Cocu, pendu et content
One of 10 copies for the author on blue vellum, numbered and signed.
A long note in the form of a signed presentation inscription:
“Un écrivain engagé me semble porter casquette avec une étiquette au-dessus de la visière et rien ne m'est plus odieux que les uniformes. Appartenir à un parti ou être de parti pris, c'est à peu près la même chose. Il y a là un phénomène d'aliénation mentale ou morale. On est déjà au bord du fanatisme, de tous les maux le pire. Marcel Jouhandeau.”
Jouhandeau, as is well known, drew on two “wellsprings” from which he fished his finest material: Elise, his wife, and Guéret, his native town.
The anecdotes gathered in this collection follow that same division, in two parts. The first, Galande, concerns the world surrounding his married life, and in particular the figure of Mme Apremont, his mother-in-law, who inspired him greatly. Chaminadour, the title of the second part, draws on daily life in Guéret and certain areas of the Creuse. Of this title, Jouhandeau wrote in his Carnets: “[…] when it came to naming my town, ‘the town’ of my dreams and almost of the world, it was her name (one of his schoolmates) that came to mind first: she was called Chaminadour. She was a small, plump redhead, almost always dressed in green. She acted wonderfully.”