Resumen de Mirbeau pamphlétaire: de la grimace au sarcasme
Mirbeau is often presented as a writer full of contradictions, characterized by the vehemence of his indignations. The virulence of his attacks can nonetheless be partly affected, like in the satirical newspaper «Les Grimaces», but it lasts throughout his career, regardless of the forms used or the capitalized success. The lampoonist style of Mirbeau nevertheless evolves in its modalities. First defined as the mark of a dissimulation, the “grimace” gradually becomes the emblem of the work operated by the novelist. For Mirbeau, distortion is not an obstacle to truth, but a process used for its revelation, or even the signature of a writer claiming the right to contradict himself. Faithfulness to oneself can not, therefore, rest on a doctrine, nor really go through a discourse. The novel thus offers Mirbeau a form that is no doubt paradoxically more in keeping with his conception of sincerity. Mystification becomes the means of denouncing the impostures of coherence, as well as sarcasm, which literally brings to pieces the fable borne by the narrative.
