Winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1915, Gaspard is one of the earliest literary accounts of the Great War.
On 31 October 1914, the members of the Académie Goncourt met for the first time at the Drouant restaurant, place Gaillon. With the outcome of the war still highly uncertain, the academicians decided not to award their prize that year, planning instead to award two the following year. In the event, the double award was only made in 1916, and in December 1915, “in order to allow young authors who had novels in press or under consideration at the outbreak of war to take part in the competition,” a single prize was awarded.
It was awarded — for the first time since the Goncourt’s creation in 1903 — unanimously, crowning René Benjamin’s Gaspard.
Mobilized at the outbreak of the conflict, at the age of twenty-nine, Benjamin here delivers a chronicle of barracks and front-line life through the character of Gaspard, a boastful, wisecracking, resourceful Parisian meant to embody the French poilu. Unlike other, darker publications, Gaspard stands out for its lively, satirical tone, exposing the absurdities of military hierarchy.
Among the dozens of books published from 1915 onward on the emerging conflict, Gaspard was above all the first and only true novel: it met with great success on publication and, bolstered by the Prix Goncourt, quickly reached its hundredth printing. According to Norton Cru, Gaspard was the favorite book “of a public kept ignorant of the military situation by the strict, uncompromising censorship of the early period. Had it appeared a year later, its success would have been doubtful; two years later, it would have gone unnoticed. On one point Gaspard is truer than Le Feu: the Parisian hero alone speaks slang, a legitimate slang, taken from life […]. This praise I give the author proves his talent for observing people’s speech.”
This episode opened a particular period for the Goncourt: in 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918, all five prizes were awarded to combatants and to their more or less fictionalized accounts of the front. This reflects both the appeal of war narratives and publishers’ determination — even when driven by commercial motives — to document these years of conflict through literature.
The crowning of Gaspard also established Arthème Fayard, whose role as a popular publisher suited the national mood. The book went through numerous printings, becoming a genuine wartime publishing phenomenon.
In 1938, René Benjamin became the first Prix Goncourt laureate to join the jury.
Jean Norton Cru, Témoins, 567; Talvart, I, 355.