Title : Brûlebois - Marcel Aymé - book
Summary :
For what is said to be the nobility of the human species, I would see it better appear as a sign of the honest concern for some true perfection for which nature has constructed each one." Thus, according to the master, human nature is never so deprived that it does not find in itself some honest passion by which it can claim a particular perfection. It remains to distinguish between honest passions and bad passions. Many of these have not deserved their reputation, but none has suffered from the rigors of opinion more unjustly than the passion for wine. The moralists, with incredible levity, on purely external appearances, such as a bulging nose, a dilated stomach, delirium tremens, agree to condemn the abuse of strong drinks and, limited to immediate conclusions, preach in ignorance of the sensible paths, haunted by sun and dreams, and inhuman geometries, which lead from cause to the effect. This is why Marcel Aymé undertakes to restore to us in nobility and beauty the magnificent ambition to drink to one's thirst. Brûlebois, the tender alcoholic he tells us about, pursues in full awareness of "the true perfection for which nature built him", and even to the point of martyrdom, his extraordinary vocation as a drunkard. And, to the desolate sermons carried by the dry American wind, Brûlebois candidly opposes his breath incomparably perfumed with strong wine.
