Tarterin de Tarascon is one only the second book I’ve ever taken the time to reread — the other one being De Avonden by Reve. What made me go back to this absurd 19th century novel? I’m not entirely sure what it was to be honest. I remember that I half-remembered reading this book but completely forgetting the title. With the help of modern technology and a healthy dose of perseverance, I managed to find the title of this funny book. I just remembered reading it as a child and absolutely loving it. So once I found the title of this book, I decided I’d absolutely have to reread it.
The book tells the story of Tartarin who lives in Tarascon (who would’ve guessed, I know). He’s a bit of a boastful buddy, who exaggerates all the stories he tells. According to the narrator, this is because of the strong sun in the South of France, who makes everyone a bit loopy and self-deceived.
Tartarin is a hunter, just like most other men in the town. There is however, hardly any game around - let alone big game. The villagers therefore partake in games of cap shooting. Nevertheless, they are all full of stories of animals they’ve shot and they are experts in gun knowledge. The most prominent cap shooter among them is of course Tartarin.
Everything is going very well for Tartarin, in his mind he’s a celebrated village nobility, his stories are never challenged. Everything changes when the circus comes to town and Tartarin stands eye to eye with a (caged) lion. All villagers are scared of the animal, but Tartarin bravely stares the lion down and the villages hear him mutter, as he stared Leo out of countenance: "Now, this is something like a hunt!””
The villagers take it that Tartarin is planning to go on a lion’s hunt. Over the course of the next days/weeks, the story grows and grows, and in the end everyone is convinced that Tartarin is going to set off to Algeria for his hunt.
Tartarin does nothing to tame the story, he quite fancies himself a lion hunter. Slowly but surely he starts to believe in it himself as well. He however, never really has the intention of going to Algeria.
After some pressure from the village he is forced to go, and he actually goes. What Tartarin doesn’t know yet is that there are no wild lion’s in Algeria. What follows is a story of this overconfident, unworldly Frenchmen who is completely out of his wits abroad, yet he thinks he’s the master of every situation. The juxtaposition of these two makes for a lot of tragic-comedic situations.
He is being taking advantage of and he gets into all sorts of trouble. At the end of the story is his broke and he has lost all of his luggage, but he did manage to shoot a lion (someone’s handicapped pet lion, but still).
He barely makes it home and has completely lost his gusto. What he doesn’t know yet is that his stories (and his camel) have made their way back to Tarascon ahead of his arrival. On their way back, the stories have of course been impacted by the Southern sun and have grown and grown and by the time Tartarin is a massive hero.
All throughout the story you get the impression that you should join the narrator and mock Tartarin, but I personally took this story as incredibly uplifting and inspiring. To me it’s about ‘fake it till you make it’, his bluff and overconfidence has lead Tartarin to go on a great adventure and now he has stories to tell for the next 10.000 years.
Not everything might be exactly factual, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true to Tartarin’s experience. I love that.
Or, like Van Helsing said in Bram Stoker’s Dracula:
‘We shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him; but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe.’
I love the playful writing style, it seem to very attuned to Tartarin’s adventures.
Accountability partner Tartarin eventually only departs to Algeria when his accountability partner tells him:
- One evening the luckless Tartarin was in his study, in a brown study himself, when he saw the commandant stride in, stern, wearing black gloves, buttoned up to his ears. "Tartarin," said the ex-captain authoritatively, "Tartarin, you'll have to go!"
Southerner deception
- The Southerner does not deceive but is self-deceived. He does not always tell the cold-drawn truth, but he believes he does. His falsehood is not any such thing, but a kind of mental mirage.
- The little hills of Provence are no bigger than the Butte Montmartre, but they will loom up like the Rocky Mountains; the Square House at Nimes—a mere model to put on your sideboard—will seem grander than St. Peter's. You will see—in brief, the only exaggerator in the South is Old Sol, for he does enlarge everything he touches. What was Sparta in its days of splendour? a pitiful hamlet. What was Athens? at the most, a second-class town; and yet in history both appear to us as enormous cities. This is a sample of what the sun can do.
Many links to Don Quixote
- He would have spoken truly in saying this about Tartarin, who carried in his frame the soul of Don Quixote, the same chivalric impulses, heroic ideal, and crankiness for the grandiose and romantic; but, worse is the luck!
- On the contrary, Tartarin's body was a stout honest bully of a body, very fat, very weighty, most sensual and fond of coddling, highly touchy, full of low-class appetite and homely requirements—the short, paunchy body on stumps of the immortal Sancho Panza.
- O MIGUEL CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, if what is asserted be true, to wit, that wherever great men have dwelt some emanation of their spirits wanderingly hovers until the end of ages, then what remained of your essence on the Barbary coast must have quivered with glee on beholding Tartarin of Tarascon disembark, that marvellous type of the French Southerner, in whom was embodied both heroes of your work, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.