Interminablement long à force d'être : Histoire du Roi de Bohême et de ses sept châteaux de Charles Nodier

Abstract

Unjustly forgotten today, Charles Nodier's Histoire du Roi de Bohême et de ses sept châteaux is an eccentric book written in the style of Tristram Shandy. However, unlike Laurence Sterne's novel, it is not written in a digressive but fragmentary manner, typical of the Romantic movement that Nodier had sponsored. It is a playful reflection on plagiarism and originality that rests on the dialectic of the long and the short, of the long erudite enumerations and the small chapters and tiny vignettes that sprout throughout the book, although in the end, brevity wins the day. Reflecting Nodier's criticism of the harmful influence of the printing press on the quality of books, his book traces an itinerary in the form of a broken line that resembles a modern game of goose. Injustamente olvidado hoy en día, Histoire du Roi de Bohême et de ses sept châteaux de Charles Nodier es un libro excéntrico escrito al modo de Tristram Shandy. Pero, contrariamente a la novela de Laurence Sterne, no está compuesto siguiendo un modo digresivo, sino fragmentario, propio del movimiento romántico al que Nodier había apadrinado. Se trata de una reflexión lúdica acerca del plagio y la originalidad que descansa sobre la dialéctica de lo extenso y lo breve, de las largas enumeraciones eruditas y los pequeños capítulos y minúsculas viñetas que brotan a lo largo de todo el libro, si bien a la postre gana la partida lo breve. Reflejo de las críticas que Nodier formuló contra la influencia nefasta de la imprenta sobre la calidad de los libros, el suyo traza un itinerario en forma de línea quebrada que lo asemeja a un moderno juego de la oca. Unjustly forgotten today, Charles Nodier's Histoire du Roi de Bohême et de ses sept châteaux is an eccentric book written in the style of Tristram Shandy. However, unlike Laurence Sterne's novel, it is not written in a digressive but fragmentary manner, typical of the Romantic movement that Nodier had sponsored. It is a playful reflection on plagiarism and originality that rests on the dialectic of the long and the short, of the long erudite enumerations and the small chapters and tiny vignettes that sprout throughout the book, although in the end, brevity wins the day. Reflecting Nodier's criticism of the harmful influence of the printing press on the quality of books, his book traces an itinerary in the form of a broken line that resembles a modern game of goose.