“[L]e divorce terrible entre le cœur et la chair:” Joseph Kessel’s Belle de Jour (1928)

Abstract

The publication in 2020 of Joseph Kessel’s writings in Gallimard’s distinguished Pléiade series prompted Gaby Levin to publish an article titled “France Rediscovers Joseph Kessel, the Jewish Writer of Belle de Jour.” It is curious that out of all of Kessel’s many publications Levin should single out Belle de Jour given that it has garnered virtually no scholarly attention, in contrast to Luis Buñuel’s 1967 film adaptation starring Catherine Deneuve. The novel tells the story of Séverine Sérizy, a wealthy young married woman who, in sync with her husband emotionally and intellectually but not sexually, takes up afternoon work as a prostitute. In the preface, Kessel explains, in reaction to accusations of “licence inutile, voire de pornographie,” that his intent was simply to “montrer le divorce terrible entre le cœur et la chair, entre un vrai, immense et tendre amour et l’exigence implacable des sens.” This study focuses at the micro-textual level on how Kessel works out his promised chair/cœur binary, one which not only figures into, but structures, a text that by all appearances follows the blueprint for a classic roman de formation, a generic classification that Kessel ultimately problematizes.