselves as "disabled" instead of sick and the shame attached to being in a dysfunctioning body would no longer place you in a seperate category of almost an untouchable, perhaps starting with F.D.R. rehabilitating from polio. In the Land of Pain, vividly depicts the gradual lose of humanity that was part of entering the world of people with disabilities that plagued humanity for centuries. This work is more significant than all the after the fact pseudo-scientific works that want to attribute syphillis to everyone from Napoleon to Beethoven to Hitler. This is a first person account of what it is like to be faced with a disorder that you know will eventually destroy your life. To quote from the book, "I only know one thing, and that is to shout to my children, 'Long live life!' But it is so hard to do, while I am ripped apart by pain."

Schadenrelief is my basic reaction to just about everything

ALPHONSE DAUDET SAID: "My poor carcass is hollowed out, voided by anemia. Pain echoes thru it as a voice echoes in a house without furniture or curtains. There are days, long days, when the only part of me that's alive is my pain." Schadenrelief is a word I coined myself. (Somebody had to.) Schadenrelief is a slightly less sinister version of schadenfreude. Schadenrelief is the selfish relief you feel in reaction to someone else's suffering. It's the relief that's expressed whenever you internally say to yourself those 5 magic words: "I'm glad it wasn't me". ALPHONSE DAUDET SAID: "Very strange, the fear that pain inspires nowadays--or rather, this pain of mine. It's bearable, and yet I cannot bear it. It's sheer dread; and my resort to anaesthetics is like a cry for help, the squeal of a woman before danger actually strikes." Julian Barnes's own stuff suffers from a surfeit of Anglo-Saxon stuffiness. He's pretty much a parody of a stuffy Englishman. So this translation comes as a well-needed boost to Barnes's reputation. I'd be curious to see him translate Cioran's aphorisms and compare them to Richard Howard's translations. ALPHONSE DAUDET SAID: "Pain has a life of its own. The ingenious efforts a disease makes in order to survive. People say: 'Let nature take its course.' But death is as much a part of nature as life. The forces of survival and destruction are at war within us and are equally matched. I've seen impressive examples of the skill with which disease manages to propagate itself. The two TB cases who fell in love: how passionately they clung to one another. You could almost hear the disease saying to itself: 'Now here's a perfect match!' And just imagine the morbidity it would give birth to." Barnes has a mixed opinion of Harold Brodkey's book about Brodkey's illness. So I guess I'll take a look at Brodkey next. It's funny how Daudet doesn't say much about the temptation of suicide. It's too bad they didn't have barbituates in the 1800s. And it's too bad we don't have them now in the 2000s. (Barbituates have been replaced with non-lethal sedatives and it's just a darn shame.) ALPHONSE DAUDET SAID: "You have to die so many times before you die."

"My Anguish Is Great, and I Weep As I Write"

Books about pain can be excruciating to read, and this is one of them. It is fragmentary, brutally honest, and as direct as an uppercut to the jaw.Other works in the same genre include Montaigne's long essay "Of Experience" and Tolstoy's novelette THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH. Somehow we would all like to think that we will escape pain and die softly like a snowflake evaporating in pure air. If we were all Zen masters, we could die like the sages in Yoel Hoffmann's brilliant collection, JAPANESE DEATH POEMS:Inhale, exhaleForward, backLiving, dying:Arrows, let flown each to eachMeet midway and sliceThe void in aimless flight --Thus I return to the source. -- Gesshu Soko (d. 1696)Though not well known to English-speaking readers, Alphone Daudet was considered one of the greatest French novelists of the late 19th century. A full forty years before his death, he contracted syphilis around the age of 17. Around the age of 40, Daudet's illness reached the tertiary stage; and he was bedeviled by a symphony of pain that attacked his various organs, sometimes with brief remissions before new and more awful symptoms appeared. It is ironical that, were he alive today, Daudet would be cured by antibiotics; and Montaigne's kidney stones, possibly by medications, possibly by a routine surgery. British novelist Julian Barnes edited this collection of fragments. It takes only a couple of hours to read, but I guarantee that this book will leave echoes in your mind about the battles you yourself may face as you reach the endgame.

Insightful, poetic view of pain, death and graciousness

Third stage syphilis is an unlikely subject for an enchanting book - but this it is. First, one is impressed by the precision of observation and expression. While the symptoms are shared with other patients, this is always the description of a particular victim of the disease. Second, one is impressed by the ever-changing attitude of Daudet to the progression and feared progression of the diease. Third, one is impressed by Daudet himself in his concern for those around him. The result is an enjoyable, informative introduction to Daudet as a person and as an example of human response to continuous pain.Julian Barnes' translation is excellent - footnotes are provided that identify people, places, medicines that are unfamilar. Two short essays on Daudet and syphlis complete the book.While this book may not appear to be high on the to-be-read-list, it deserves a place near the top.

Riveting Literary Analysis of Chronic Physical Pain

I became interested in this short book because I admired Julian Barnes' earlier work ("Flaubert's Parrot", "A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters") and because of my own pain. I have neuropathy (nerve damage) in my hands, legs, and feet because of diabetes. Although my situation is not as dire as Alphonse Daudet's, I found myself nodding my head over and over at the accuracy of his perceptions. Daudet had ataxia: pain and progressive paralysis due to end-stage syphilis. He was a very popular comic writer in his day (the French late 19th century) but has been mostly forgotten except for this little book, which Barnes translated into English for the first time. Barnes also provides excellent commentary. This book combines lightness and literary weight in perfect proportion. Daudet's weapon in his decade long struggle with his pain were his notebooks, which were filled with precise description and irony. (He finally died at age 57.) This sounds like a recipe for self-absorption, but there is very little ego in this book. Daudet approached his pain almost as a puzzle to be solved, not as an invitation for people to feel sorry for him. Barnes provides descriptions of Daudet's gallant response to his illness. Barnes quotes Philip Larkin: "courage is not frightening the others" and Daudet seems to have believed that as well. He was haunted by the thought of burdening his devoted wife and children, but agrees that his family responsibilities actually help him cope.The effort of writing seems to have been cathartic for Daudet, and the reader is filled with a similar feeling of cheerfulness at having faced things squarely. Daudet had little use for religion: but at one point he admits that most people are not made happy by either good fortune or good health. He sighs, "all we lack is a sense of the divine." He carried on anyway, and this small, grim book may also help you too, in a way more sentimental books can't