Abbe Jules (Empire of the Senses)

Abbe Jules, first published in 1888, is the second part of Octave Mirbeau's autobiographical trilogy and tells the story of a priest's lifelong struggle with his passions. Narrated from the viewpoint of a small boy, it depicts the stifling atmosphere of petit bourgeois, provincial France, where family, education and religion conspire to produce individuals tortured by repressed desire, violent fantasies and forbidden lusts. Innocence is corrupted, pity and pain are inextricably linked in a novel which shows the influence of Naturalism, in its brutally realistic descriptions which echo Zola and Flaubert, side by side with passages of great lyricism and sensuality, as Mirbeau exercises the impressionist skills of Monet and Van Gogh. 'To see Mirbeau at his best one should turn to his second novel Abbe Jules.' Peter Fawcett in The Times Literary Supplement