The Juggler: Rachilde

by Rachilde

Book Overview

The Juggler (La Jongleuse) is a "decadent" novel that was first published in 1900. Its author, Marguerite Vallette-Eymery (1860-1953), who used the pseudonym Rachilde, was a prolific novelist (over sixty works of fiction), playwright, literary critic and reviewer, and a forceful presence in French literary society of her time. The protagonist of the novel, Eliante Donalger, is in some sense an exaggerated double for her creator--bizarre in...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813516250
• ISBN13: 9780813516257
• Release Date: September 1990
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Another Neglected Masterpiece

"The Juggler" is an unjustly neglected work. Gracefully poised between decadence and dada, it combines the sensuousness, love of the artificial and sexual ambiguity of Huysman with the word play, subversion and dramatic irony of (Rachilde's friend) Alfred Jarry. The story of the relationship between the "juggler" of the title (in fact a well to do widow), Eliante Donalger, and her younger, somewhat callow suitor, the medical student Leon Reille, the novel alternates between their dramatic exchanges and their equally dramatic letters. The gender reversal and strong female character are reminiscent of Rachilde's more famous work, the scandalous "Monsieur Venus," but "The Juggler" is more nuanced, sure footed and mature, while being just as scandalous. It's a sexy book, even though there's nothing explicit in it, mostly through the author's attention to the minutest of sensations and her appreciation of the elastic wonders of the female body. Eliante's defiantly outsider pose and her suggestion of the artificiality of gender itself make reading "The Juggler" a strangely contemporary and immediate experience, and I must admit I savored every word.