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The Aspirations of Jean Servien

Anatole France

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .luck up courage to follow their example.

She recalled to mind how a hypnotist had once helped a friend of hers to recover some stolen forks and spoons. She had even gone so far as to consult a fortune-teller shortly before Edgar's birth, and the cards had foretold a boy.

All three were tired out and overloaded with crockery, glass, reed-pipes, sticks of sugar-candy, cakes of ginger-bread and macaroons. For all that, they paid a visit to the wax-works, where they saw Monseigneur Sibour's body lying in state at the Archbishop's Palace, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, models of people's legs and arms disfigured by various hideous diseases, and a Circassian maiden stepping out of the bath—"the purest type of female beauty," as a placard duly informed the public. Madame Ewans examined this last exhibit with a curiosity that very soon became critical.

"People may say what they please," she muttered; "if you offered me. . . Read More

Community Reviews

I thought this was beautifully done, the characters so real and so human, it's a slight story but no worse for that. A real gem.

This is the story of Jean Servien whose mother tragically dies when he is still a baby. Before she died she made her husband, a bookbinder, promise to provide Jean an education so that he might become more than his lowly beginnings dictated. So the bookbinder struggled mightily working long hours to

Una novela corta, de esas que se podrían considerar de crecimiento pues nos relata la vida del joven Jean Servien, hijo de un bibliotecario empobrecido. Cuando era un niño la madre de Jean murió a causa de un accidente y su padre lo crió solo haciendo sacrificios para que tuviera la mejor educación

Though it's hard to imagine now, given how his reputation seems to have faded, Anatole France was once ranked among the giants of early 20th century literature. He is also generally considered to have inspired the characterisation of Bergotte, Marcel's literary idol in Proust's 'In Search of Lost Ti