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If you follow us on Twitter, you might notice that we couldn't help posting bits from Jules Renard's charming and inventive collection of observations of the natural world, Histoires Naturelles or Nature Stories. They were just too delightful not to share. Where writers often seek to make the world strange in order to enable us to experience it afresh, Renard's gift is to domesticate the by-definition inhuman. His patently false imaginings of animals' inner lives paradoxically grant them their own realities—realities that Renard's writings help us to understand that we can never understand. And beyond that, they will make you gasp with the wonder of this gifted and too-little-known writer's wholely fresh way of putting into words everything he observes.

To celebrate the book's official on-sale date, we can finally let you in on some longer excerpts, accompanied by the illustrations that Pierre Bonnard drew for the 1904 edition of the book.

And if, like us, you aren't satisfied with just one book by Jules Renard, then you must run out and buy the selection of his Journals translated by Louise Bogan and Elizabeth Roget and published by Tin House Books.

 

From "Frogs"

    They’re suddenly relaxing their springs. That’s how they take exercise.
    They’re leaping out of the grass like heavy drops of frying oil.
    They pose, like bronze paperweights, on large water lilies.
    One of them is soaking in air. Through his mouth, you could drop a coin into the money box of his stomach.
    They rise like sighs, out of the mud.
    Motionless, with their large eyes level with the water, they seem like growths on the flat pond.
    Squatting like tailors, they’re yawning, stupefied at the setting sun.
    Then, like street vendors deafening people as they yell, they croak the latest news items of the day.
    They’re giving a party this evening, at home. Can’t you hear them polishing the glasses?
    Sometimes, they snap up an insect.
    Others are only interested in love.

"The Stag"

      I went into the wood at one end of the avenue as he was coming in at the other.
    At first I thought a stranger had just come in, wearing a plant on top of his head.
    Then I could see the little dwarf tree spreading out its leafless branches.
    Finally the stag came plainly into sight, and we both came to a halt.
    “Don’t be afraid, come closer,” I said. “I’m carrying a gun, but it�

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Here is a charming bit of verse, found in the beginning of Yasushi Inoue's Tun-huang. The poem helps give us a feel for the ethos of the Song dynasty (the setting of this historical novel), in which erudition was highly valued. Of course, the hero of Tun-huang sleeps through the test he is meant to take, diverting his life-plan along a path of adventure, heroism, and literary stewardship. What's more, the bibliomania of the poem's author, Emperor Chen Tsung, apparently caused the downfall of his dynasty. According to one source: "By 1020 the emperor was insane and his power had passed to eunuchs." 

No need to acquire rich lands to increase the family's wealth,
For in books are a thousand measures of millet.
No need to build mansions in which to dwell in peace,
For in books are abodes of gold.
Complain not that you have no attendants when you leave         your home,
For in books are horses in numbers beyond reckoning.
No need to lament the dearth of fair maidens when you marry,
For in books are maidens with countenances of jade.
You who would realize your aspirations,
Use the light from your window to recite the     Six Classics.

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In honor of the 4th annual celebration of Pollinator Week, we bring you an excerpt from Ernst Jünger's prescient novel, The Glass Bees. In this section, the book's narrator, called to a job interview at the house of industrialist/entertainer Zapparoni (imagine Walt Disney with a sideline in weapons of mass destruction), notices an odd buzz in the air.

(Jünger, by the way, fought during World War I, and died only in 1998—he saw some action during the Second World War as well, and a little later, in hanging out with Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD.)

The bees seemed to have finished their siesta; the air was filled with their humming. They were searching for food in the meadow, sweeping in clouds over the foaming flood of whiteness which stood high over the grass, or dipping into its colorful depth. They hung in clusters on the white jasmine which bordered the path; and out of the blossoming maple beside the pavilion their swarming sounded as if it came from the interior of some huge bell which reverberates for a long time after its midday peal. There was no lack of blossoms; it was one of those years when beekeepers say that “the fenceposts give honey.”

And yet there was something strange in these peaceful activities.... As I sat there, watching the swarms, I sometimes saw creatures flying past which seemed to differ in an odd way from the usual types. I can rely on my eyesight: I have tested it—and not only when hunting game birds. Now, it wasn’t difficult for me to follow one of these creatures until it descended upon a flower. Then I saw, with the help of my field glasses, that I had not been deceived.

