Le Tiers Livre

I suspect that maybe the least-read “classic” among upmarket literati would be François Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel—long, sprawling and so full of pottty talk, can it really be worth the trouble?

I admit I'm still on the fence on that one—I've read it (well—maybe not every word, but big chunks of it). I guess I get the point: this is, surely, a "modern" book, in the sense that it is one of those books that you just can't imagine being written at any time earlier than it was. In this sense, it ranks with Cervantes (also a hard read, but rewarding), Montaigne and, yes, Shakespeare—all a bit later in time, but bearing the same whiff of modernity about them. Perhaps a closer contemporaneous example would be Machiavelli: whatever else you may think of him, his sheer originality is a kind of marvel (I like to think of Ariosto as kind of a transitional figure with one foot in each camp, but that's another story).

One way of judging any writer is by the quality of responses he generates. And here, Rabelais holds up pretty well. In the 20th Century, he generated two of the most remarkable pieces of history/criticism. That would be: Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, which more or less single-handedly reconceptualized the study of the novel; and Lucien Febvre, The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century, one of the defining texts of French annales school.

Citiing Febvre is as useful reminder that the French still seem to cherish a lively attachment to Rabelais. In particular, talk of the “tiers livre”—the “third book” of Gargantua and Pantagruel--remains a staple of French literary discourse. Mentioning the “tiers livre” is a bold declaration on two fronts—one, that the speaker actually recognizes that there is more than one “livre” (there are five, although the fifth is probably a fake);and two, that the speaker has actually read enough to reach the third. It is also, on a more sober note, a claim that this third book is the place where the author really hits his stride, where Rabelais becomes Rabelais.

So far as I know, talk of the “tiers livre”does serve as a carte d'identité anyplace outside the Francophone world. But in French, it is important enough to get its own bound volume—Le Tiers Livre, an annotated Gallimard paperback published in 1966, with a preface by—who else?--Lucien Febvre.

Alors, jouir de ses dons et en faire usage pour recréer un monde purgé des sots, des cafarads, de meurtriers d'intelligence et du caractère: … Son oeuvre parle! Son oeuvre, l'oeuvre d'un homme qui veut servir. Faire rire, sans doute, c'est le propre de l'jomme. Mais Rabelais s'enmgage, or, ne saurait s'y méprendre. Il s'engage pour servir un idéal—celui de la génération qu'il incarne, dans le pays qu'il aime: une sagesse selon son coeur, engendrant un bonheur selon ses goûts.

Then, enjoy his gifts and use them to recreate the world purged of silly things, tattletales, murderers of intelligence and character: … His work speaks! His work, the work of a man who wants to serve. To make laugh, probably; laughter is part of humankind. But Rabelais engages himself, and would not know how to be wrong at his task. He engages himself to serve an ideal — that of the generation which he represents, in the country which he loves: a wisdom that comes from the heart, engendering a happiness according to its tastes.

That's LeFebvre, in his introduction to the Gallimard edition of Le Tiers Livre. Translation is my own, so try not to giggle.