The Thief's Journal | Jean Genet

The Thief's Journal | Jean Genet | Jean Genet at his most coherent

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The Thief's Journal

	The Thief's Journal Jean Genet Grove Press, 1994 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Thief's Journal is perhaps Jean Genet's most authentically autobiographical novel, personifying his quest for spiritual glory through the pursuit of evil. Writing in the intensely lyrical prose style that is his trademark, the man Jean Cocteau dubbed France's "Black Prince of Letters" here reconstructs his early adult years -- time he spent as a petty criminal and vagabond, traveling through Spain and Antwerp, occasionally border hopping across the rest of Europe, always one step ahead of the authorities. "Only a handful of twentieth-century writers, such as Kafka and Proust, have as important, as authoritative, as irrevocable a voice and style." -- Susan Sontag; "One of the strongest and most vital accounts of a life ever set down on paper. . . . Genet has dramatized the story of his own life with a power and vision which take the breath away. The Thief's Journal will undoubtedly establish Genet as one of the most daring literary figures of all time." -- The New York Post

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Revealing

Genet's final novel is perhaps his most personal written document. All his desires are finely crafted here and his book is , as usual, crammed with idols and mystification. What prevents me from calling this his greatest novel is the influence of Sartre. By this point, as Genet's biographrer Edmund White has pointed out, Genet was conciously incorporating the use of Sartre's theories in his work (as Sartre at that time was Genet's friend - and sort of replacement for Jean Cocteau). The novel lacks the inovation of 'Our Lady' - but at the same time it has many more direct personal references to Genet himself.

What makes Genet, for me, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century is the way he embraces fate. He is always so clear in his novels about what is going to happen and the significance of what is going to happen. Thus, his writing always sounds so inevitable and profound - and his characters are like shrines of worship - he creates mythology. This is what makes Genet so refreshing to me - and he is, in my opinion, an equal to authors like Proust, Joyce, and Kafka - a gem of self-concious literature.

The Thiefs Journal is a good place to start with Genet. It is very clear and detailed and he pours the same great poetic prose into it - that he gave books like 'Our Lady' and 'Querelle'.

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Jean Genet at his most coherent

Genet was, without a doubt, one of the master prose stylists of the twentieth century. This "autofiction" memoir, based on the events of his life, follows the author/character Genet on his vagabond trip through 1930's Europe. While all of Genet's narratives are interesting, most do not follow a chronological sequence or have standard narration. This one does, and as such, I think it is the best introduction to his work.

In this "journal," Genet does more than detail the events of his everyday life--he describes the process by which he becomes a poet. In singing the praises of all that society rejects, Genet creates beauty from the abject, and puts all events and experiences on equal ground as inspirations and subjects of art. One of the great meditations on the creative process, and one of the great works of the 20th c.

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Brilliant

Jean Genet's absorbing work of literary autobiography traverses the boundaries of genre with stunning ingenuity and imagination. This work is in some ways similar to Capote's use of the so-called "non-fiction novel," in that it recalls apparently true events through the lens of fiction. This is the reflection of a petty thief, and vagabond. Genet is a young man wandering Europe and immersing himself in a world of crime and depravity. He fuses his homosexuality with nefarious hooliganism to play off of our civilization's utter contempt for effeminate males. Genet blurs the boundary of morality with Nietzschean fury as he revels in his self projected "evil." Perhaps what is most astonishing about 'The Thief's Journal' is the way in which Jean Genet comments on his own commentary with startling frankness and lucidity. In many ways this work established many of the literary mechanics of what is now referred to as "post-modern," though Genet achieves the same level of complexity without sacrificing clarity or beauty in the process.

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An insider's provocative look at the underworld

Both during and after my reading of Jean Genet's semi-autobiographical memoir of life as a criminal (later turned writer), I have been attempting to place its protagonist (aptly named "Jean") onto a psychoanalyst's couch. Here is a fascinating and often times sleezy character who has captured my imagination in a way that most central figures of a novel never have. Jean describes himself as having a very lonely boyhood; when he was not living in foster homes, he was out stealing from people, spending time in juvenile reformatories and prisons. Most of his friends have been individuals that he met while in jail or as collaborators in his crimes. These individuals were often pimps, drug dealers, thieves, and other such low lives.

I believe that the key to Jean's nature, a natural extention of his feelings of utter aloneness, is his desire for the love and approval by the most brutal and in his eyes, most masculine, of these malefactors. His robbing of unsuspecting, more well to do older "queers," as he calls them, who hire him for sex, gains Jean the respect and admiration of some of his friends. Interestingly, Jean is also a homosexual (probably self-hating). Although many of these men become his friends, only a few actually return his love. In Jean's unconventional society betrayal of those you most love is a common principle, and Jean desires to do just that.

_The Thief's Journal_ also has its moments of pathos, especially notable in the episode where Jean and a number of his acquaintances are homeless, in utter squalor, and middle-class tourists visiting their terrain comment on their "charm."

This book is not for every taste, but it is a very enthralling look at a world many of us may read about, but never see close up.

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A world of sins ... beautiful ones

Reading Jean Genet's books always makes me thrilled. He has the power of detailing stories after stories of sins. He also has the magic of transforming sins into beautified actions that everyone should have appreciated instead of detesting. His words are powerful and contain a seductive emotion. He also confess his love for male bodies in this kind of autobiography book. This work is one great masterpiece in my mind.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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