Nature Stories

The natural world in all its richness, glimpsed variously in the house, the barnyard, and the garden, in ponds and streams, and at large in the woods and the fields, including old friends like the dog, the cat, the cow, and the pig, along with more unusual and sometimes alarming characters such as the weasel, the dragonfly, snakes of several sorts, and even a whale, not to mention ants in their seeming infinitude and a single humble potato - all these and more are the subjects of what may well be the most deft and delightful book of literary miniatures ever written. In Jules Renard's world, plants and animals not only feel but speak (one species, the swallow, appears to write Hebrew), and yet, for all the anthropomorphic wit and whimsy the author indulges in, they guard their mystery too. Sly, funny, and touching, Nature Stories, here beautifully rendered into English by Douglas Parmée and accompanied by the wonderful ink-brush images of Pierre Bonnard with which the book was originally published, is a literary classic of inexhaustible freshness.

Jules Renard’s Nature Stories is a deliciously whimsical classic from the era of  the great French Postimpressionist painters. Renard mingles wonder and humor in a series of miniature portraits of subjects drawn from the natural world: dogs, cats, pigs, roses, snails, trees and birds of all sorts, humans of course, and even a humble potato. Ranging from a sentence to several pages, Renard’s sketches are masterpieces of compression and description, capturing both appearance and behavior through a choice of details that makes the familiar unfamiliar and yet surprisingly true to life. Renard’s animals not only feel but speak, and one species, the swallow, even writes Hebrew. These creatures fascinate Renard, who in turn makes them fascinating to us, instilling us with the sense that everything that has a life and grows in the hand of nature is to be respected, and that every creature and being is as individual as it is interrelated. In Douglas Parmée’s inspired new translation, Renard’s wonderful evocations of the natural world come to life as never before in English.

Publishers Weekly

Parmée's new translation of Renard's classic, late 19th-century stories (accompanied by ink-blot illustrations by Pierre Bonnard) convey the author's inimitable sensibility and his delight in nature's humor and mystery. Ranging from a few words to a few pages in length, each portrait reads like a prose poem and delivers sharp observations and fanciful stories about everything from bats to birds, autumn leaves to the new moon. Renard's five-word evocation of a flea ("An elastic pinch of snuff") and succinct description of a butterfly ("This love-letter, folded in two, is looking for a flowery address") are among the best shorter entries; of the longer, more elaborate entries, "Fish" and "The End of the Shooting Season" tell rich stories of man's changing and complicated relationship with nature. Taken cumulatively, Renard's tender, wry, and surprising tributes remind us of the millions of creatures and characters in our midst. (Nov.)

Jules Renard (1864-1910) was a French author and a member of the Académie Goncourt, most famous for the works Poil de carotte (Carrot Top) and Histoires naturelles (Nature Stories). Among his other works are Le Plaisir de rompre (The Pleasure of Breaking) and Huit jours à la campagne (Eight Days in the Countryside). His Journal was published in the United States in 2008.

Douglas Parmée (1914-2008) was a lifetime fellow of Queens College, Cambridge. He translated works by Flaubert, Zola, Baudelaire, and Chamfort, among others, including the NYRB Classics titles The Child by Jules Vallès and Afloat by Guy de Maupassant.

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was a French painter and printmaker, a founding member of Les Nabis.