The Mirror of Legends

Lazare (1865–1903) was a fairly major journalist and anarchist; he was also a relatively minor symbolist critic and playwright, and it is this work that Stableford’s capable translation of his 1897 collection brings into English for the first time. The stories in this collection are not linked by character, plot, or setting, but they thematically construct a complex argument about the human need for fantasy and poetry, as well as diving deeply into abstruse theological issues. Most are not notable as works in themselves, though the bizarrerie “The Flowers” has remarkably brutal sexual imagery for its period, but the overall argument is interesting and presented with clarity and grace. Stableford’s attempts at Lazare’s occasional prose poems are not successful as English poetry, but they make perfectly readable English prose. Lazare is almost, but not quite, writing contes philosophiques in the tradition of Voltaire, and it’s hard to say what these stories turn out to be, overall: not quite sermon, not quite adventure, not quite fantasy or even parable. Regardless of classification, they’re surprisingly enjoyable. (Aug.)