Lucien
1910
Gustave Binet-Valmer
Paris : Ollendorf
French
Novel
329pp
Gay Men, Queer Experience
And if I don't want to get well?... If I think that I have the right, given what I know of my self, to be as least unhappy as possible? After all, I belong to myself! ... I'm not sick! [...] I have the right to live, and I intend to live my life!" (tr. Google)
Summary
An artistic, androgynous gay son contrasted with a coddling mother and a stern, distant, and medically-minded father to whom he must rationalize his sexuality to. Eventually he leaves to Italy with another gay man.
More Info
Often noted for Marcel Proust's violent dislike for the book—possibly of a rivalry with Lucien's similarities to Proust's life and his À la recherche du temps perdu.
Also see:
"Proust and ambient medico-literary Homosexualities 1885-1922: Sodome et Gomorrhe n'a rien [...] de commun avec la litterature de l'inversion, que ce soit en 1890, en 1910, ou en 1920" (2012) by Michael Finn
"Lucien de Binet-Valmer (1910)" by Jean-Yves Alt at Culture-et-Debats.
Content & Trigger Warnings
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Editions
Paris : Ollendorf (1910) seen at Le-Livre at AbeBooks.
Paris : Flammarion (1921) seen at Le-Livre at AbeBooks.
Paris : Flammarion (n.d.) seen at The Book of Stories at AbeBooks.