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The Comic Romance by Paul Scarron: book review

 


The Comic Romance (1651-57 in French, this edition 2012) is set around Le Mans, in rural France in the 17th century in the time of the plague. 

 

This is about a travelling troupe of actors and their adventures on the road. 

 

It begins with a troupe of actors: a young man with the stage name Destiny, an old man called Grudge, and a woman called Mademoiselle Cave with her daughter Angélique. Mademoiselle Star (Destiny’s sister), Olive, and the ‘grimy and hairy’ fingerpuppet Ragotin join them. 

 

Described as ‘picaresque literature,’ it includes roguish heroes in comic episodes. Their adventures include abduction, crimes, misfortunes, cancelled performances, brawlings (fisticuffs), and revelry, with the most comical episodes dedicated to little Ragotin.

 

It is also the love story between Léandre (Destiny’s personal assistant) and Angélique. The kind of love that begins at the inn. Léandre says, ‘I saw Mademoiselle Angélique and fell in love with her … I did far more. I was bold enough to tell her I loved her, and she didn’t take offence.’

 

It includes chapter sub-headings such as, Chapter V Which Does Not Contain Much, Chapter XI Which Contains What You Shall See if You Bother to Read It, Chapter XIII Longer than the Proceding One, and Part Two Chapter XI One of the Least Entertaining in this Book.

 

There are beautiful descriptive passages about rural scenes, such as: ‘The sun was plumb above our antipodes and only lent his sister enough light to find her way in a very dark night. Silence reigned over the earth, with the exception of those places where crickets, owls, and serenade-givers are found. Yes, everything in nature was asleep, or, at least, was supposed to be asleep, not counting a few poets whose brains were bedeviled by verses difficult to compose …’ 

 

It includes the plays they performed and the plays they composed and the background to the lives in their rural settings. The characters debate the merits of different novels, with one character saying that Spanish author Miguel de Cervante’s 1615 Don Quixote was the ‘silliest book I’ve ever seen.’ This is despite the novel’s theatrical approach with its themes of rich and poor, abandonment and abduction, deformity and identity, fun and farce, ethics and entertainment.

 

This weighty book of comic adventures of the caravan of actors is a delight to read. In the vain of Don Quixote and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, it is unique and influential for its vivid imagery, comic interludes, and turn of phrase. It’s absolutely wonderful!  









 

 

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


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