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Madame Chrysantheme

Pierre Loti

269 ratings
Madame Chrysantheme | Pierre Loti

Madame Chrysantheme

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Pierre Loti was for many years an officer in the French Navy, giving him the opportunity to sample and analyze different national and cultural milieux, in which he deeply immersed himself. The present book, said to have formed the basis for the famous "Madame Butterfly" story, is presented as an autobiographical account of his marriage to a young Japanese woman while his ship was stationed in Nagasaki. His style is surprisingly modern for the period, perhaps anticipating Camus. His descriptions of summer in Nagasaki have a detail which is at the same time personal and detached, while his observations of the people are less than sympathetic. A sense of ennui and lack of conventional morality pervades.
aigrette of silver flowers, the ebony coiffure, the gray silk robe and mauve sash of Mademoiselle Jasmin, my fiancee!

Heavens! why, I know her already! Long before setting foot in Japan, I had met her, on every fan, on every teacup with her silly air, her puffy little face, her tiny eyes, mere gimlet-holes above those expanses of impossible pink and white cheeks.

She is young, that is all I can say in her favor; she is even so young that I should almost scruple to accept her. The wish to laugh leaves me suddenly, and instead, a profound chill seizes my heart. What! share even an hour of my life with that little doll? Never!

The next question is, how to get rid of her.

She advances smiling, with an air of repressed triumph, and behind her looms M. Kangourou, in his suit of gray tweed. Fresh salutes, and behold her on all fours, she too, before my landlady and before my neighbors. Yves, the big Yves, who is not about to be married, stands behind me, with a comical grimace, hardly repressing his laughter—while to give myself time to collect my ideas, I offer tea in little cups, little spittoons, and embers to the company.

Nevertheless, my discomfited air does not escape my visitors. M. Kangourou anxiously inquires:

"How do you like her?" And I reply in a low voice, but with great resolution:

"Not at all! I won't have that one. Never!"

I believe that this remark was almost understood in the circle around me. Consternation was depicted on every face, jaws dropped, and pipes went out. And now I address my reproaches to Kangourou: "Why have you brought her to me in such pomp, before friends and neighbors of both sexes, instead of showing her to me discreetly, as if by chance, as I had wished? What an affront you will compel me now to put upon all these polite persons!"

The old ladies (the mamma, no doubt, and aunts), prick up their ears, a

Yves 10/05/2023
Sexist, racist, shamelessly condescending. You feel the need to slap the author in the face at almost every page. It certainly does not give a good image of the colonialist French marine of the time.

One would say "these were different times" but no this is close mindedness at its peak (if there has
Stephen 05/16/2022
Loti's account of his short marriage to a Japanese woman in Nagasaki became the source of the opera "Madame Butterfly," but expect no great romance in this book. Loti finds his wife quaint and nicely decorative, especially when she is asleep, but he is happier without her. Nevertheless, the descript
Philippe 02/25/2014
Loti is the prototype of the writer traveller. He finished his life in Charentes in France. His house is a model of kitsch exoticism. His novels distil an erotism like the Pompier art which excited the frustrated people of this time. I decided to read this book after having seen Mrs Buterfly in Bob
Persephone 11/28/2012
None of my friends have read this? How extraordinary! This book was part of the inspiration for Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly," however, Madame Chrysantheme doesn't commit suicide at the end. The book begins with an officer's fervent desire to get off the merchant boat he's working on, and head
Jim 04/26/2012
Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysantheme is an unusual combination of a beautifully written work and a moral callousness that defies description. It is the tale of a French sailor on extended leave in Nagasaki, Japan, who arranges for a "temporary wife" with whom to bide his time until his ship sets sail a
Javier 12/16/2008
Nagasaki 1945.... there are forebodings on every nook. Amazing...

Finished 12/14/08

I feel as though I want to write a full commentary book about this book. I first hated Loti and the way he carried himself when he first arrived in Japan, I haven't seen this air of smugness on previous books of his. T

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