Félix Fénéon, Novels in Three Lines

Novels in Three Lines is a fascinating, evocative, and somewhat disturbing collection of newspaper filler written in 1906 by Félix Fénéon. A sample (at random):

"During a pleasure outing in an ill-famed neighborhood of Toulon, Brigadier Hory, of the 3rd Colonial, was stabbed to death." (13)

"Twirling a lasso and yahooing, Kieffer, of Montreuil, committed thrice in two years, galloped away. He vanished. He went on to hang himself." (56)

"Too bad! Mentré of Longwy, who revealed to us he was the winner of the 250,000 francs in the tuberculosis lottery, seems to have been hoaxed."(107)

Well, the last wasn't wholly at random. I scanned the pages trying to find one that did not involve yet another accident (crushed thorax), suicide, or murder.

It is a brutish, violent world that comes across in these "novels" -- but perhaps only proper as Fénéon is compelled to come right to the denoument, the world tied up as it is among and before the three lines.

I did tire of them at times, having to put the book down and rest. Get some space. It was... just too much unhappiness and death, at the hands of others and oneself. But a fascinating way to see a frantic, mad, and bloody world, not unlike our own.

"What?! Children perched on his wall?! With eight rounds M. Olive, property owner in Toulon, forced them to scramble down all bloodied." (60)

Damn, Toulon was rough!