Octave Mirbeau’s Fictions of the Transcendental by Robert Ziegler (review)

In The Nothing Machine: The Fiction of Octave Mirbeau (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), Robert Ziegler, a prolific scholar of decadent literature, articulated Mirbeau’s iconoclastic prose as a voracious mechanism that shreds hypocritical belief systems and sets fire to antiquated institutions. Perhaps even more groundbreaking and even more beautifully written than its predecessor, Ziegler’s latest monograph on the revolutionary fin-de-siècle author focuses on the lily that grows from the Nothing Machine’s mulch and the phoenix that rises from its ashes. From revealing the perverted fetishes and anti-Semitic biases of the bourgeoisie in Le Journal d’une femme de chambre (1900), to exposing the predatory nature of a Catholic charity that sexually exploited children in Le Foyer (1908), Mirbeau’s novels, plays, and journalistic commentaries provide a purifying shock to the system. Like the Sanskrit expression ‘neti neti’ (‘not this, not that’), a meditation found in the Hindu scriptures to help one realize Brahman by understanding its opposite, Ziegler portrays Mirbeau’s ‘nothing-writings’ as destroyers of false deities that mask the possibility of transcendence. Exposure to Hindu and Buddhist concepts of Nirvana — its literal meaning being ‘blowing out’ the self — as well as Darwinian and Lamarckian theories of evolution and regeneration, helped alter the belief in life forces as being concretized or permanent. Drawing comparisons with Huysmans, Sand, and Baudelaire, Ziegler illustrates that a reflection on Mirbeau’s shifting concept of the transcendental may enrich our readings of multiple nineteenth-century writers. As scholars typically consider Mirbeau’s anarchism as synonymous with atheism, Ziegler’s detailed focus on the other-worldly elements in the author’s fiction might itself in a certain light be considered blasphemous. Quite unique, yet incredibly lucid in its chronological organization, this book interweaves biographical commentary with literary analysis to portray the author as undergoing four stages of the spiritual path. This unconventional apostle can be seen as the Pardoner, the Seer, the Stranger, and the Brother. Through the course of these chapters, Ziegler illustrates the ways in which Mirbellian transcendence shifts from a Freudian concept of the death drive — which the critic likens to the Buddhist mission of extinguishing desire — to a mystical quest to become one with the greater web of existence. Ziegler argues that Mirbeau’s earlier novels, such as Le Calvaire (1886), contemplated the escape from the sufferings of mankind. In contrast, Dans le ciel (1892–93) is a meditation on the tension between the ineffability of celestial beauty and the expression of art as an organic process. The highlight of Ziegler’s intriguing book is its analysis of La 628-E8 (1907) and Dingo (1913), semi-autobiographical accounts in which a car and a canine are the novels’ heroes, respectively. The focus on the non-human is an opening to a greater understanding of man’s humble place within an infinitely complex universe. Mirbeau’s dog teaches him sensitivity to other living creatures. Ziegler reveals that the author’s car, as a mobile church, allows him to experience the frenzied ecstasy of this journey we call life, with little regard to our final destination.