Although, as I said before, I know only a few insects, I at once had the impression of something undreamed-of, something extremely bizarre—the impression, let us say, of an insect from the moon. A demiurge from a distant realm, who had once heard of bees, might have created it.

I had plenty of time to examine this creature, and similar ones were now arriving from all directions like workmen at the gate of a factory when a siren blows. At first I was struck by the large size of these bees. Although they were not as big as those which Gulliver met in Brobdingnag—he defended himself against them with his little sword—they were considerably larger than a normal bee or even a hornet. They were about the size of a walnut still encased in its green shell. The wings were not movable like the wings of birds or insects, but were arranged around their bodies in a rigid band, and acted as stabilizing and supporting surfaces.

Their large size was less striking than one might think, since they were completely transparent. Indeed, my idea of them was derived mainly from the glitter of their movements as seen in the sunlight. When the creature I now watched hovered before the blossom of a convolvulus whose calyx it tapped with a tongue shaped like a glass probe, it was almost invisible.

This sight fascinated me to such a degree that I forgot time and place. We are gripped by a similar astonishment when we see a machine which reveals a ne

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Yuri Olesha's Envy, the funniest novel you'll ever read about the quest for the perfect means of mass producing sausage, has as its dramatic center a soccer match between the USSR and Germany. In the passage below, Volodya is the shlub of a narrator's rival, and Goetske is the flamboyant star of the opposing team. The playing styles of the two men are contrasted, each, perhaps, reflecting the spirit of his home country.

Volodya would catch the ball in midflight, when it seemed mathematically impossible. The entire audience, the entire living slope of the stands seemed to get steeper; each spectator was halfway to his feet, impelled by a terrible, impatient desire to see, at last, the most interesting thing—the scoring of a goal. The referees were sticking whistles into their lips as they walked, ready to whistle for a goal...Volodya wasn’t catching the ball, he was ripping it from its line of flight, like someone who has violated the laws of physics and was hit by the stunning action of thwarted forces. He would fly up with the ball, spinning around, literally screwing himself up on it. He would grab the ball with his entire body—knees, belly, and chin—throwing his weight at the speed of the ball, the way someone throws a rag down to put out a flame. The usurped speed of the ball would throw Volodya two meters to the side, and he would fall like a firecracker. The opposing forwards would run at him, but ultimately the ball would end up high above the fray.
    Volodya stayed inside the goal. He couldn’t just stand there, though. He walked the line of the goal from post to post, trying to tamp down the surge of energy from his battle with the ball. Everything was roaring inside him. He swung his arms, shook himself, kicked up a clump of earth with his toe. Elegant before the start of the game, he now consisted of rags, a black body, and the leather of his huge, fingerless gloves. The breaks didn’t last long. Once again the Germans’ attack would roll toward Moscow’s goal. Volodya passionately desired victory for his team and worried about each of his players. He thought that only he knew how you should play against Goetske, what his weak points were, how to defend against his attacks. He was also interested in what opinion the famous German was forming about the Soviet game. When he himself clapped and shouted “hurray” to each of his backs, he felt like shouting to Goetske then: “Look how we’re playing! Do you think we’re playing well?”
    As a soccer player, Volodya was Goetske’s exact opposite. Volodya was a professional athlete; the other was a professional player. What was important to Volodya was the overall progress of the game, the overall victory, the outcome; Goetske was anxious merely to demonstrate his art. He was an old hand who was not there to support the team’s honor; he treasured only his own success; he was not a permanent member of any sports organization because he had compromised himself by moving from club to club for money. He was barred from participating in play-off matches. He was invited only for friendly games, exhibition games, and trips to other countries. He combined art and luck. His presence made a team dangerous. He despised the other players—both his side and his opponents. He knew he could kick a goal against any team. The rest didn’t matter to him. He was a hack.

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The other day, a kindly reader wrote in to make sure we were doing ok, mentally:

Dear Friends at NYRB,
 
Thank you for your update on novels about madness, isolation, troubled minds, dark companions, the dead of winter, and brutal Soviet camps.

You folks need to cheer up.

