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THE MAN OF SENSIBILITY by Jean Dutourd

THE MAN OF SENSIBILITY

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Pub Date: April 10th, 1961
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

This little book is a labor of love. Dutourd's intention (he is best known for his piquant I Dog's Head) is to communicate the spirit of Stendhal- ""this wonderful man, to admire the landscape and sometimes point out some detail"". The framework used is an essay on Stendhal written by Prosper Merimee, who though twenty years younger, was a close friend and admirer. Dutourd heads each chapter with one or two paragraphs quoted from Merimee's essay, and then proceeds to comment on them in a more leisurely way. The whole work is eulogistic. And to a certain extent Dutourd, who served a hard tour of duty in World War II, having been captured and then escaping the Germans, equates his experience as well as his detached point of view with Stendhal's Dutourd is a very good writer and if this is not his best work, it has the greatest warmth of any to date. It offers a testimonial from one man of letters to a greater one.