Well, reader, we hear you. And just to show you that we've got other modes besides doom and gloom, we're going to hit you with some lovey-dovey stuff, in honor of Valentine's day (and Valentine Ackland). This excerpt, from Sylvia Townsend Warner's thrilling Summer Will Show, has to be one of the more romantic and even life-affirming things we've published. And STW manages to get a little critique of capital in there as well. Enjoy!

Her happiness, blossoming in her so late and so defiantly, seemed of an immortal kind. One day, looking over a second-hand bookstall with Minna, she opened a snuffy volume that had English poems in it. Her eye fell on the verse:

My love is of a birth as rare
As ’tis of object strange and high,
It was begotten by despair
Upon impossibility.

“Look,” she said, pointing on the withered page.

Minna began to glance about for the vendor.

“No. Let me look at the other poems. It is silly to buy a book just for the sake of a verse which one can learn by heart.” It seemed to her that the other poems were wilfully annoying, and she would have put down the book, but Minna clung to it, absorbed, her lips fumbling at the English syllables.

“Un objet bizarre et élevé. Sophia, I must buy this book. I feel an obligation towards it. Besides, it will improve my English.”

To please her Sophia spent some time beating down the bookstall man.

Whatever it did for Minna’s English, Sophia did not open the book again; but that one verse, rapidly memorised, stayed in her head, and seemed in some way to sum up the quality of her improbable happiness, just as Minna’s absurd bizarre et élevé hit off the odd mixture of nobility and extravagance which was the core of the Minna she loved.

Minna was not beautiful, nor young. Her principles were so inconsistent that to all intents and purposes she had no principles at all. Her character was a character of extremes: magnanimous and unscrupulous, fickle, ardent, and interfering. Her speaking voice was exquisite and her talent of words exquisitely cultivated, but she frequently talked great nonsense. Similarly, her wits were sharp and her artfulness consummate, and for all that she was maddeningly gullible. She offered nothing that Sophia had been brought up to consider as love-worthy or estimable, for what good qualities she had must be accepted with their opposites, in an inconsequential pell-mell of wheat and tares.

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Today's excerpts from Henry David Thoreau's Journal are in posthumous dialogue with The New York Times. The first dates from exactly 149 years ago and itself was written around the one-year anniversary of John Brown's execution. As these editorials from earlier in the week show, we haven't finished arguing about the raid on Harper's Ferry. The second excerpt came to mind after reading the Urban Forager's recipe for acorn-flour bread. In these two passages, we see the diversity of subject in Thoreau's daily log, but also how, in each case, he draws from the particular moment (a debate, a discovery) a lesson for about life and its proper conduct.

Dec. 3 [1860]. Talking with Walcott and Staples to-day, they declared that John Brown did wrong. When I said that I thought he was right, they agreed in asserting that he did wrong because he threw his life away, and that no man had a right to undertake anything which he knew would cost him his life. I inquired if Christ did not foresee that he would be crucified if he preached such doctrines as he did, but they both, though as if it was their only escape, asserted that they did not believe that he did. Upon which a third party threw in, "You do not think that he had so much foresight as Brown." Of course, they as good as said that, if Christ had foreseen that he would be crucified, he would have "backed out." Such are the principles and the logic of the mass of men. It is to be remembered that by good deeds or words you encourage yourself, who always have need to witness or hear them.

Oct.8 [1851]. By the side of J.P. Brown’s grain-field I picked up some white oak acorns in the path by the wood-side, which I found to be unexpectedly sweet and palatable, the bitterness being scarcely perceptible. To my taste they are quite as good as chestnuts. No wonder the first men lived on acorns. Such as these are no mean food, such as they are represented to be. Their sweetness is like the sweetness of bread, and to have discovered this palatableness in this neglected nut, the whole world is to me the sweeter for it. To find that acorns are edible,—it is a greater addition to one’s stock of life than would be imagined. I should be at least equally pleased if I were to find that the grass tasted sweet and nutritious. It increases the number of my friends; it diminishes the number of my foes. How easily at this season I could feed myself in the woods!

More excerpts from the Journal:
June 10th, 1857
June 15th, 1852
August 11th, 1858
Oct. 22, 1837

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